When I met you in the summer...

Hi!

Today's Adventures in Stamping Sunday theme was summer nails, and I decided to go a bit beachy. I used to live in Cornwall and it was a few minutes drive in any direction to get to the most beautiful beaches, but now I'm pretty landlocked and I miss it. So what better way than to bring the beach to my nails! I used sooooooo many polishes for this manicure - starting with one coat of Barry Greenberry Gelly and then two of Seventeen Turquoise from their new Juicy Neon collection. To me, they don't seem very neon, but pretty summer polishes none the less. I then added a dabbed on coat of a blue glitter by Technic called Mermaid before letting that all dry with a coat of Poshe. The accent nail is Models Own Bora Bora and ELF Golden Goddess. Once that was ready I stamped seashells from Cheeky plate CH 38 in Konad white on the accent nail, and Barry M Gold Foil on the blue nails. In hinsight, I should have used white, or maybe blue, on the "sea" nails, as the stamping is hard to make out. I tehn added more Bora Bora and Golden Goddess to imitate sandy tips. It is really pretty, even though the stamping errs on the subtle side!

Pretty and sparkly summer nails!

I have a very exciting post scheduled for tomorrow morning, and you'll definitely want to check it out so see you soon!

Hx

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Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge - Maundy Thursday

Hello again!

Today is Maundy Thursday, a very religious day in the Christian calendar as it was the day of Jesus' last supper with his desciples. It's also traditionally a day that alms are collected for the poor. Short of recreating Da Vinci's Last Supper on my nails (yeah right) I had no idea what to do. So I created this simple "coin" manicure using OPI Skull and Glossbones as the base and Barry M Gold and Silver foil for the coins. As an accent nail I did a coat of gold foil and topped it with ELF Golden Goddess. And Ta Da! Alms for the poor...

I just randomly dotted the coins on, using a large dotting tool, but if I were to do it again I might place them a little less hotch potch!

On a side note, I really love Skull and Glossbones, more than I thought I would. I can't describe it but I just love how it makes my hands look. Except for the really red middle finger in these pics, what's going on with that?!

Hx

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Purple Crumpet Spring Challenge - Day 7, Spring Sunrise

Hi lovelies!

I'm going to be honest and say I had absolutely no inspiration for this whatsoever. Zero. I googled sping sunsrises and most of the images that came up were orangey peach sunrises, so I was going to do a sponged gradient - orange to peach to blue sky at the top with a few fluffy clouds. But when I looked at my oranges they were all too bright, too coral or just neon. BUT when I saw the neon I wanted to use it so I went for a very loose interpretation of a sunrise, with neon orange and gold. To create it I used a base of Barry M Gold Foil on my middle finger, taped it off in a sunburst pattern and went over it with Orly Holla. On the rest of my fingers it was Holla with 1 coat of ELF Golden Goddess.

Yeah, I told you it was loose! I actually loved it (although I only had it on one hand, which was quite distracting...) I now want more neon polish in my life... The striper tape pulled the polish underneath up a little bit, so I filled it in with a little brush, but other than that I think it worked! *LeGasp*

What do you think, sunrise-y enough?

Hx

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I dun somefing stoopit...

Well, actually my neighbour did. We don't know each other very well, but we bumped into each other at the market a few weeks ago and she noticed my pastel rainbow nails, and told me she was going to do a course on gel nails in the new year. We talked about it for a while, me saying that I'd always shied away from acrylics because of the damage, and she said that gel nails are no way near as bad and can actually protect your nails. So I agreed for her to have a 'practice' on me and in return I would show her my stamping stuff. I think I was hoping for a nail polish friend really! Anyway, she came over Wednesday night with a calcium gel nail kit (basically it means you don't need a lamp to cure it) and pretty much destroyed my nails. I'm not kidding, they're horrific. There's gel on my cuticles, they're lumpy and bumpy and soooo fat and you can see the line where the tip is attached. I think I was expecting her to file the excess gel down once they had set but she didn't. Once they were done she painted them for me (and didn't do a very good job at that either...) and I did some peacock nails for her. Don't get me wrong, we had fun, but I really wasn't expecting the outcome to be, well, so shitty... Amy used China Glaze Jolly Holly and once she'd gone I tried to cover the travesty with W7 Gold Dazzle sponged from the tips and then a coat of ELF Golden Goddess all over the nail.

