Clearing out the untrieds; Revlon!

Hey hey guys, hope you're all well and still enjoying a bit of time off work?

I went for my first post-Christmas run today....well, running might be stretching it, it was more like falling forward quickly! But I do feel a bit better for getting up and about, I was beginning to feel (and look) like a Christmas pudding! 

After a bit of house sorting (we hosted Christmas and the house looked like a bomb went off!) I decided to do a wee bit of swatching as my untrieds have again been piling up. I noticed I had several Revlon polishes in the untried box; I rarely buy from Revlon, but these were pressies from various people. 

So first up, Extravagant - a warm pink polish with a silver shimmer running through it. Not much else to say really; good application, nice colour.

Next, Posh - a stunning green creme - I really loved this, it's SO green and fresh. It went on easily and dried quickly and I really want to use this for some summery nail art in 2015:)

Lastly, my favourite of the bunch; Radiant, a lovely mix of fine blue glitter with silver, green and blue hexes in a clear polish (I've layered it here over In the Navy by Orly). My husband bought this for me and I was so pleased; a polish I wish I'd discovered for myself! 

I'm so pleased I've cleared a few untrieds! Only 30 more to go lol:) But for now, I have other things to do; I'm trying to sort out my NYE nails now - I have a few ideas but this may need a little bit of research..........

Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar and Barry M Starlight

Ah post boxing day - a day of utter nothingness. Napping, eating odd combinations of left-overs, watching the dregs of TV....weird, given how packed my days usually are, but it has given me time to do a few things I love; namely, sit of the sofa, gaze at nail blogs, paint my own nails and drink gin and tonics. Slothing at its best!

As i has spare time, I decided to have a search through my polishes and dug out a few untrieds; today I've paired Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar with Barry M Starlight. 

Sugar Sugar is a rather lovely red; actually, my favourite red that I've bought so far, it just seems to work with my skin tone. It's also filled with microscopic little specks, giving it an 'inner light' so to speak. The application is better than other Sinful Colors I've tried as well, still a pretty appalling brush but a much better drying time.

The specks are lovely, they give it an unexpected shimmer. It's actually not quite as orang-y as the pictures above suggest, but I'm having major camera issues at the moment so these pictures are the best I can get for now:(  

As it's Christmas-time, I decided to go full out sparkle; well, that and the fact that I was undecided about this next polish and so I thought, as I'm not actually planning on leaving the house (still in Xmas pjs, whoop whoop!), I can try it out and no-one has to know if it's awful.

 Apart from you guys:)

So I popped Starlight by Barry M over the top - it's a slightly bonkers combination of large gold and holographic sparkles with specks of glitter and holographic stars. Errrrr...

Let's just say that it works in theory. I mean, yes it's kind of awesome.....but also, it does look like something an 11 year old girl about to go to the school disco at Xmas designed. I think, sadly, maybe I've outgrown this polish - it's just TOO glittery for me. I think gold and holo and stars were just too much....a sad day for me. 

Goodbye youth!

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas? I'm sat in a post-Boxing day slump, having spent the day eating ham and cheese, drinking gin and watching The Muppet's Christmas Carol (the BEST Christmas movie EVER!).

My Christmas nails for this year were pretty low-key, based on the fact that we here hosting and so I spent the run-up tidying the house obsessively - not great for applying polish. However, I was really please with these as they made me think of Christmas tress (the dark green pines, the sparkling baubles) and so made me feel festive every time I look at them:) 

Very simple, obvs; 3 coats of 'Mermaid' by Posh Polish and a coat of the Barry M Special Edition (circa December 2012!) I love the depth of the glitter.....

Btw, please excuse the lobster hands (claws?) - my camera HATES green, so this was the best I could get:( 

This photo sums up the next few days for me; napping until New Year! Whoop whoop for 10 days off work!

Barry M Silk Collection - Forest

I hope you're all having  lovely Christmas Eve Eve? I'm sat with my lovely hubby, drinking wine and watching Christmas movies; Miracle on  34th Street (Emma believes!), The Grinch, Jingle All the Way...........bliss:)

Of course, as I'm watching, I'm painting my nails - today with Barry M Forest from their amazing Silk collection. I've said it before, but I really wasn't convinced with this collection to begin with. Now, I own almost the entire collection!

