China Glaze Red Essence swatch + furry invasion!

Happy Thursday peeps; it's sooooooooooooooo almost the weekend:) My wine is cooling in the fridge............

I hope you've had a great week, I've been wedding dress shopping so I'm afraid I'm a bit behind on posting, apologies. Anyhoo, I have for you today the perfect Christmas polish, Red Essence by China Glaze, a red shimmery polish with orange-y undertones. 

 This polish went on beautifully, dried quickly and is such a gorgeous colour........but it really is a Christmassy colour, so it's going in the box until December, when it will be cracked open and worn frequently:)

Whilst this polish went on smoothly, photographing this it was much harder than usual due to my little furry friend. 

Subtle.

 Scoping the situ.

 Finding that sweet spot........

 Success!

Naughty fur baby!

Gratuitous Kitty Piccies Part 4

Never........drinking.......again........GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So, I went out and raved, as my neon nails had put me in the mood to party. I drank. I now feel AWFUL. 

But Boo has been cheering me up.......

Meanwhile Smoky has been desperate to be photographed, to the extent that he sat in my photobox!

Happy Caturday, feat. Cherry Blossoms.

Hey peeps, anyone else thinking the tag line for this post sounds like a remixed version of some dodgy 90s song? Lol:) Anyway, let me explain.....

The Caturday part comes from some VERY exciting news. As you may know, we lost our beloved cat Monty before Christmas. We were heartbroken, and so was our other cat, Boo. She's been moping around the house for a while now, and seems so lonely. So we've adopted another cat to keep her company. Introducing.....................

Smoky!

He's so soft and cute, and also loves cuddles. He and Boo are still sussing each other out, but all seems well:) 

And now onto the second part of this post; actual nails! I loved the 2True polish I was wearing yesterday so much I decided to try a bit of nail art on them. I'm pleased with these as a first attempt, but keen to try them again and improve them - maybe more cherry blossom, and a lighter branch, black seemed a bit harsh.

Have a lovely day peeps:)

Leibster award!

Well hello my lovelies, we are now more than half way through the week and my mid week excitement is..............that the lovely Alexandria at A girl and her chicken named Betty has nominated me for the Leibster award. As I was fortunate enough to be nominated a short while ago, and nominated my excellent eleven here, I hope people won't mind is I don't repeat myself.

However, I will answer Alexandria's questions, and urge you to visit her blog - A girl and her chicken named Betty, go now, NOW I tell you, the mix of lovely nails, whimsical musings and chickens will make your day!

So here goes; 

If you could spend a day with any fictional character, who would it be?

Hmmmmm, I think I'd go Cher from Clueless - because isn't it most girls dream to have that wardrobe?

What is your favourite type of polish (creme, crackle, magnetic, holo, etc.)?

I have to say, I'm a sucker for a good, traditional creme. 

What is your favourite planet of star (I consider Pluto a planet)?

Saturn - gorgeous colour, and so majestic.

If you could go anywhere for a day where would you go?

Hogwarts - come on, who wouldn't want to meet Prof. McGonagell and study Defence against the Dark Arts?!

Pie or cake?

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake! 

Where is your favourite place to relax?

In my bed, with a good book:) 

If you could be any animal what would you be?

Cat. I need to sleep. All cats do is sleep. Ergo, I would be a cat. 

If you had a million dollars pop into your life what would you buy first? (we're being greedy here, so something for you).

Go travelling - Japan, Canada, Antarctica, in that order. 

What is your favourite movie?

Clueless - see answer to first question.

Donald Duck or Daffy Duck?

Er - I'm not sure I'm fussed with either of them, can I go for rubber duck?

What inspired you to start your blog?

I started painting my nails and wanted a way to record what I'd done.

So, that's a little bit about me:) I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week peeps:) As this was rather text heavy, I'll leave you with a gratuitous kitty shot! 

Boo, having a think. Probably about food!

Kitty nails

Aaaaaaaaaaah - sweet Saturday relaxing:) I've had a chilled day (woke up at 11, rolled out of bed at 12, dressed at 1 - sweeeeeeeet) and so was keen to do something as chilled on my nails. Sitting on my sofa, dressing gown on, mug of coffee in hand, feet up, I looked around and realised that the only things more chilled than I were Boo and Monty. Given their life involves doing sod all, occasionally waking up to lick a paw/be fed/nip outside,  I thought they deserved a nail tribute to their amazing life. So here is it - kitty nails!

This is over one of my favourite colours, Barry M Pink Iridescent. I layered it over Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, my Glamour magazine freebie polish, to give it a more intense pink colour. The kitty and assorted kitty parts are various nail art pens. 

And talking of kitties - well Hello Kitty! The pictures below show Respect from the Hello Kitty collection (found in Superdrug). At £5 a bottle, and an unknown entity, I was a bit worried. However, my fears were unfounded - how flipping gorgeous is this colour?!!!!!! Simply amazeballs! It dried quickly, has a gorgeous sheen, glossy even without topcoat, good brush making application easy, and only needed 2 coats. I shall be buying more from this collection asap!

