Day 5 - 33DC: Mexican

Hola lovelies,

It's the fifth day of the challenge and today's prompt is Mexican.  In a fit of unoriginality, I've gone with sugar skulls.  I had a fun if long time doing these and I've used a whole bunch of nail polishes:

Base: BM's Matte White and Black art pen
Colours: BM's Cyan Blue, Bright Purple, Pomegranate, Model's Own Pukka Purple, CG'sTurned Up Turquoise and Sinful Colours Let's Meet.

And here it is:

These babies are not easy to do but I think I just about managed to pull it off.

N

Day 4 of 33DC - Tribal

Hello peardrops

I'm a smidgen late with this one but I'm sure you'll forgive me as I was off having a glorious break with my family. So...

I think I may have gone awry with this one.  Most of the challenge responses I have seen have been geometric tribal patterns over a vast array of colours - I went with something that screamed tribal at me: Dreamcatchers.

Dreamcatchers originated with the Ojibwe people a First Nation Native American people from the area of north Mexico they because a worldwide trinket in the 60s and 70s and are now hung up in dorm rooms the world over!  They are supposed to be made from a willow hoop strung to look like a spider's web and then decorated with sacred beads and feathers. The ones on my nails are not sacred, I just think they're pretty to look at.

For this mani I used a base of BM's Turquoise, BM's black art pen and BM's Blood orange and gold foil for the dots and I also used a few small studs from Born Pretty. On my ring and pinkie fingers the glitter topper is Copper Fields by Emily de Molly.  And here it is!

Check out the other responses below.

See you tomorrow!

N

Day 3: 33DC - Tape manicure

Hello cupcakes!

It's a smidgen past day 3 of 33DC so it's way past time for a tape manicure.

For this I used Sally Hansen's Fairy Teal (so gorgeous) and OPI's DS Radiance with some scotch tape.  I didn't got for a tremendous amount of complexity and I still managed to balls it up but let's just pretend that I intended the little notch and the bottom and move on.  So with no more ado and without further delay here it is:

 I feel like this one looked better in person than it does on the photos here but it's still not my best work.  Anyway, onwards and upwards.

Next up - tribal.

N

Day 2 of the 33DC - Most used colour

Hello gumdrops

Well it's a Wednesday so it's challenge day.

Today's challenge courtesy of the 33DC that The Crumpet is running is artwork featuring your most used polish.

My most used polish is Utopia from Model's Own - it's a fantastic base for most artwork and doubles as a lovely colour in it's own right for work or anything lowkey.  I was just going to have her on my nails with an accent of glitter (Barry M's Rose Quartz) but I'm now pathologically incapable of just having a plain colour so I chucked some dots on there using BM's Matte White. So now I've got a quirky subtle take on a frenchie.

And here we go:

I'll love and leave you until Friday.

See below for some more pretty pretty art.

N

Day 1 of 33DC - Dotticure

Hello cupcakes!

Oh my, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've decided to try to take part in the 33DC from The Crumpet. There will be three manis a week posted on Monday, Tuesday and Friday from now until 6th December (eek!) So day one is a simple dot manicure.

I used Rimmel's Cranberry Zest and OPI's French Quarter for your Thoughts finished of with the usual Seche Vite. To produce a Dotty skittle mani.

I really, really liked how the flowers turned out. I don't think I've done a flower with dotting tools like this before and the others were just me playing around with the tools that I had to hand.

Have a look see below at how the talented Crumpet's tarts got on with day 1

N

TPC days 3 and 4: Tequila sunrise (and some truly dodgy stripes)

Hello Butterflies!

What a mare! I haven't been able to get onto blogger for two days which meant that I missed the deadline to post my TPC day 3 mani (I still cheekily uploaded it to The Crumpet's FB group).

So you get two for the price of one. This post may be a bit picture heavy because two manis. You know the rules by now - 4 manis, 3 colours, at least 2 colours per mani.

Here's TPC day 3 (which I hate, by the way, but I ran out of time)

So this is just a base of W7's Mojito, stripes of Sinful Colours Unicorn, Barry M's white nail art pen and Model's Own silver nail art pen. It's all freehand (as you can tell). And it's all hideous - which again it down to my choice of polishes, specifically the green.  I'd chosen the green because it worked for two of my four.

Enough of that - let's get onto my TPC day 4 mani that I actually really like.

This one is using CG's Infra-red and Sinful Colours Unicorn. The stamp is from the MoYou Pro09 plate using Konad black (which I <3).

