Bluesky Gel Polish Swatches | Reds and Pinks

I have decided to swatch my Bluesky Gel Polish colours because I know how hard it is picking colours online.

All swatches are with out basecoat, three coats of colour and a top coat.

Here are the reds and pinks that I currently have. I will be swatching more colours soon.

Bluesky Gel Polish 80562

This is a lovely pale dusty pink colour, with a very subtle shimmer that is only noticeable in bright light. Great pale pink for darker skin tones. Does take a few extra coats than other colours.

Bluesky Gel Polish 40511

This pink is a couple of shades darker than the first one, but it has the same rose tone to it. This colour has no shimmer and is quite opaque.

Bluesky Gel Polish 80506

This colour is a hot pink with a blue shimmer. It is a gorgeous colour, definitely a must have.

Bluesky Gel Polish 40507

This pink is very similar to the above 06 pink but this one has a pink shimmer instead of the blue.

Bluesky Gel Polish A45

This is a true red with no shimmer.

Bluesky Gel Polish 80545

This polish has a sheer purple base with red glitter. Perfect colour for Christmas. Can be hard to get an even coverage of glitter, I definitely recommend three coats with this one.

Here they are all together.

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If you would like to see these polishes being swatched, check out my video below.

Nail Art Basics | Chevron/Zig Zag Design | Gel Nail Polish

Hand Painted Chevron/Zig Zag Design

If you want to know how I hand paint chevrons, check out my newest video.

If you have any requests for nail art videos please leave them in a comment.

Nail Art Experiment | Sketched Flowers | Gel Polish Nail Art

Because I don't want to redo my nails every week I thought I would do some nail art experimentation posts/videos for the weeks that I have not done my nails. For this design I took inspiration from a picture on pinterest.

With these Nail Art Experimentation posts the nail art may not always turn out as my best work but they are a good way to try new techniques and combinations.

Sketched Flowers | Hand Painted Gel Polish Nail Art

I can't say these flowers are my favourite but I think they ended up not too dissimilar from the inspiration pic. It is definitely harder to create nail art from inspiration rather than just straight copying another nail photo.

If you want to watch how I did this nail art, please watch the video below.

I hope you found my experimentation interesting.

Spring Flowers with Holo Glitter | Gel Polish Manicure

I decided to record myself doing my nails. This wasn't mean as a tutorial more of a nail GRWM but you may learn something from this video. Sadly the video quality is not as good as I had hoped because the colour keeps changing but I think you can still see what I am doing. I hope my next attempt at a nail video goes better. I am hoping to record my own nails every time that I do them and also throw in a few quick nail art experiment videos in between.

Anyway here are the nails I did, I have kept it really simple because I couldn't decide what to do. I wanted to use my new colours and also my new holographic glitter.

Spring Flowers with Holo Glitter Nail Art.

This manicure could easily be recreated in regular polish although I would probably skip out on the loose glitter and use a glitter polish instead.

If you want to watch how I did these nails, here s the video.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to add them as a comment.

3 Ways to use Glitter with Gel Nail Polish

3 types of Gl Polish Glitter Nails

All of these techniques can be varied by using different polish colours and glitter colours. You can choose to use the same colour polish and glitter or use a different coloured polish and glitter. This looks especially good with method 1 using your manicure colour as the base polish and adding a gold or silver on top. Also with method 2 a black base and silver glitter look nice together. I think I also need to add that the photos do these nails no justice, it is so difficult to get a good shot of glitter.

Sheer Gel Polish Glitter Nail

1. Sheer Glitter Nail
For this method start by applying your basecoat and two coats of colour polish curing between layers, if your colour is not opaque apply more layers. On a palette place a drop of top or base coat and add loose glitter of your desired colour and mix together. Then apply this mixture to the nail, I like to use a dabbing method as it gives more even coverage. Then cure the glitter layer. You can stop here and apply top coat or you can add another layer of the glitter mixture if you want more glitter. Once you have applied your final top coat check to make sure there are no rough areas, if there are then buff the nail and apply another layer of top coat.

Medium Coverage Gel Polish Glitter Nail

2. Medium Coverage Glitter Nail
For this method you want to start the same way as the first method, apply your basecoat and 2 colour coats curing between layers. Get your glitter on a fluffy brush and press the glitter into the sticky inhibition layer. Then cure in your lamp. Now gently dust off ant loose glitter and apply a top coat. Remove the sticky layer and buff the nail before applying a final top coat.

