Pink drippy nails

Ah, the Christmas sales; so many polishes to buy, so little time! After a quick nip to New Look, I came back with a clutch of polishes. I picked up a few from their ranges by Giles and Kelly Brook (swatches to follow later), and decided to use the pink nail art pen by Giles for my first ever drippy nails!

I decided to drip from the tips on one hand, and from the base on the other. Please excuse the fact that my left hand is flipping wonky, I'm left handed so free-handing with my right hand was insanely hard. But I'm pleased with the results - so I'm going to keep on training my right hand to do my evil nail bidding:) 

As you can see, the pink polish isn't as a opaque as it needed to be. It was easy to apply, but I really do think that a nail art pen should be opaque in one coat. It also bubbled very badly, which was annoying, and took foreeeeeeeeeeeeeeever to dry; it still felt tacky the next day. 

I'm not sure I'd buy these pens again, but to be fair the nail art pen comes in a pack of two (hot pink and a plummy purple) and each pen comes with a huge stash of matching coloured nail crystals, which are actually the reason I bought these. It's £2.99 for both, so I can't really complain that they aren't of the highest quality! 

I'm off to prep my New Years Eve nails - I sense a glittery mash up coming.......

Black, gold and nude mash up

After the last sad post, this is a nicer one to write. I decided to spend today doing things that I knew would cheer me up; shopping, cooking and painting my nails. 

I hit Birmingham hard today; jumpers, cardigans, necklaces, belts and the world's coolest leopard print ankle boots all became mine, mine, mine! And of course, when bf wasn't looking,  I grabbed a couple of polishes:) I also found that my mind was a bit more with it today, and in quite a creative mood, so when I got home I dug out a few of my favourite polishes and came up with this mish mash. 

I like this manicure as it indulges my love of all things eclectic/art deco-ish/leopard printed (for those of you who don't know me, I consider leopard print like black, i.e.  it goes with everything, thus at least 40% of my wardrobe consists of leopard printy stuff). Not bad brain, not bad. 

Btw, those leopard printed ankle boots I mentioned? 

The. Biz. Niss!

I'll have a blue Christmas without you......

Hi guys, I hope you all had a truly wonderful Christmas with families/friends/partners/all of the pre-mentioned. I haven't posted for a while and I should explain. 

Last Thursday my beloved Monty, a cat amongst cats, fell ill. He seemed a bit under the weather and so we decided that he would need to go to the vets. To begin with the vet wasn't sure what was wrong with him, however, after a few tests, it became clear it was serious. They decided to operate, but sadly, he didn't make it.

It was an incredible shock. He had been, up until Thursday, very healthy. He'd been eating and drinking, had found a new space to hide in (the shower), and was as cuddly as ever. Therefore his death has really rocked us. I could barely stop crying for the first couple of days after, and am still finding it hard to really take a huge amount of pleasure in things, hence my absence on here.

His partner in kitty crimes, Boo, has also been heartbroken, searching house and garden for him and calling for him. The house has been so quiet without him - I keep looking for him on the landing, where he used to stretch out and demand tummy rubs.

Monty, just chillin.

On bf's lap, a favoured napping spot.

Monty the criminal - indulging his penchant for my water!

I know that this is supposed to be a blog about nails, but this post is a dedication to Monty. He was a hugely important part of my little ragtag family that traipsed around various places over the last few years, and wherever he was, it felt like home. I shall desperately miss his nuzzling, his squeaky meow, the way he looked after Boo, the way he would follow me around the house for a cuddle and the way he was just dam cool! Without him, my world is a quieter and sadder place. 

Snowy sparkles!

Ahhhh this might be one of my favourite manicures for a long time. I was desperately trying to find a polish to put with my new Barry M glitter, the seductively named SLE2012 :) I ummed and ahhed about pairing it with white - I hate putting white polish on, it makes me look like I've made a mistake with tippex. 

However I went for it.......and WOW! Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove:) I really love this manicure, it's so simple, but the white makes the colours pop. The SLE2012 (catchy!) is a wonderful mix of blue, pink and green large hex glitter and small green glitter. So chuffed.

So pleased with these. anyhoo, got to go peeps, got 2 cakes to mazipan! 

Rockin' around the Christmas Tree!