That's me done for today. See you soon!

N

TPC Day 2 - Red, Gold and Green (Karma Chameleon)

Hi cuties,

It's day two of TPC for August (and I'm just a smidgen late - I figure it's still Thursday, somewhere, right?).

You know the drill. Four manis, three colours, last two Tues and Thurs in the month. I've done another technique that I've never tried before - making my own decals. It turned out way better than I thought and the only tricky part is the application of those suckers. I used a lot of top coat and some judicious application of acetone to get those babies to sit OK.

My image is taken from the Tropical Holiday plate of the Cheeky Jumbo plates stamped with Konad Black polish and coloured in with my three colours. And this is what I got.

I've used Barry M's Matte White for my thumb, middle and ring finger with a green rhinestone as detail.

And here's a close-up of the decal that I'm so incredibly proud of!

See you next Tuesday!

N

TCP Day 1 - It's Written in the Stars (in red, yellow and green)

Hello Sweetpeas

Another month and another bash at the TCP challenge run by The Crumpet.  For those that don't know the rules are, four manicures, three colour polishes in the last two Tuesdays and Thursdays of the month. At least one mani has to have all three colours and all of the manis have to have two.  The Crumpet isn't completely horrible and she also allows the use of black, white, gold, silver and glitter. This month's colours are red, yellow and green.

The polishes I've used are CG's Infra-Red holo polish, W7's Mojito and Sinful Colours Unicorn. I also used the nail art pen from Barry M (OMG <3 them!) My base coats were Duri Rejuvacote and then a a coat of Sally Hansen Acrylic Nail Gel to smooth the lumps and bumps whilst my fakies grow out and top coat Seche Vite.

I've loved the galaxy nails that I've seen about recently and decided to have a bash at them myself with the colour palette available. I quite liked the way they turned out but probably could have used something in the blue area to balance them out.  And I added a couple of stars in with the nail art pen, but again they could have done with being blueish.

See you on Thursday!

N

First Swatch - And it's an indie

Hello Sweetpeas!

I don't normally do swatches for a variety of reasons but I received this glorious nail mail from The Nail Arcade* yesterday and the first thing I did was remove my mani and put this lovely girl on my fingertips and she's so beautiful she needs to be showcased.

The polish in question is Serum No 5's Beach Cruisin'. A Glitter topper with large green, medium blue and small gold glitters in a sheer shimmery pinky/beige base. She really does remind me of the sea. Because the polish is sheer I layered her over one coat of the multi-purpose Barry M's Lychee and it was a perfect match. This polish does guzzle top coat and there's two coats of Seche Vite but it could probably have used a third.

 

 

And an extreme close up of one nail.

I love this polish. There's so much glitter, I've used two coats here and I dabbed once to get all that lovely gitter on my nail. She's a breeze to apply and I can't stop staring at my nails.

So my love affair with glitter indies continues apace (and I blame all of the talented bloggers out there for opening my eyes to this world).

There we have it, my first swatch.  What do you guys prefer seeing? Swatches or nail art?

Check out the other British bloggers below.

N

*Nail polish paid for by me.

An InLinkz Link-up

My Enchantmint skittle

Hello Cupcakes,

Whilst my nails were in a horrendous state I still bought nail polishes and one of those was the most gorgeous mint green holo from Lilypadlaquer called My Enchantmint from Sally Magpies (run don't walk she has all manner of indie goodies). Now that I have lush long (fake) nails I busted this out last night to do a skittle that I'd had in mind for a while now.

In addition to my new love I also used Emily de Molly's Copper fields, Rimmel's Sky High and Kiko 381. Top and tailed by Rejuvicote base coat and Seche Vite quick dry top coat.

Lookie what came out:

I used dotting tools, striping tape and scotch tape cut with craft scissors for the thumb, index and pinkie finger.  The middle finger is free handed using a tutorial by the inestimable Crumpet which can be found here. Mine aren't as good as hers (obviously) but I hopefully will get better with practice.

And I just wanted to draw your attention to my ring finger:

This was simply My Enchantmint topped with a coat of Copper Fields from Emily de Molly. Which is my absolute favourite glitter topper of all time - it's the one that got me into glitters in a big way.  Just look at those gorgeous ladies together.  This photo whilst pretty does not do them justice at all - you should see them in the sunlight or even in person.

I also made a decal last night so that might feature in my next post.

See you soon!

N

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm back with stamping and gradients!