Full Coverage Gel Polish Glitter Nail

3. Full Coverage Glitter Nail
For this method apply your base coat and one coat of colour polish and cure between layers. Next add a second coat of colour but before curing pour on your glitter until it covers the whole nail, shake off any excess and cure in you lamp. Now brush off any loose glitter, apply a top coat and cure. Next remove the sticky layer and buff the nail before applying a final top coat.








Gel Polish Glitter Nails are so easy to do and add such a great accent to any manicure. The colour combinations are endless. I hope these steps made sense, if anyone would like me to elaborate or make a video tutorial please let me know.

Nail Art Practise

I had a bit of spare time and decided to try a new nail art design. I recreated a design by All Nails Everything. I  used  Gel Nail Polish colours but you could absolutely use regular nail polish for this design. Here is how I recreated the design.

Step by Step Nail Design

Step 1: After applying your basecoat apply a couple of coats of white polish until opaque.

Step 2: Fill in the top corners near the cuticle with black polish as pictured. For this I used a small detailing brush.

Step 3: Paint in five lines roughly then thicken them to be more like elongated triangles as pictured. I used the same detailing brush for this step. These do not have to be perfect, we can fix any mistakes in the next step. My black lines are thicker than the original design, if you want finer lines you can do so. This step could also be done by taping off the areas you want left white but I do not like this method because it can be quite fiddly and does not always give crisp lines.

Step 4: Now go in with your detailing brush and white polish to perfect the lines and make sure the black triangles come to a point at the top of the nail.

Step 5: Time for a second coat on all the black areas. If you make any mistakes or you are not happy with your lines keep switching between the black and white polishes perfecting your lines, making sure to cure the colours between each layer. If I had been doing this design on a real nail I would have continued perfecting my lines because as you can see they are not perfect.

Step 6: Apply a colour of your choice, I chose this coral/ peach shade, in a V shaped french covering the ends of your black triangles. Repeat this step until the colour is opaque.

Step 7: Attach a nail stud to the top of the nail in the white area, I used a gold square stud because I have no triangle studs like the original design. I used clear top coat to attach the stud.

Step 8: Remove the tacky layer and add striping tape in a V shape where the coral/peach shade overlaps the rest of the nail.

Step 9:Apply top coat over the striping tape to help it stay on longer.

Step 10: Top coat the entire nail and you are done.

I hope to try out some of the other designs in the original manicure soon.

Christmas Mosaic Nails

 I found it really hard to decide what I wanted on my nails this Christmas. I wasn't feeling the literal approach (Santa hats, reindeer, snowmen etc.) I had just done a lovely set of white and gold Christmas nails on my friend and they were gorgeous but I didn't want to copy.

I had also just taken part in the Neiru fine lines workshop and was wanting to try out some new techniques. I decided to try out mosaic nails but make them Christmas themed by using red, green and gold.

Mosaic Nails are relatively easy to do and can be adjusted to suit your abilities. If you find it difficult just make your lines thicker, if you find it easy aim for the thinnest lines possible. I did do this design with gel nail polish but I am sure it could also be done with regular polish or acrylic paint.

Christmas Mosaic Nails

I will give a brief rundown of how to do mosaic nails but if you want a more in depth look at how i did my Christmas nails check out the video below.

I started with base coat then applied a nude pink colour as my base so I would have to do less coats when filling in my shapes. Next I took a fine liner brush and painted lines on my nail, some straight, some curved. Intersecting at different points. It's up to you the shapes you want to create and also how many shapes you want on you nail. Make sure not to make the shapes too small otherwise it is harder to colour them in.

After the white outline is set its really just colouring in. Like I said I chose red, green and gold for Christmas but you can use whatever you like. I counted the shapes and tried to divide the colours evenly but I also didn't want any touching shapes to be the same colour. When filling in the shapes you can correct any of the white lines that are too thick.

After the shapes have been coloured in, you may need more than one coat, I traced over the white lines perfecting them as much as possible. Then topcoat and the design is complete.

Manicure Monday - Anchor Gel Nail Polish Manicure

Anchor Nails - Gel Polish Manicure

Today's nails were inspired by a picture that my client brought in with her, but I can't remember where the photo was from. If you know where this design originated, let me know so I can give credit to the right person.

For this manicure I mixed up a pale blue gel polish colour by mixing a royal blue with a white.

For the ring finger I painted a few coats of white gel polish until the colour was opaque, then I free hand painted the horizontal stripes one at a time curing after each stripe. I chose to cure the stripes individually so that I could get cleaner lines. Although this method is much more time consuming I find that I get better results than when I do all of the stripes at once. The stripe got thinner as they got closer to the cuticle.

