Rio Beauty Nails

It's no secret that I have been absolutely terrible with my nails in the past.

I am doing better these days.

A tad better...

My nail poorness wasn't really avoidable to be honest - I had spent so many years (and I do mean years) continuously having acrylic nail extensions that I didn't even paint my nails myself and I certainly didn't take any real care of them.

I didn't even file them myself.

It goes without saying that once the acrylics were off, my nails were in a bad way - really thin, brittle and paper like.

Yak.

But it is getting better - I'm getting better with them.

And my nail polish collection is steadily growing as a result.

So when I saw that Rio Beauty were holding a nail art competition running especially for the attendees of the Leeds May Meet last weekend I really wanted to enter.

But seeing as I've only just started painting my nails, there's no way I've ever had any kind of nail art practice.

Hey - Ho

I entered anyway, taking inspiration from a new t-shirt (odd I know) that arrived that week and then - using a liquid eyeliner (so professional aren't I!) and a very unsteady hand - I came up with this

Well - it gave everyone a bit of a laugh if nothing else.

Rubbish artiness aside, I still somehow managed to walk away from the meet with this wonderful prize in my possession.

Y A Y

(I was obviously taken pitty on)

I'm going to need a LOT of practice to get the most of of this fab Professional Nail Artist Collection but I suppose I have to start somewhere and I thought that today would be as good a day as any to get cracking.

The collection contains everything possibly needed to create some very beautiful, very striking nails.

There's glitter, nail polish, dotters, sparkles, brushes, stamps - everything!

There's even an instruction booklet and a DVD to help aid every step.

I decided to try out a few different things today and see exactly how rubbish I was at each of them.

I started by prepping my nails exactly as the book instructed and then I applied the 2 in 1 base/top coat included in the set.

I decided I'd use my very bright, Hi-Shine, Barry M "Green Berry" polish (see here) as a base colour and once this was dry I was all set to go.

I was desperate to try the very pretty nail lace transfers and applied the adhesive supplied, waiting, as instructed, for it to dry slightly.

Popping on the lace transfers was really easy I could see just how lovely they were going to look on my nails...

But then - disaster struck

(OK - maybe not quite a disaster, but you know what I mean)

As I peeled the transfer away from my nail, off came all of the green base colour too.

I was just gobsmacked.

Obviously there needs to more practice happening to get this right...I think I'll try using a slightly thinner polish next time too and see if that helps.

Not to be put off, I decided to use the dotting tools next and created a few cute, pretty flowers - and very easily too.

The clever finger rest in the kit is a brilliant little contraption - it stops all those unsteady finger wobbles and helps to keep things really neat and tidy.

Which for me - is a huge help.

Next up, I decided to try bring a bit of bling into my nails using a few of the diamanté gems I spotted.

There were so many different styles and colours of gems included, I was really spoilt for choice.

But *bling-bling* sparkly silver won over today.

I was really quite intrigued by the stamping set in the kit too and I just had to give it a go as well.

I used another Barry M Hi-Shine colour that I had - "Dragon Fruit" - and put a little of it onto the printing plate, over the pattern I wanted, then I wiped away the excess with the printing wipe tool before capturing the teeny image onto the little red stamp.

Very carefully, I then pressed the stamp down onto my nail.