I mattefied it after wearing for a day to see if that improved it. Not so much. Pretty polish, fugly ass nails.

Looking at these pictures makes me die a little bit inside. What do you think, have I ruined my nails? They were aching when I woke up the morning after she did them, but they're not so bad now. I'm really loving the length though, which makes me think I should stop being so tight and go get them done professionally, seeing as mine will not improve. When I take this mess off tonight I'm going to file them down a bit myself, see if I can make them a bit smoother for my Christmas Day manicure. Which I haven't yet decided on. I was going to use a set of foils I have, but over these lumpy bumpy claws it'd look hideous so I think I'll try stamping them...that's if I don't go insane from looking at them like this and chop my fingers off or something...

Any miracle cures out there? How can I sort this out? Besides removing them completely, which I don't have time for until after Christmas... HALP!

Hx

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31 Day Challenge - Day 21 Inspired by a colour

Earworm alert!

Since I had a few gold polishes that I hadn't tried yet (namely the Nails Inc Metallic) I decided to be inspired by gold for this challenge, and do a skittles mani of different gold polishes. On my little finger I used I coat of Barry M Gold Foil Effects (yes I caved and got it, not tried it for stamping yet but I may do tonight for the inspired by a song challenge so will keep you updated!) THe on my ring finger is 2 coats of Collection 2000 Hot Looks Parma Violet topped with 2 or 3 coats of ELF Golden Goddess. Middle Finger is Nails Inc Magnetic in Big Ben. Index is Parma Violets again with Beauty UK Disco Nights (gold shatter) and thumb is Barry M Gold Foil with 3 coats of W7 Gold Dazzle.

I really like this, it was easy to do and is quite eye catching. Although more often than not when people notice my nails they don't say anything - so not sure if that's a good thing!

Just wanted to say a few things about the Barry M gold foil. I wasn't sure on getting this as I've seen pics of it on other blogs where it looks streaky and uneven and just plain awful. Now I know my nails aren't the best, far from it in fact, but I found it easy to apply, not streaky or brushstrokey and it does look foil-y. This was one careful coat. Admittedly on my thumbs where I have a little bit of splitting it didn't look quite as perfect, but still pretty decent. So if like me you've been put off by bad swatches then don't let it deter you too much. And if you spend £6 on Barry M in Superdrug at the moment you get the new Lilac Foil Effects polish for free. I didn't spot the croc effects polish yet though...

What do you think of my Goldfingers? Another earworm? Oh, go on then...

Hx

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NOTD - Putty and glitter

Morning!

Excuse my erratic posting at the moment, I have a cold so my usual late night posts ahve been replaced with sleep, and it's my first born's 4th birthday on Monday and we have visitors etc over the weekend, so I'm not sure what I'll manage! I'll schedule a post this evening for sometime over the weekend to keep you amused!

Anyway, the untried challenge is still going strong. Today is the last day of September, and my god I'm going to splurge. But I've rehomed my untrieds into a much smaller box, and there are about half the polishes in there that were there at the start of the month. I'll do my last manicure of the challenge tonight and then have a week every month where I go through them. I'm glad it's over, and glad I did it but it was a pain when I wanted a particular colour but didn't have any! I stuck to it though and each manicure I've worn this month has had at least one polish from "the box".

The manicure I'm showing you today used two polishes, but only one I hadn't used previously. I bought a set of three icing polishes on ebay on a whim, a matte pink, a purple, and this one, a sort of pale grey colour. It reminds me of window putty (in the days before uPVC) so that's what I'm calling it. It was a pain to apply as although it was listed as new there was only about 2/3 of the bottle left and the brush didn't reach down far enough. Only needed 2 coats though. Then I topped with it ELF Golden Goddess which is gold micro glitter and gold holo hexes in a clear base.

It lasted really well, and instead of taking it off because it chipped like usual, I only took it off when I was bored of it. I should have mattefied it, but I forgot.

That's all for this morning loves, how are you all enjoying this crazy weather?! I hope it stays for Ollie's birthday on Monday!

Hx

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