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