Cute, cute, cute! I would really have bought this for the bottle alone:) Enjoy the rest of your weekend peeps.

P.s. Models Own Wonderland Collection swatches coming soon.  

Bits and bobs, and the worst polish EVER!

Urghhh, I'm hanging, went out last night and drank a little bit too much. Which would have been fine if I'd then been able to sleep, eat carbs and nap throughout the day whilst watching crappy TV, but sadly I was forced by bf to go to his niece's Christening, which was jam packed full of wailing babies and screeching toddlers. Urgh. It was a bucket of cold water over my ovaries, I can tell you!

Anyway, enough whining, looking through my photos I realised that I has several random swatches that I hadn't posted, so here's a few of those bad boys for your viewing pleasure.

This lovely duck egg blue is part of an Accessorize multi pack on sale in Superdrug. This was the one that convinced me to be honest, there were some nice pinks on the pack as well (9 polishes altogether) and some nice looking glitters, but this sold it to me. Considering the tiny size of the bottle, the brush was fine and the quality was the normal Accessorize quality. This is two coats, tbh it probably needed 3, but I really loved this colour. Think it will be more of a summer polish, but couldn't resist trying:) Boo seemed to like it too!

This was another polish from the multi pack. It is EVIL! It looked so promising, full of small and large pieces of green glitter. There I was thinking, brill, another Christmassy polish to keep December sparkly and shiny. So I popped it on for a sneak preview......argh! Good grief, it was dreadful. It clumped, the brush was dreadful and removing it..............................I'm still trying to removed green glitter from my cuticles:( Awful. 

Thankfully this is a very good polish. I'm actually in love with this polish. I only bought it as part of a 3 for 2 offer in Boots, it caught my eye and tbh I wasn't sure at first. I liked it, but I thought it might be a bit old ladyish, or one of those dreadful sheer things that need 453 coats just to get a bit of coverage. But once it was on my nails - love at first sight. This is only two coats, it's a really gorgeous colour and I feel it will be featuring regularly on my nails. It's my first Max Factor polish  but after this I'll be keeping an eye on their new colours. 

And this is just a flipping cute photo. Monty (left) and Boo (right) posing for a photo:)

 

Children in Need nails and kitty crimes!

Hi de hi peeps, hope you've had a good weekend and are looking forward to an awesome weekend?

My workplace get's very into Children in Need, so I spent today working in my pyjamas, laughing at my equally oddly clad collegues - it's very odd when you have to talk to someone about something serious, and they're wearing a onesy! 

Anyway, I thought my nails should look as ridiculous as the rest of me, so voila! Based on Pudsey's bandanna  I'm pretty pleased with them, I even managed to relax enough to do random dots, rather than strictly lined ones:) 

I finally found a use for a lovely creamy colour by Nails Inc, called Old Queen Street. It's got a lovely golden shimmer throughout it, but is a bit of a mare to wear - this is 4 coats to achieve opacity, it would probably work great as part of a traditional French manicure though, and does dry quickly.  The dots are various Barry M colours, applied with the end of a kirby grip (still not got around to buying a dotting tool!)

****************************************************************

You haven't had any gratuitous kitty photos for a while, so I thought I'd treat you with a shocking expose of Monty's secret guilty pleasure - stealing MY water!

Contemplating the crime....

Attempting the crime.....

Commiting the crime!

 Yuk!

Sad news

This isn't a nail post, but a sad post. You may have noticed that I'm a cat lover. I've always had cats, and grew up with three of the best; Rufus, Molly and Boots. All daft as a brush, all greedy as pigs, all guaranteed to make you laugh at the end of a long day. Molly and Rufus passed away several years ago, but until recently Boots, the youngest, was going strong. Living with my parents back home she was thoroughly spoilt for cuddles and milk.

Sadly, my poor little Boots had to be put to sleep today. It's a very odd feeling, knowing that it was the right decision, because despite that it is a horrible one.

So, if you have a glass (wine, ribena, water), then raise it to Boots. Never again will she trip me over when I stagger back home, trying to pretend to my parents that I'm not drunk, and raise the alarm by meowing so loudly that people assume a foghorn has been sounded. I will miss her x

Gratuitous kitty photo Part 2

I cannot actually bring myself to take of my gradient/leopard print nails, so I thought I'd post another gratuitous kitty photo. But this time, there are two of the cuties! Whoop whoop. My poor boyfriend wasn't allowed to move last night, as he was the new 'best place to sit' :) 

Gratuitous kitty photo

This is my cat Monty. He is AWESOME. Some people don't believe me, but then they meet him and after 2 or 3 minutes they agree. This is because he is a bit magic (or maybe just ridiculously cute and adept at manipulating humans). He was a rescue cat, found looking after two other homeless kittens, even though they were not his. Despite the fact that, in the picture below, he is staring at me in disgust because I have arrived home tipsy and am trying to sleep on his sofa, he is still stupidly cool. Cooler than I will ever be. Enjoy.