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

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

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

Just a Quickie! Barry M & stamping

Hello Sweetpeas,

Just a quick one today.

This was one I tried out when my nails were criminally short and I'd just received my Gals stamping plates. I used Barry M's Green Berry as the base colour and stamped with Barry M's gold foil. On the accent nails I used two coats of China Glaze's Angel wings and dotted over it with Barry M's Green Berry.

As always a base coat of a matte top coat and SV's fast dry top coat.

N

Adventures In Stamping Challenge

Hello poppets,
It's Sunday!! And what do we do on Sundays? We stamp on Sundays.

This week it's a mani inspired by Earth Day. I thought of animals and trees when thinking of something to do. So I came up with the below.

For base coat I used Sally Hansen Miracle Cure (I can only hope!).  The colour on my thumb, ring and pinkie finger is a gorgeous copper glitter with hints of red and tan from Barry M (imaginatively entitled Copper), that is opaque in two coats. The photos do not do this justice at all. I used a stamp from GA12 for the bark like effect and it's stamped with Barry M's Lychee.

The colour on my forefinger and middle finger is Barry M's Lychee which is opaque in one coat but I like two coats for luck.  The spots are Barry M's Copper and outlined with Model's Own nail art pen in black.

I am so happy with this manicure.  It's turned out exactly how I wanted it to, which is a first.  I can't stop staring at my nails.  I'm going to be upset when this eventually chips.

Until next time!

N

China Glaze: Black Diamond + added stamping!

I fancied something simple and elegant so decided to go with a dark background and a pink/silver stamp.

I used China Glaze's Black Diamond over a coat of CG's Liquid Leather.  I had tried to use the Black Diamond on its own but it was much too sheer and even with three coats it didn't look like it had a lot of depth to it.  So I nixed that one and put one coat over one coat of Liquid Leather. 

This is what it looked like without the stamp:

I personally think it's absolutely gorgeous.  A lovely black creme but with miniscule shimmery bits that almost takes it to an ultra dark grey.

I covered that with a top coat of CG's fast dry top coat (which I love but could do with someone chiming in on whether seche vite is worth the extra cost for a better product?).

And because I can't leave a good mani alone I wanted to put some stamps on top. Last week I received the Fairy Set from Gals Cosmetics and used two small images (from GA30 and GA38) overlapping each other on the tip of the nail with a pink foil effect nail polish from Beauty UK. And this is the result:

I really like this.  It's quite subtle until the light hits and then just lovely and shimmery.

N

Up next: Avant Garden with something extra!