Adventures in stamping - Just keep swimming...

Bonjour!

This weeks Sunday stamping theme was to base your mani on a new summer dress, swimsuit or shoes, and it just so happens that I got myself a new swimsuit a few weeks ago! Now, before you close your browser tabs in horror at the thought of seeing me in a cossie, don't worry, the internet is not ready for that, so you'll have to make do with the nails!

I started with a base of Barry M Cobalt, and then stamped on the white dots and bow before adding stripy tips. They pretty much came out how I envisioned, which makes a change!

I think I've broken a record for blog posts this week ;) Half term coming up though so I'm not making any promises!

Hx

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Lychee and Lace

Hi! What a good blogger I've been this week! Makes a change...

Anyway, good ole Barry M has been a busy bee bringing us lots of lovely goodies for summer, and along with the nail art pens the other day I also picked up one of the new gelly shades, Lychee. It's a lovely, creamy nude that's perfect for my skintone - I sometimes find nudes make me look either dead or lobster but this is just warm enough without bringing out the red in my skin. Two coats of creamy perfection. But of course I couldn't leave it plain and added some simple lace using the nail art pen, and black rhinestones. Simples.

I'm off for a bath after a hard days shopping, and then I'm going to work on tomorrow's adventures in stamping mani, so see you then!

Hx

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May Tri Polish Challenge day 2 - random stamping

Hi!

I've had a busy day today, and I joined my local gym! Scary stuff! But the very nice (read: fit) instructor complimented me on these nails, which kinda made my day :) But it also meant I had to explain the concept of stamping while huffing and puffing on a treadmill...

Anyway, for this manicure I didn't have an idea in my tiny little mind until I sat down and did it. I started with a base of China Glaze Want My Bawdy then randomly brushed on bits of Immortal and Bend Over Backwards with the brush almost dry. Once that had had a coat of topcoat I stamped a random wiggly design from Cheeky XL C with Barry M Silver Foil.

Here's the base before I went and stamped all over it ;)

Love this image, hopefully I can grow my nails out a bit so you can see more of it!

Hx

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Black-and-white always looks modern, whatever that word means...

Hi!

Today's blog post comes to you courtesy of Barry M and his fabulous new nail art pens. May the cack-handed among us rejoice! These babies are virtually fool-proof. My previous attempts at tribal prints have been, well, pathetic to say the least. But as soon as I got these babies out of the packet, the pattern magically appeared on my nails, they're THAT good! Ok, so they're not THAT good, but pretty damn close... I started with black and white bases and then went to town with the black and white pens.

I even managed my left hand, albeit slightly more uneven!

I would highly recommend these pens, you can't really go wring with them. They come in black, white, silver and pink and cost £4.99 each wherever you can get Barry M. I want MOAR colours!!!

Hx

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May Tri Polish Challenge day 1 - Nubs and Roses

See what I did there? Do ya? Ok....let's move on.

So, the tri polish challenge has rolled around again and this month's colours are grey, red and blue. I wanted to challenge myself, so didn't chose "easy" colours - they're all shimmers, fairly dark and not what I'd usually use for nail art. All three are China Glaze - Want My Bawdy (blue), Immortal (grey) and Bend Over Backwards (red).

I'm babying my peely pointers, so still sporting nubs, and I've wanted to do a floral mani for a while. I used Immortal as the base (amazingly pretty grey with blue and pink flecks of yum) then striped with Want Your Bawdy and added the splodgy roses with Bend Over Backwards. The detail on the roses was done with Barry M's new black nail art pen.

There we are, TPC number one for May :) Now I just have to come up with 3 more!

Hx

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Starry Skittle Sunday!

Hi all!

It's Sunday and that means stamping! Today's Adventures in Stamping theme was over a skittle base (where each nail is painted a different colour) and my favourite kind of skittles are neon skittles! I used the Models Own Ice Neon collection for my base and then layered a coat of Australis Speck-tacular, a flaky topcoat, over them before stamping stars from QA18 (an ebay purchase) with Konad Black. I layered the neons over white to make them pop a little more, but honestly the formula on these is so good I don't think it made much difference, apart from on the yellow.

Konad black is so messy to clean up, so I apologise that they're a little scruffy but I liked them :) Lots of compliments too, which is always nice!

The Tri Polish challenge for this month is starting this week, so I promise to get some mid-week posts up! Looking forward to this month, I've picked some tricky colours ;)

Hope your weekend has been kind! Hangover central here today - what Sundays are made for!

Hx

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Nub nub nub!

Hello!

Over the weekend I managed to break two nails - not super low but they were flaky corners so I decided on a cull and chopped them all short! I was dreading it, but am actually loving my neat little nubs for once. They're all even, tidy, no splits or peels, easier to stamp and I'm at less risk of poking the children's eyes out when I wipe their faces. Win win.

Anyway, to celebrating the nubbing, I wore this very special polish my birthday club friend Ashley made me. Yep. MADE me. Just me, all mine! And it's so pretty! Holo, sparkles, flakies and purple. Perfection! And we even got some sunshine on bank holiday Monday to show it off with. Lots of pics ahead...

In shade you can see the flakes of goodness...

With flash the holo sparkles peep out...

And then in sunshine struts it's stuff!

Thank you so much Ashley, my very own polish named after me :)

Hx

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Stamping Sunday - Lilac Love!

Afternoon! I'm suffering with a hangover today, so I'm going to spare you my misery and keep this brief! This week's AIS challenge was to use a lilac base, and I went for OPI You're such a Buda-pest. Such a pretty polish, but yes, it was a pest! Very thin and watery - this was three coats but could have done with at least one more - since I only have a mini I was not impressed! And it chipped awfully too. On the accent nails I used Dollish Polish I Triple Dog Dare Ya!, which is now officially my favourite silver/holo glitter. Yum! I kept it simple with silver stamping to go with the very subtle (aka invisible) silver shimmer in the base.

Hx

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