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Freehand, Glitter, Uncategorised

Christmas Jumper-y

10th December 2012

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Here’s another Christmas mani featuring Essie Jag-u-are, a polish I picked up in TK Maxx just because I thought it was Christmas-y. I don’t normally go for frosty, shimmery polishes like this but the shimmer in this is subtle so I don’t hate wearing it on my nails but I’ imagine after this month, it’s going to sit at the back of the drawer until next December.

For the snowflake designs on this mani, I followed Coewless Nails‘ super simple Fair Isle Snowflake Tutorial.

I used Essie Jag-u-are as my base colour and painted on the white detail with acrylic paint and a small nail art brush. The gold glitter on my tips is Sinful Colors Paris and I dabbed that on using a sponge.

Finally I topped it off with two coats of NYC.

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31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

31DC2012 Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

4th December 2012

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Day 27 of the challenge is here and I can’t believe how close we are to the end. Just 4 more challenge days and it will all be over… again! Today we have to do nails inspired by artwork and I chose a piece called ‘Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow’ by Piet Mondrian who was around during the De Stijl movement. And that, folks, is all the info I can give you on the artwork. I just know it’s minimalist and I like it!

My ring finger is supposed to be an exact replica of the art but I just improvised on the rest.

As always, head over to Rie and Cristina‘s blogs to see what they came up with today.

I used Barry M White as my base colour and then used Black Acrylic Paint with a striping brush to paint on all the lines. Then I took Sally Hansen InstaDri Rapid Red, NYC Lexington Yellow and Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue to fill in some of the squares with a nail art brush.

I finished it off with two coats of NYC In a New York Minute. I know I said that I hate this top coat nowadays but I found a few bottles in one of my beloved bargain stores and took a chance that they’d be the old formula and so far, I think they are!

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Freehand, Uncategorised

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

13th October 2012

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To make up for not posting for the three whole days this week, get a whopping 3 posts this weekend! You had Day 2 of the challenge this morning and you can expect day 3 tomorrow as well as this gem in the middle.

In case you couldn’t guess, this mani was inspired by playing cards. I’m not big on card games myself, I can just about manage the simpleton ones like rummy and pig but my brother is big in to poker. For his 18th birthday I wanted to take him on a night out to play casino games but totally chickened out. What a lousy sister I am! Maybe that will have to be his surprise this year.

I used two coats of OPI Samoan Sand as my base colour and then freehanded around the shapes with a nail art brush to get the cutout effect. They really remind me of a set of window shutters I once saw that looked something like this.

The red is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red and the black is… of course W7 Black! It’s topped off with a coat of Sally Hansen Advanced Hard as Nails plus one coat of thickened Essence Better Than Gel Nails to smooth everything over.

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31 Day Challenge, Glitter, Uncategorised

31 Day Challenge Take 2! Day 1: Red Nails

10th October 2012

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Welcome to the 31 Day Challenge. Today I’m feeling very excited at the prospect but ask me 3 weeks in and I might not be feeling wuite so positive about the whole experience! I can’t decide whether to integrate nail art in to the first 6 days of the challenge (which are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet) because the rest of the challenge is so nail art heavy, so I think I’ll take it a day at a time and see where the colours take me!

Today’s pretty glitter comes courtesy of Aphrodite Lacquers•. The shade is smoulder and it’s a red jelly polish packed with fine, shimmery glitter and some slightly larger red and light pink pieces. I used two coats of Smolder over two coats of Cult Nails Quench apart from on my ring finger, which I believe is know as the ‘reverse accent’. I topped it all with with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Advanced.

You can buy Smolder from Rebecca’s Etsy shop for $8.00 plus shipping.

Pop over to Let Them Have Polish! and Nails and Noms to see what my fellow challengers have come up with today!

*This item was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own. See my disclaimer for more information.

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Uncategorised

MUA Nail Constellation in Scorpio

6th October 2012

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I took a trip to Superdrug today and was greeted at the door by a new, huge spinning MUA display that was surprisingly well stocked and up to date. They’ve recently released their Nail Constellations which are a £3 version of Ciate’s Caviar manicure. It’s really just a pot of mixed bullion with a pourer on the top and although I have tons of the stuff lying around, I couldn’t resist picking up one of these bottles. This particular set is called Scorpio.

The bottle is quite clever as it only allows you to pour out a tiny bit at a time so you aren’t going end up spilling tiny beads everywhere. The only thing that bugs me is that ~~I couldn’t find any way to get wastage back in to the bottle. I didn’t have to throw away too much of the product but I only did one nail~~* (see bottom of post). Ah well, for the price, I’m not gonna cry about it!

My base colour is Rimmel Desire and I used Barry M Gold Foil for the ruffian accents. For my accent nail, I poured over the beads while my second coat of colour was still wet, then patted them down gently to really stick them in to the polish. I’ve got a top coat of Sally Hansen Advanced Hard as Nails on all but the accent finger.

*I’ve since been told that the lid can be removed and even doubles as a funnel for pouring the beads back in to the bottle. See here. I did originally try to remove the lid but wasn’t rough enough. Be careful though, because if you slip in the process, your carpet will look like a constellation!

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Stamping, Uncategorised

A-England Gothic Beauty: Jane Eyre Swatch

30th September 2012

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I’m so behind on all the nail news. I didn’t even know A-England have a new collection out – the Gothic Beauties. The collection contains 5 shades which are all black based with coloured shimmer and flecks, bar Dorian Gray which is a metallic-y pewter shade.

The hints of colour in these polishes are very pretty in the bottle but not so obvious once it’s on the nail. As a lover of black nail polish, this is of no concern to me! Jane Eyre is full of bronze and light pink flecks in a perfect black creme base. The swatches are two coats of Jane Eyre* with a top coat of Essence Better Than Gel Nails.

I stamped on a Red Angel design from plate RA109 using Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Quick Brick. This is definitely some of my favourite stamping ever! It’s very subtle but still striking and it looks very oriental. Definitely something I’m going to be trying with other colour combos.

You can buy Jane Eyre from the A-England website with free worldwide shipping!

*This item was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own. See my disclaimer for more information.

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Freehand, Uncategorised

NY Fashionail Week Day 5: Prabal Gurung

21st September 2012

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This is by far my favourite New York Fashion week nail art design which is why I saved it until last! The drippy manicure is nothing new, but I love this colour combination so much. The design was created by Sally Hansen’s Tracy Lee for the Prabal Gurung show.

I used two coats of OPI Samoan Sand as my base colour and freehanded the blood drips with Cult Nails Quench and a striping brush. All finished off with two coats of Essence Better Than Gel.

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