Aaaaaah finally - Christmas nails that I'm really pleased with:) Behold.......the world's easiest Christmas tree mani!

These were seriously easy; a coat of Barry M Silver Effect, then Barry M Racing Green to make the tree. Dotted with unnamed red, stick on a rhinestone, et voila! Christmas tree nails:)

On my thumb and pinkie I used a beautiful polish by Nails Inc, called Edinburgh Gate. It's a clear base filled to the rafters with red, silver, teal and green glitter. I have to say it's probably the hardest glitter I've ever tried to do a graidient with, it clumps dreadfully, so my nails were pretty bumpy after this. But is the most Christmassy polish I have (hence I've had it in my collection for months, but have never used it before). 

Anyhoo, hope you're enjoying yourself this weekend peeps, only 10 days to go! 

Wrapping pressies:)

Oh roll on Friday - this week is killing me! I've been ill all week and so have been spending as much time as possible with the worlds best hot water bottle. 

On the plus side, being off sick has given me time to paint my nails - every cloud and all that:) I t had to be Christmassy nails, obvs, but I decided to go with a slightly unusual colour scheme, pink and gold instead of the traditional red. But I actually love this, and it was really simple. Joy.

The pink in Pomegranate by Barry M (a Gelly) and the gold is Models Own Gold Rush. The sparkletastic glitter is Barry M Yellow Topaz Glitter - I think it and the pink are a match made in heaven:) Excuse the 'scratch marks' - I feel asleep and my duvet struck......dun dun dun!

Btw, this is Bertie, my hot water bottle. Told you he was awesome:)

Tribal nails (pastels)

I've been looking to use my mint green and lilac together for ages. Then I came across a nail art article in this months Company magazine, where they'd used purple and green to create an Aztec/tribal pattern. Loved it, so decided to have a go of my own; I did my own designs but used their colour scheme, although substituted white for gold, as I LOVE gold - hmmmmmmmmmmmm shiny things. I'm a total magpie:) Anyhoo, what do you think?

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree.....

Hello guys, a quick post as I have Christmas wrapping to do and it takes aaaaaaaaaaaaaages cos I'm super OCD with these things.

Ok, so I have to confess to not being happy with this manicure at all. In fact, it came off the second after I took these photos. The reason I'm posting them is 'cos I actually really like the tree on my ring finger, but the rest of the manicure is just too busy. But I felt the tree deserved a post. 

So here goes. 

 

I used 3 of my new/unused polishes - Green Tea by Models Own, an amazing new Special Edition Barry M glitter and Pomegranate, a Barry M Gelly. 

This is Green Tea and Pomegranate. Green Tea has an incredibly odd finish, almost matt. I really didn't like it, but loved the colour. Pomegranate is the most beautiful colour, I've totally fallen in love with it. The picture above doesn't do it justice, it's a really deep pink and the glossy finish is stunning. 

The Special Edition Barry M (not sure of the name, it just says SLE 2012 on the bottom) is epic. Large pink, blue and green hexagons alongside small green glitter in a clear polish. Epic. A new favourite:) 

Sadly, my over enthusiastic and heavy handed application somewhat ruined this. It was just too, too much. Gutted. It's a shame cos I really love the tree, although it's not perfect. The blue star at the top doesn't work, and neither does the pink star, but it was on it's way. But when I realised the rest of the mani wasn't working, I just went a bit mad. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

I lost this one. Sad face.

Black and gold 3 ways

Hope you've been having a good weekend peeps? I've had a lovely one. Fiiiiiiiiinally went to the hairdressers yesterday and I'm now lovely and blond again, got to do a bit of Christmas shopping (and by that I mean presents for myself) and had an amazing Thai meal with my lovely boyfriend. Oh, and consumed quite a lot of wine, yummy yummy wine. 

And on top of all of that I got to sort through my polishes and rediscover some unused ones. So I decided to use a few of them to create a super sparkly manicure heh heh. 

I painted all my nails, except my ring finger, with a newbie by Barry M, Gold Mine Glitter. I'm not really sure where I stand on this polish. I looked at it and loved it, then looked again and hated it, then looked again and loved it...........for ages! I just can't decide, I rarely feel so confused about polish (or anything really!). Hmmmmmmm. 

