Blogs in Bloom - Helen's Funky Fimo Nails

 Helen from Nail Newbie shows us her super bright nail art!

Tell us a little about yourself...
Hello! I'm Helen, also known as Helly or sometimes just H, a twenty-something (for a few more months – eek!) Mum of two yummy boys living in a small town in Bedfordshire, UK. Most of my time is taken up with changing nappies, wiping noses, and kissing scraped knees but when I get a few minutes to myself I like to paint my nails! I can be glamorous for the school run!

What can we expect to see from your blog?
My blog started as a bit of personal space for me to document my growing love for polish and nail art, and to share it with other like-minded laquerheads. Expect pretty colours, self-deprecation and sparkly stuff – all with fun and laughter (mainly at myself) thrown in!

Top 3 blogs/ sites?
This is so hard, there are sooo many great nail bloggers out there! I'll start with Jane over at Nailside (http://nailside.blogspot.com/ ) - the things this girl can do with sticky tape! And a couple of my UK based lovelies who deserve a shout out are Sammy at The Nailasaurus (http://nailasaurus.blogspot.com ) and Emily from Emily's Nail Files (http://emilysnailfiles.blogspot.com ), both have super gorgeous nails and do lovely things with stamping plates and freehand nail art. There are so many more I could chose, but I picked three blogs that I aspire to be like – you can see I've got quite a journey ahead of me!

Hello!

Since Lily graciously let me – a humble nail blogger – take part in her Blogs in Bloom series all I could think about was what to write about. Seriously, my boys have been eating nothing but biscuits and bananas*, my other half is looking a bit thin and I haven't swept the floor for so long it's beginning to look like a farm yard in here. Should I do a post on nail care? Bit boring, and I'm hardly one to talk – it's hang nail city! A lovely swatch of an interesting colour? I do love me an interesting colour, but I'm a lover of a British brand and didn't want to alienate any international readers. How about some nail art? Oooh, nail art! Now we're talking...

Nail art, the Marmite of the beauty bloggers world, you either love it or you hate it. There's no sitting on the fence with this one, it's either “ew tacky” or “oh wow!” Should a 29 year old woman be adorning her nails with flowers and rhinestones? Are glitter polishes and flouro French tips too much for everyday manicures? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It doesn't matter! I like nail art! I don't profess to be very good at it, but I try!

The most frequent question I get about my nails (after 'did you do that yourself?') is where do I get my inspiration. Firstly, I follow a lot of blogs. Seriously, a lot of blogs. I love seeing what other bloggers do and then adapting their designs to suit my nails and the colours and tools I have. Some even post tutorials on how to create the look they've achieved. Another great place to look is YouTube (which is where I got my inspiration for this design). Search 'Nail Art Tutorials' and hundreds upon hundreds of videos will come up – from simple to the more elaborate there's something everyone can have a go at, and you're guaranteed to never run out of ideas!

For a simple and achievable look I decided to use fimo canes for this manicure. You can get fimo designs for nail art either pre-sliced or in little “rods” that you cut yourself and you can pick them up really cheaply on ebay and amazon. There are literally hundreds of different ones – flowers, butterflies, bows, faces, fruit, stars and hearts – the list goes on! I chose a multicoloured flower with a black outline. Firstly I used my base coat, then once that was completely dry I painted white French tips on my little finger, middle finger and thumb and did 3 coats of white all over my index and ring fingers. Once that was dry I painted rainbow coloured paint 'dribbles' on the two accent fingers using a tiny artists brush I picked up cheaply. It doesn't have to be neat, mine certainly isn't! Slap a coat of a sparse iridescent glitter over the top and get ready with the fimo!

 If you're using canes you should slice them before you start, or if you're anything like me (i.e. klutz) you'll end up denting your polish or spoiling it in some way. It takes a bit of getting used to so practice slicing thinly on a rod you're not so keen on first! You want them as thin as possible or they'll catch on everything and be very annoying (they are so temping to pick off too!) Once you've got 10 thin slices you're ready. Paint one nail at a time with a quick drying top-coat and pick up one flower with tweezers. Place it into the wet topcoat (you can be random or place them all in the same spot – I like it random ;) )and hold it flat with the tweezers until it's set. Doesn't have to be completely dry but if it's not set at least a little bit the fimo will curl up at the edges (facilitates easy picking it off, but doesn't look pretty). Another thick coat of top coat over the whole nail, lather, rinse repeat on the rest of the nails and you're done!

So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Is nail art on 29 year old mothers who really should know better a controversial subject for you? I love my nail art, and I'm unashamed to say I wont be stopping them any time soon! In the words of Rizzo from Greece, there are worse things I could do! I hope it made you smile at least a little bit, one thing you can't deny, it's fun!

SO, thank you for reading my ramblings! I've realised this is a veeery long post, so congratulations if you made it this far! I hope to see some of you taking a peek at my blog soon, I don't always go on this much, I promise! Thank you, Lily, for letting me take part.

Hx

*No children were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Fancy more from Helen? Check out Nail Newbie!