O.P.I swatches

Ahhh O.P.I - how I love thee! I'd buy these for the bottles alone....there's something so lovely and curvy about the bottles! 

Anyway, recently one of my sister-in-laws has taken to buying me O.P.I polishes for pressies:) This Christmas I was thoroughly spoilt; I Pulled A Plum and What Wizardry Is This were wrapped up, just for me, under the tree!

Stunning - it's already a winter favourite. IRL, there's a deeper purply colour that occasionally flashes into view, but my camera refused to capture that! It applies flawlessly, dries quickly and is just LUSH! 

She also gave me my very first Liquid Sands polish - What Wizardry is This (the name alone makes me happy, as I'm a huge Wicked fan!). I must admit this polish confused me; I couldn't decide if I loved it ir hated it - the Marmite of the polish world. I'll let you decide; the first 2 pictures are without top coat, the last 2 are with three coats of gloss:)

Hmmmm - I just don't know! Anyway, let's end with a picture of something I know I love; Smokey (posing as usual!). 

 Have a great week guys x x x

Models Own / Dog's Trust - 24 Carot Gold

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To celebrate the start of 2015, I'm wearing the brightest, most cheerful shade known to man - a polish that makes me smile like a Cheshire cat (or should that be dog?). I won this polish in a giveaway by Emma from emslittlecorner and loved it, but for some reason I never posted pictures!

So here it is, sunglasses at the ready.....

And then I decided to jazz things up a bit........leopard print, the first one of the year (knowing me, there's much more to come!)

Btw, if you're a Dog's Trust fan, check them out here; how could you not love those adorable faces? I'm campaigning hard with hubby to let me get one, but he keeps reminding me that our two kitties might not like a dog in the house......

.....and i wouldn't want to upset this little cutie, would I?

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!

O.P.I Muppets World Tour

Eeeeeeeep - I've finally decided on my wedding nails:)

I've ummed and ahhhhhed for ages over what to do. I knew a 'classic' French manicure was out and that any complex nail art would be a no-no (not because of any artistic objections, but I'll have minimal time the night before). I've purchased various blues (as my something blue) but then decided it stood out too much. I did the same with pinks, but still..........nothing was really grabbing me.

But the blogging world was round the corner, ready to inspire me; after weeks of checking various swatches, I decided to order the two following polishes from Beauty Bay, Muppets World Tour and Step Right Up, both by O.P.I.

Now, these are not the best piccies - I was in a rush, trying to snap them before I got glue all over them (my crafting currently involved gallons of glue:) but I hope you like;

Step Right Up is a gorgeous pink, very sheer, this is 4 coats. It makes my nails look lovely and healthy (instead of wretched and yellow like they are IRL).

Muppets World Tour is a clear base packed with minute pieces of silver glitter, alongside larger gold and blue hexes. It's ideal - mainly silver (to go with my accessories), has blue in it (my something blue) and is subtle enough to not take centre stage but awesome enough to make my nails feel 'me' on the day.

That's another thing of the wedding planning list:)

Hen do nails!

Ok, a tiny post today guys, but I really wanted to show you the photos of my hen do nails. The theme of my hen do was neon (inspired by a visit to a very club-tastic club I went to with one of my besties years ago in Prague) and so clearly, I needed neon nails:) I think I nailed it (ahem, scuse the dreadful punning).

These are all from the Models Own Neon Ice collection, painted over a white base to make them NEON! I thought they were a bit tame on their own though, so added glittery leopard print. I think they are the tackiest/most amazing nails I have ever had lol. 

Eeeeeep, only 9 weeks now til the wedding, so excited:)

My so called life - weddings, houses and some nail polish! Pic heavy!

Oh wow - it's been so long since I've posted as my life has been chaos! 

As I mentioned in my last post, as well as house hunting and job hunting, I'm also planning a wedding - STRESS! Things are looking up though - we've found a house we love and have had our offer accepted; it's so exciting to think that we should soon have a house that we can start a family in. On this note, I've been banned from watching One Born Every Minute as fiance is a bit worried by my obsession with babies, birth, pregnancy, nurseries..........:)

Anyhoo, I've been making all the decorations for my wedding and I thought I'd share them with you (partly as proof that I'm not just a slacker lol) so here goes;

First off, I've made buttonhole for all of the groom's party, as well as one for my Dad and one for my gay best friend who'll be in my bridal party (bride-male instead of bridesmaid?) As I'm totally obsessed with buttons, I took the term buttonhole quite literally!