As you can see, it dries with a lovely matte effect; but that shimmer shows through....

My silly phone made it look blue, but it really is a stunning deep green. If you don't want the matte look you can cover it with a topcoat. But today, I fancied matte:) 

Still planning my Christmas nails, but might have to wait whilst I drink more wine!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

Oh Christmas Tree, how I love thee:) I may have gone a bit mad this year, under the excuse of 'it's our first married Christmas in our new house' :) But every penny was worth it!

And it turns out Smokey loves Christmas trees too! He doesn't even care when he sits on its prickly little spikes! Such an odd cat.

 Can this be comfortable?

If you get the chance in the next few days, you need to head to Paperchase; their selection of decorations is spectacular, all the glitter and sparkle that a nail polish lover could ever need. Let's look at some of the highlights;

So, on the left, SPROUTS! Sprouts in Santa hats! Who thought of this, because they are amazing and I want to hug them. On the right, sparkle...ooooooooh, seuqins in a clear (thankfully, for those of us who have cats, plastic) bauble. 

Also from Paperchase, more baubles with sequins in (yay!) and, my husbands favorites, felt toadstools (top right corner)! The tiny multicoloured small baubles are also from Paperchase. They're so delicate and the way the light bounces off of them is lovely.

I've been a bit disappointed with Sainsbury's decorations this year (a lot of shabby looking pom poms and already coming-off glitter baubles). However, these cuties did catch my eye; I think they were £1.99 for 6, they're adorable!

And here are some of my favourites from the last few years, mainly collected on sale from Accessorize (seriously worth hitting the sales for, they're reduced from around £4 to less than £1!).

Sausage dog, owl, ginger cat, sheep - maybe not a traditional Christmas, but I love them so up they go:)

I hope you're all feeling festive; have you got your tree up yet?

Guess who's back? Back again!

Dear me, looking through so many of my blog posts, I do seem to be saying the same thing; I'm still here but not really er....here! That is, I'm a blogger who rarely blogs. Is this an oxymoron? Am I just a moron? Who knows?

What I do know is that this year has been INSANE! Everything came to a head in August; I got married (yay!), moved house (argh but mainly yay!), moved from the city to a new town (goodbye Birmingham, hello Leam!) and started a new job. Unsurprisingly, I had to postpone my blogging.

And then........I just never came back. Instead of painting my nails, I was breaking them....packing boxes, unpacking boxes, tidying, cleaning; my nails snapped but my house became cleaner and more and more of a home. 

I must admit, there was a small part of me that also simply couldn't be bothered. And then another part of me that simply realised I has nothing to blog; my new job simply won't allow me to rock up wearing neon glittery leopard print nails:( It seems I'm not the only one either; The Crumpet (all hail the Crumpet) has recently written an excellent post about the reasons some of us simply quit blogging.

However, I missed blogging, I missed the sense of community. So I'm back - but with a few changes. I will still be blogging nails whenever I can, but a few other things will be cropping up to; crafts mainly, I've become a cross-stitching demon recently for some reason! But for today, I'll be sharing something very personal with you; my hatred of unpacking!

So, bearing in mind hubbie and I moved in our new home in August, I have been putting off unpacking big time! We're lucky enough to have a garage in our new house, so all of the below was just dumped in there. Out of sight, out of mind! This worked fantastically until hubbie decided to turn our garage into a gym. Having to hurdle over these was not what he had in mind and they made getting to the running machine tricky. It was time for drastic action!

 Boo inspecting the assortment of 'stuff'.

So finally, today, I bit the bullet, and alongside some box loving kitties, I did what the books recommend; I ditched the clutter! My local charity shop will be loving me come Monday! 3 boxes to them, one to the tip and then.....

This is it! This is all that I actually needed/wanted out of all of that stuff. Neatly packed into one box. Amazing:) I couldn't have done it without the 'team' though....

A cat's box is its castle and thus must be defended!