Google reader has disappeared! So if you want to follow me come join me on Blog Lovin' (looks to be the nail bloggers method of choice).

Thursday 29 August 2013

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

Friday 23 August 2013

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


Tuesday 20 August 2013

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


Tuesday 13 August 2013

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.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

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


Friday 2 August 2013

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