Hello Chickpeas!

Oh my, looking back and it's been since 13th June that I last got all creative! Basically my nails are just shot. A combination or extensive typing and lots of washing up of baby things has just done a number so about two weeks ago (before my holiday) I just thought "sod it" and got some falsies.

I got home from our holidays on Wednesday to glorious nail mail - some of which contained five of the new Cheeky Plates (Viva Mexico, Holiday, Princess, European Romance and Tropica Holiday) and inspiration struck for a sea themed mani.

I used three Barry M shades of blue (NP317, NP291 and Gelly Guava) for the gradient, BM's silver foil for the stamping.  Generic base coat and liberal applications of Seche Vite througout and to finish off. This is what I got:

Forgive the lobster fingers in the last two trying to adjust to get accurate colour.

I love this mani and feel like I'm just about to set off on my holidays and not like I've just come back from them.

Check out what the other talented British Bloggers have been doing.

N

An InLinkz Link-up

Oh dear!

Hello my chickpeas!

It's been about 3.5 weeks since I last posted and it'll be a while yet simply because my nails are completely and utterly wrecked and I just wanted you to know that I haven't disappeared into the sunset.

My nails are in the worst state they have ever been in and I've had to cut them right back and just leave them bare except for duri rejuvacote. I think using acetone every other day is not helping them at all. I am moisturising madly and monitoring them but until they start growing out without the peeling I can't let them get any free edge at all.

I will be back if only to showcase the pretties that I've been buying like some CG's holos and I also received my first two indies from Emily de Molly via the wonderful Sally Magpies.

In the meantime have a peek below at what the talented british bloggers have been doing.

See you soon!

N

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Space Invaders!

Hi lovelies,

This is another one from the archive as I desperately try to get my new camera to take true colour pictures and not the hot mess it's currently displaying my manicure as. A girl could cry.

Now for the manicure below I used a plate that I specifically bought the cheeky set for: CH46.

Base coat: Sally Hansen miracle grow
Base colour: 2 coats of China Glaze's Liquid Leather
Stamping colours (thumb to pinkie): Kiko 625, 620, 623, Barry M Silver Foil, Kiko 618
Top coat: Fast dry top coat by CG

I really liked this manicure and couldn't stop staring at it for the 36 hours I managed to keep it unchipped.  Yeppers, I'm still searching for that elusive non-chipping formula.

Check out what the other glorious British Nail Bloggers have been getting up to in my absence.

See you soon!

 

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AIS and TCP challenges: very very late!

Hello peardrops!

As I mentioned in my last post my old camera went the way of the dodo with about five manicures on it. At the weekend I got my new camera and managed to salvage some of my photos. One set is for the tri-colour polish challenge for May and one set is for the Adventure In Stamping challenge for 19th May. So I thought I'd combine them in one post so there's double challenge goodness.

First up is the AIS challenge. It was to stamp over a skittles base. My reading of that was to use two different colours in five different designs and then stamp over them with one stamp design. (I know that differed from many other interpretations where each fingernail was a different colour.) I used OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me and Barry M's Bright Purple as my base colours.  I used Barry M's silver foil for stamping with plate CH50. And then the Model's Own silver art pen for additional details.

And I ended up with the below. The thumb is just freehand argyle print.  The forefinger is a scalloped edge half nail design. I used my trusty dotting tools on my middle finger. Striping tape for my ring finger and finally I freehanded the chevron design on my pinkie finger.

I quite liked this design.  I hadn't really thought I would use that colour green but it worked wonders with the deep pink. Of course, as with every other manicure I have it chipped in a day (sadface) but i did enjoy it whilst it lasted.

Up next was my entry for TCP day 2 but I'm so late for that I should probably wait until those colours roll 'round again! But I wanted to show you this one in contrast to my first one. As per the challenge rules I used the same blue (Barry M's Blueberry) and red (Raspberry) as I did for the first one but this time I used them in a gradient with a gold polish OPI's Oy, Another Polish Joke. And look how different they are! (ignore the pink fingers haven't yet figured out the white balance and I took these on the fly)

I only have one more photo of that particular mani but it's a close up and I just fell in love with the shading.  I thought the blue one looked like an opulent lagoon as you could see the shimmer slowly fading away underneath it.

So those are my two challenges that I manage to do but couldn't get uploaded in time.  And now my nails are in such a state I've had to cut them right back and baby them.  Fingers crossed Duri Rejuvacote works!

What have you lovely ladies been up to?

N