For the anchor I free hand painted the stick with cross and the curved bottom and then cured before adding the triangles and a small dot for the top. Finally I added another smaller dot in white to make the whole where the anchor would attach to a chain. The design was then finished with a top coat.

For the thumb we did an opaque silver glitter nail.

I hope you like this manicure, if anyone would like me to recreate this manicure in a step by step video just let me know.

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Braided Nail Art Gel Polish Manicure

Braided Gel Nail Polish Design

Another post starting the same way as always, sorry for not posting in a very long time. I really have no excuse so I'm not going to try make one.

Here is a set of nails I did on myself. I find it hard to describe how to do designs just using photos, so I though I would record myself doing the design. It was my first time doing a braided design and also my first time filming this way. The video isn't the best and I can definitely improve on a few things, like getting closer to the fingers. But hopefully the video gives you an idea of how to do a braided nail design with gel nail polish.

Happy watching. :)

Manicure Monday - Green and Silver Zig Zag Design

Green and Silver Glitter Zig Zag Nails

When I did this manicure my camera battery died and I had to take the picture with my phone, so please excuse the quality.

This is a gel polish design.

This manicure is similar to designs I have done in the past but this is a new colour. My client brought in a picture from the Orly Nail Girls and chose this awesome green colour.

To do the zig zag design first paint the nail with your desired base colour, we chose white, and then dot out the design in your second colour before joining the dots together to make your zig zag.

On the middle finger we did a full silver glitter nail.

The rest of the fingers and thumb were just painted green.

Yay for me getting this post up on time.

Nail Art

So I had two nail designs to upload for Manicure Monday for the two previous Mondays but I kind of forgot to post them up. So here they are now.

Baby Blue Glitter and Diamond Nails

The first set is a baby blue custom blended gel polish colour. It is hard to tell in the photo but the ring finger is a glitter nail. On the middle finger is a diamond design. I did this design by first painting the nail blue, then roughly painting on the diamonds, then cleaning up the lines by going back with the same blue base colour and finally adding some dots in each diamond in a silver gel polish colour.

Black and White Heart Nails

The next set is a black and white design, all nails painted black except the ring finger which is painted white. Then using a small paint brush I painted a black heart on the white ring finger and a white heart on the thumb. I also went back with the base nail colour to clean up the edges of the hearts.





Wish me luck with getting next weeks Manicure Monday Post up on time.

Manicure Monday - Pink and Silver Nails

Acrylic nails with gel polish

Today we have a set of sculpted clear acrylic nails with a custom blended gel nail polish on top. To make the pink colour I mixed a hot pink with a french pink to lighten the colour without turning the colour into a pastel which happens when you use a white polish to lighten colour.


On the ring finger is a silver glitter finger applied in the normal way. I plan to do a step by step post on this, the next time I do my own nails.

Also on the thumb I stamped some flowers using the Konad m57 plate before applying topcoat.

You may notice the Manicure Monday in the title again, I am planning to post a nail design every Monday if I can keep up with it. I have 3 weeks planned already so hopefully that is enough of a head start to keep up with it. I'm not promising post on any other days but there will most likely be a few other odd posts here and there.

Baby Shower Nails

A good friend of mine had her baby shower in the weekend and I offered to do her nails for the special event. We decided to create a baby blue colour in honour of her baby boy. We wanted to keep the manicure fairly simple so went with a blue and white colour scheme and kept the nail art to a minimum. This is a gel nail polish manicure.

Baby Shower Nails

On her right hand, all fingers were painted blue and the thumb white. I wrote her due date over the the first three fingers with white gel polish and a detail brush. On the thumb I did some dots using a dotting tool and the same custom blue gel polish that was used on the other nails.

On the left hand, all nails were painted blue except the ring finger which we painted white. On the ring finger I did a baby foot print using dotting tools of various sizes and the custom blue colour used on the other nails. On the thumb we mirrored the right hand and did white dots on a blue background.

I love this manicure, I think it is so cute and a perfect manicure for your baby shower and also excellent for a maternity photo shoot.

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Day 22 - Zig Zag Nails

This is a set of gel nail polish nails I did quite a while ago based on a design that Shaaanxo had done. We swapped out the colours to better suit my clients taste.

This is a really easy design to do and can be done with regular polish also.

It seems I do a lot of nail designs inspired by the Orly Nail Girls and Shaanxo. These are just the designs that my clients bring in.

Day 20 - Lavender Daisy Nails

Today I did these lovely lavender and silver nails with white daisies. My client brought in a photo from the Orly Nail Girls but I can't find the specific photo to link to sorry.