Anyway, I painted MO Disco Heaven over my thumb to add something a little different, and then painted my ring finger with Barry M Black and used Yellow Topaz Glitter for a glitter gradient. I adored my ring finger, I think the polishes work so well together, it's a polish match made in sparkly heaven. The black by Barry M applies really well. I was worried when I put one coat on and the coverage was incredibly poor, but somehow a second coat miraculously fixed everything. Happy days.

Have a good Sunday evening me dears, I'm rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy so that I'm fully prepped to see the Hobbit next Sunday - and yes, this was bf's idea, not mine. But still, movie+crisps+G&T+sofa=a very happy me:) 

Swatch - Accessorize Speckle Polish!

A very quick post today - major Christmassy work meltdown, so have a crazy workload at the moment. Anyhoooooooooooooo...

Eeeeeeeep 19 days left peeps! So, I may have treated myself a little bit when shopping for pressies. I stupidly went into Superdrug thinking that I'd be able to walk past the polish section - pah! Who was I kidding?! I didn't have any speckles and they had speckles and I knew I needed speckles and...............well. Now I have speckles. 

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

The first I'm swatching is the amazing Damselfly. It's the most gorgeous duck egg blue, with small flecks of gold and dark blue glitter. Fabulous. Really easy application, below is 2 coats with a topcoat. I think to truly love it it needs a lot of topcoat to really make the glitter go POW!

Have a good day peeps, toodle pip. 

Let it snow!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah my first properly Christmassy nails - feels like I've been waiting for ages to try them! I'm now in a state of Christmas excitement - I only want to eat snacks and nibbles, I've been dancing round to Mariah Carey and that song (all I want is yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou) and have thrown tinsel everywhere to make it look festive:) Is it just me doing that this early, or anyone else a Chrimbo loon too?

Anyhoo, knew I'd have to try penguin nails, cos I flipping luuuuuuuurve the penguins:) I did penguin nails a while ago, but wanted to try a different technique. I think they actually look a bit more like snowy owls, oooops. But I still love them.

The snowy nails were from an idea by Polishpedia and the penguins were from the amazing Miss Jen Fabulous at Pearls and Polish (both amazing, check them out). 

I used a selection of my beloved Barry M products; Matt White, Holographic Glitter (a few bits dotted on as asnow, hard to see) and a newbie, Black Multi Glitter. (Mind you, you can't really tell that there's any glitter in the black, not even in real life; was a bit disappointed, and I rarely say that about a Barry M). 

Apologies for the pictures, I took so many but wasn't happy with any of them, here are the best of a bad bunch.

20 days leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeft! 

Sparkle blindness and Christmassy preparations:)

A very happy December to you all peeps! I hope you've had a lovely week; I, sadly, have been poorly all week with an evil cold, hence my silence. Grrrrrrr! I've Lemsip-ed and hot water bottled myself to death, but still feeling grotty. Ah well, my illness induced hibernation has given me an excuse to cheer myself up with some serious sparkle.

Sunglasses at the ready! (Warning - pic heavy!)

A month or so ago I picked up a couple of  polishes from the Models Own Wonderland collection, Northern Lights and Southern Lights. They are unbelievably sparkly! 

Firstly, Southern Lights; a pale lilac polish packed (aaaaaah alliteration!) with very fine holographic and lilac glitter. This is 3 coats of polish, layered over an coat of lilac polish (forget which) and topped with 2 coats of topcoat (needed to make the most of that glittery goodness). 

Next up, Northern Lights, same as above but pink! Flipping brill. I didn't layer this over another colour, but tbh it clearly didn't need it. 

I can't describe how much I love these polishes - the holographic glitter is so beautiful and really does make me think of the changing lights and shades of the Northern Lights (geographical phenomena, not polish). However, I started getting greedy for more and more polish, and couldn't resist gilding the lily even further....

Well hellooooo Barry M Rose Quartz Glitter...how sparkly you are! I'm not sure if this was a step too far, but still; glitter + glitter = AMAZINGNESS! And possibly glitter induced blindness. 

 Heh heh heh:) 

P.s - getting ready for Chrimbo now, cracked open some lights and a few simple decorations. Only 23 days left to go:)