Summer Paisley Gradient

Greetings All!

Late night posting! I scheduled this, but it decided not to work!

It's been a hot, sunny Summers day here, so I've dragged some suitably Summery nails out of the vault! This is one of the (many) manicures I did while my computer was being fixed.

I started with a gradient of Barry M Grapefruit, Satsuma and Plum, sponged onto Sally Hansen Ivory Skull, because I couldn't decide if Grapefruit or Satsuma was the lighter colour! I topped it off with some China Glaze Golden Enchantment, which I LOVE. Sparkly gold holo glitter? Yes please!

I love the orange-going-into-purple bit! I've been going a bit crazy for the Barry Ms recently, and using them a lot! They stamp, they sponge, they only take 2 coats...pretty good really! I wore this for a day, then added some paisley stamping from BM315, using Barry M Gold Foil.

This was much more striking in my head - the gold seems to have faded into the background a bit. Apart from that, I was pretty happy with it! It's hot and Summery, very much like today. I should be lounging by a pool with nails like this!

Is it a hot one where you are?

Relaxed 31DC Week 18 - Half Moons

Greetings All!

Wow, time just keeps going on, doesn't it! 18 weeks into this challenge - yikes! And it's a day late. I've been meaning to buy hole reinforcers for...months, and I finally bothered yesterday. I've done a couple of half moons using stamps before (a cool use for those french tip ones we all hate!), but I wanted to do a 'real' half moon (read: I tried to stamp, but they all came out wonky!)

I thought this would be a very easy technique - it looks easy. It's basically just a variant on a french manicure. Well, I always sucked at doing those, and I suck at doing this too!

Firstly, these pictures are a bit dull and dingy, and I don't know why! I didn't do anything differently.

Secondly, I sucked at this technique! You might notice the lines are a bit 'scruffy'. That's because I had to paint over all the bits that bled. I could try and blame the little reinforcers, but it's probably my fault. Maybe I should have read a tutorial first, but I'm arrogant, and I thought I could just do it.

I do like the colours though - Barry M Bright Purple, and Revlon Minted (which isn't as washed out in real life. It's a really pretty pale mint green). I had originally planned to do some stamping on the green accent nails - can you imagine?! See, arrogant!

The group is becoming quite small, but please take a second to check out some better half moon nails!

Llama Nails Nerd Challenge - Week 2: Space

Greetings All!

Today is meant to be Double Challenge Friday, but I only bought hole reinforcers today, so my half moon nails for the 31DC will have to wait until tomorrow! I do have half of it though, in the shape of space nails, for the Llama Nails Nerd Challenge.

My initial reaction was to do galaxy nails, but for some reason I decided to stamp instead. Before I show you though, I have to tell you about the saga of Revlon Royal.

I first bought RR last Summer, on a market stall. I didn't know what it was (a jelly!), I just needed a plain blue for nail art, and this seemed to fit the bill. I used it a couple of times, then it just sat with the rest of the collection.

I then saw a blog post where someone had used it for a jelly sandwich, and the penny dropped. I owned a blue jelly! I love jellies, this has been well documented, but they can often be hard to find unless you know what you are looking for (you can't really do an efficient search for 'jelly nail polish', you need to know that a particular polish is a jelly). I actually have a few polishes that have turned out to be jellies, but not one in this colour! I leaped to my collection to grab it, and...it was gone! No big deal, I thought, stuff goes walkabout in my room all the time, it'll turn up in time!

Fast forward about 6 months, and I still couldn't find it. Not under my bed, not down the back of my bar, nowhere! So I finally caved and bought a new bottle (99p from Fragrance Direct!).

And that brings us to yesterday, when I finally had my first real 'go' with it. And it is beyond perfection. Squidgy, rich, and fabulous. I am SO in love. I couldn't resist a few pics of it plain (boring, I know, but shush!).

It's jelly-tastic! I keep thinking of all the glitter and stamps I could fit between those 2 coats. This is seriously a thing of beauty. A joy forever! I stared at my nails for ages, literally almost drooling.

Aaand then I went and stamped all over it. Because I am...foolish.

I stamped with Barry M Silver Foil and CH5, CH45, CH46, and BM14. I like the cute little rocket! But I like the base colour much more.

Why not have a little look at some more spacey nails?

UK Indies! Pocket Money Polishes - Glitter Babies - Piña Colada

Greetings All!

It's Friday! We made it through the week! Today is supposed to be Double Challenge Friday, but I'm afraid I haven't prepped my 31DC manicure (yet!). It's half moons - I'm off to buy some hole reinforcers today!

Instead, you get an unreleased British indie polish - forgive me?

I have already shown you two Pocket Money Polishes - I Put A Spell On You and Firework, and today I'm showing you another polish from the second Glitter Babies collection, which is released on Monday! You can get more information, and purchase them, here. You should also check out Charlie's blog because it's pretty good! She does some very creative nail art.

I am terrible at choosing bases for glitter. I find a combination that I think will work brilliantly in my head, but it looks very different on the nail! For this polish I was a good girl, and tried out some swatches on a nail wheel first. It turns out that this polish pretty much goes with everything! So in the end, I had to do a skittle (had to).

As you can see, this little pretty goes with just about every colour! Yellow, peach and pale pink glitter - so super Summery! This is one coat of glitter.