This is a nice simple design that still looks amazing.

I mixed two colours together to make the perfect lavender purple.

The silver nail is a silver polish with silver glitter on top.

I made the flowers using a three different sized dotting tools. The original design also had small dots filling the empty space on the ring finger but my client decided she preferred them without.

This design would look lovely in many different colours and you can swap the glitter to gold. The flowers can be done with more petals or with a rhinestone centre. This is also a great design to do on yourself because it doesn't require too much control with your non dominant hand.

This is a gel nail polish design but this could easily be recreated with regular polish.

Day 18 - Orange and Blue Triangle Nails

Finally, I have a nail design to post about. Today I had a client that wanted a bold and bright  Gel nail polish design. She chose the orange colour and gave me free reign to come up with a design.

I decided to go with triangles and together we chose the contrasting blue colour.

I painted all the nails orange except the ring finger, which I painted blue. I put blue glitter on the ring finger also.




Then onto the triangles, I did a few triangles at a time before setting in the light, then I would add more triangles and add more polish to any triangles that weren't opaque.

Then Top Coat and we are finished.

I know that this colour combination won't be for everybody, but you can swap it out for your favourite colours or use complimentary colours in stead of the contrasting blue and orange that I have used.

This triangle design is quite similar to this design.

Day 14 - Pink, Purple and Black Nails

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Today's post is going to be a really quick one because I have been working all day and I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and think of a good idea for a post.

Here are a set of nails I did the other day. My client brought in a picture of this design in different colours and asked me to recreate it. I do not know who did the original design so I can't link to it.

She chose pink, purple and black and also asked me to add the purple hearts and pink stars to the design. We reversed the colours on the thumbs.

This design is done with gel nail polish.

Day 9 - Triangle Nails

Another set of 21st birthday nails, this time my client brought in four photos of Orly Nail Girls work and we decided to try and recreate this look.

I started by mixing together two gel colours to create the base colour and then painted on the triangle in three different colours. Adding glitter on top of a bronze gel polish to give a little sparkle.

I know it is not identical to the original, we only did one finger and used different colours but I really like the way this design turned out.

It is a fairly simple design but straight lines and shapes are always time consuming.

What do you think of this design?

Day 7 - Mix and Match Nails

For this set of nails I used a combination of gel polish and regular nail polish. I got the colour combination and some of the designs from a pair of shorts I saw on Pinterest.

Some of the designs are hand painted, some are stencils and there are also some stamped designs. I made the stencils by drawing the design on adhesive address labels and then cutting them out. You could also do this with tape.

The neon orange polish is a regular Orly polish named Holla.




If you would like an in depth post about using gel polish and regular polish together please comment so below. Also let me know if anyone wants a step by step post on any of the designs pictured.

Day Two - Technically I already failed

My first post was actually posted at 12:04 am on February the 2nd, so my plan for a post every day has already gone out the window. Lets just pretend that didn't happen, it was still the 1st in parts of the world......

Anyway onto today's post.

I am already struggling to think of ideas for posts, I dread to think what I'll be writing at the end of the month. Today I'm going to stick with something I know, a nail post.

These are a set of nails I did on myself using gel nail polish and fine craft glitter. I'm not going to go into too much detail on how to do these, but if you have any questions just ask. :)

I started by doing a basic french manicure with gel nail polish on all fingers except for the ring finger (i'll explain that one in a minute) and adding the gel topcoat, then I lightly buffed the shine from the topcoat so my glitter wouldn't slip around to much. I then drew a line in a gel nail polish colour similar to the glitter colour I wanted to use. Before setting the green line I sprinkled fine glitter over the wet polish and then cleaned up the lines with a brush. If you have a lot of excess glitter where you don't want it, gently blow on your nails. Once I was happy with the lines I set the nails in my UV light. Once set I brushed off any loose glitter with a nail brush, the kind you use to clean under your fingernails. Then I sealed the whole design with a gel topcoat. If the glitter was still a little ruff I again buffed the topcoat and glitter area until it felt more smooth and applied another layer of topcoat.

Now for the ring finger, I applied my base coat, set in lamp, then one coat of colour, set in lamp, then another coat of colour, before setting I sprinkled the green glitter over top until the whole nail was covered in glitter. I then set the nail in the UV lamp. Next I brush off any excess glitter and applied gel topcoat. I buff the surface smooth paying extra attention to the free edge. Then I painted on the lace design with white gel polish. If you would like a step by step let me know. If you're not confident with hand painting you can also do this with Konad stamping if you have the right plate. 

That's all for today, hopefully there will be more from me tomorrow.