A little bit of craftiness - cross-stitching penguins!

Oh dear - turns out I finished these two weeks too late!

I had planned on finishing these before Christmas so that I could put them up on my Christmas tree, but then I put them to one side....and then totally forgot about them! Doh! 

Still, I figure I'm early for Christmas 2016:) 

As usual, these were inspired by Pinterest (the God of crafting lol) and I'm so pleased with them, they were pretty simple tbh, but still! They have induced a severe case of cross-stitching, so expect to see a lot more asap. 

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!

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?

My Christmas mani - a sparkly skittle!

Merry Christmas Eve peeps - are you all prepared for tomorrow? I'm wrapped, packed and full of chocolate roses, so as ready as I can be:)

I've ummed and ahhhhed over my Christmas manicure for a while now. I'm off visiting family for 5 days, so it had to be something that would last and that would fit in with most of my outfits. It had to include glitter (because duh, it's Christmas!). And it has to be nail art, because I need to practice.

Tadah!

These were heavily inspired by the amazing work of the The Nailasaurus, so I can't claim originality, but I'm pleased with how my skittle turned out. I also love the Skandi colours, so very fashionable right now (because, I'm like, all about fashion lol - as I type this, I'm in my pjs with walking socks on to keep my tootsies warm and a scarf wrapped around me). 

I think my favourite is the heart; I have to confess, after messing it up several times, eventually I painted the heart of to a plastic poly-pocket and then peeled it off and stuck it on my nail.

 Legen- OMG my nails look hot - dary! 

These are the polishes that contributed to this mani; from the top, clockwise- Claire's unnamed glitter, Gold Giles Green, Models Own Nail art Pen in White, Barry M Matt White, Barry M Blood Orange, Sinful Colours Rich in Heart, Barry M Red Glitter. 

Have an amazing Christmas peeps - I hope you have a wonderful time with your friends and family and that Santa brings you all the nail polish you could ever wish for. x x x x x

We all like a Christmas pudding

Wayhay - my first Christmas manicure of 2013.....I bring to you..................

CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS!

I'm so pleased with these; I couldn't stop staring at them:)

I used Barry M Lychee for a neutral base, then painted semi circles on using Barry M Mushroom. I 'iced' my puddings with my Models Own nail art pen, then added a cheery with the ever wonderful Barry M Red Glitter. A randon nail art pen in green was used to add the holly and Sinful Colours Rich in Heart was dotted on for the currents:)

Tra-lah-lah-lah-laahhh, la-la-la-laaaaaaaaaaaaaaah:)

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! 

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.

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!