I then made 4 bouquets for my bridesmaids - keeping with the button theme. These seemed to take forever! But for the last few months I've been coming home to find packets of buttons and ribbons awaiting me - sheer joy:) They've been so much fun to make.

As well as these, I've been making metres and metres of bunting - 75 metres so far, only 25 metres to go. This has been less fun than the bouquets and buttonholes - I've had to cut out a billion triangles of fabric, tack them onto the bias binding, sew them on using my sewing machine and then unpick all the tacking. Sad face. 

The craft that has given me the most joy however has been making my bridal bouquet. I knew I wanted a button bouquet as soon as I saw them on Pinterest. As much as I love flowers, it makes me sad that once they're picked they die so quickly - also, the sheer expense of them put me off! I honestly couldn't find a bouquet I liked for less than £100, and button bouquets were even more expensive, so I decided to make my own. I used broaches and buttons from my grandmother's collection and topped it up with many, many purchases from ebay! It has taken months but I'm so proud of it! Here it is................

This hasn't left much time for my nails, but I have been buying and applying, just not posting. So here's a very brief update on my nails for the past few weeks;

The gorgeous Aquatic collection by Barry M - Mediterranean, a lovely pinky-gold...... 

......the even more stunning Pacific from the same collection........LOVE.......

 ......the adorable Barry M limited edition released for Superdrug's 50th birthday (purple, white, red and pink glitter in a hot pink glitter - er, amazeballs much?!) .......

.....and the lovely White Splatter by Maybelline - this goes with EVERYTHING! If you don't already, invite it into your life, it will make almost everything better:) 

Wow - that was a long post. I'll (hopefully) be back asap peeps, thanks for baring with me for so long:) Toodle pip! 

Betty Jackson Aubergine (using up the untrieds!)

So, last week I re-sorted and re-organised my stash. I found nmuerous more untrieds (how? Where do they hide???) including this little baby. I've had this for almost two years, it must have been deliberately hiding from me!

So, this was part of a pack by Betty Jackson; this one is Aubergine, a very deep purple, perfect for this winter weather. It's very vampy (especially on the long nails I was rocking), so I decided to pretty it up with glitter! 

Hmmmm, well it applies well, dries nicely, looks good, but I can see why it had managed to hide at the back so successfully; it's meh. Not bad, not good, just meh. Even when covered with the awesomeness that it Revlon Hearts of Gold (btw, how cute it Hearts of Gold? So adorable!). 

Black and gold skittle

Ahhh, there are times when  you need leopard print and glitter - I needed it to get me through a tough week last week, so I created this little beauty.

I love it - the black is Betty Jackson black, lovely and glossy, like tar..........or marmite. Let's go with marmite, sounds more delicious:) The gold is Models Own Gold Rush and the glitter is Models Own Ibiza Mix - a total stunner, gold and blue and green glitter mixed together to form actual happiness in a bottle:) 

Have a good evening peeps, I'm off to eat home made chow mein in a late attempt to celebrate Chinese New Year! Nommmmmmmmmy:) 

GOSH Galaxy swatch

So, anyone else make a NY resolution something like "I WILL use all my untried polishes, I will!". 

Yep, me too. I thought I was ok, but then looked closely at my stock and realised I had several little beauties tucked away that hadn't seen the light of day:( Terrible. So here's an attempt to remedy that situation.....

This is Galaxy by GOSH. Now, I have to be honest, I'd thought I'd swatched. I do know that I put it on ages ago, went 'bluergh' and took it off. But that's wasn't fair to this polish, so I needed to try again. This time I'm able to see the gorgeous subtlty of this colour - especially the blue specks nestled into the matt-ish (hahahah making words up for this baby) gold/metallicness. 

I have to honest, this isn't my favourite colour of all time, but it has a certain charm and I can see it working for some pretty awesome nail art (I'm thinking gold studs?) - so it stays. One untried down, many more to go! Wish me luck.