The colours I used were, from thumb to pinky - Barry M Passion Fruit, OPI If You Moust, You Moust, and Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper, Himalayan Blue, and Anenome of Mine. They were all one coat, apart from the OPI (letting the team down a bit!), which is why I thought I could get away with no cleanup haha. I love the finished look though - the skittle is kind of perfect (in my eyes!), so vibrant and gorgeous, and the matte glitter really makes it! And it is SO versatile! Here's my little nail wheel experiment.

It goes with just about every colour I could throw at it!

Glitter Babies 2 is released on Monday (July 1st). They are £4 for a 5ml bottle, postage is £1.50 and unfortunately they can only be sent within the UK (Royal Mail, we hate you!). So, UK ladies, make sure to head here on Monday, as they are limited edition!

$250 EPIC British Nail Bloggers Giveaway!

Greetings All!

Just a quick reminder, you still have a couple of hours left to enter this giveaway! A total of $250 is being given away to spend on polish!!! The original post is here. What are you waiting for?!

Tri Polish Challenge June 2013 - Manicure 4

Greetings All!

This is the last entry for this month's TPC. The rules are still simple - create 4 manicures, using three polishes, representing three pre-determined colours The polishes I used this month are:

Barry M Gelly Nail Paints in Passion Fruit, Dragon Fruit and Plum.

I also completed my own little mini challenge - I used all three polishes for all four manicures, and  no other polishes!

Today you get a manicure on my left hand, as my right hand was injured, and I didn't know if it would heal in time for this month's challenge. I also had nubbins, due to a broken nail. This was done nearly 2 weeks ago, my nails have grown since then! I should have redone it, but I'm lazy. I did the classic 'eh, it'll do' lol.

More stamping! Luckily 2 out of my 3 polishes stamped, and stamped well! The base is Dragon Fruit, stamped with Passion Fruit and GA14. I then stamped over the top with Plum and CH14. I was kind of going for a surreal rose bush effect, where the plant is red instead of green. I like it well enough - I might do something similar, but with different colours. I think I just hate how short my nails are (compared to my right hand), although these shorter nails were much easie to stamp on!

Llama Nails Nerd Challenge - Inspired By Maths

Greetings All!

I recently joined a Facebook group, Llama Nails. They run some pretty awesome challenges! I missed out on the Time Period Challenge (it's OK, I was mainly interested in the earlier time periods!) and I discovered they are currently doing a Nerd Nail Art Challenge. I guess I'm kind of a nerd - I'm not into Harry Potter, or Doctor Who, but I can be pretty nerdy about some stuff.

These challenges will be posted on Fridays, which means Double Challenge Friday is back! Which I'm pretty happy about. These nails should have been for last week, and I did prep them for Friday, but stuff has kind of been getting on top of me recently. Hopefully I can get back on track for this week!

So, the theme for last week was Inspired By Maths. At school, I used to really enjoy maths! Out in the real world, I don't get to use it much, although I do sometimes annoy people with my mental arithmetic, while they are faffing with the calculators on their phones!



My nails are inspired by prime numbers, which are my favourite kind of numbers (see, kind of nerdy lol).

For the base I used...not W7 Black! This time, Barry M Black, which is also good, but does need 2 coats, which is annoying (First World problems!). I then drew some prime numbers with W7 White, and made it matte with Asda Matte topcoat. I wanted it to look like a chalkboard, after seeing this chalkboard kit by Ciate. At school we used whiteboards, but I didn't think that would be as recognisable lol.

Hopefully (fingers crossed!) there will be a new nerdy manicure on Friday!

UK Indies - Pocket Money Polishes Glitter Babies - Firework

Greetings All!

On Monday I showed you this cute little polish, made by Charlie from Pocket Money Polishes. Today I have another to show you, and it's very exciting because it doesn't get released until July 1st! So consider this a sneak peek!

This time, the collection is still named after songs, but they have a Summery vibe. You can buy them here, once they are released, of course! They are limited edition, so don't wait too long!

Today I am showing you Firework, named after the Katy Perry song. I'm not a Katy Perry fan (in fact quite the opposite!), but I'm the type who can ignore polish names lol. it's a mix of purple hexes, tiny blue bars, and cute, cute, cute turquoise stars. This is 2ish coats over Barry M Mango.

I love how the orange and turquoise clash! I wore this for most of the weekend - it's so bright and cheerful! It's like there's a party on my nails, and everyone's invited!

Again, I needed a little bit of dabbing and placement with the stars, but I didn't mind that at all.

This is 2ish coats over...I should just say Barry M Prickly Pear. It's actually the worlds most subtle gradient, with Prickly Pear, and a band of Barry M Blueberry in the middle. It's so subtle, you can't even see it! I am gutted about this lol.

Apart from that catastrophic fail, the glitter looks lovely! It goes well with soft and bright colours. The little bars were very well behaved, and didn't stick out on my nail, which was nice. The stars lay reasonably flat on my curvy nails - topcoat sorted them out very well. And Katy Perry aside, the name fits the polish really well, with the bars and stars. All in all, this is another versatile, adorable little glitter topper that I'll be getting plenty of wear out of!

This polish was bought by me, and all opinions are my own

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