Loves Me, Loves Me Not?

Hi!

I haven't done a Stamping Sunday manicure for a few weeks and this week over at Adventures in Stamping we had two themes to chose from - Valentines day or Love and Hate. I did a bit of both, and I must say I'm rather pleased with my effort! I started with a base of OPI If You Moust You Moust - a mid-pink creme. I then stamped on love hearts (the little sweeties!) in pastel colours by mixing Konad White Polish with primary coloured polish. I have sooo many pastel polishes, but I didn't think any of them would stamp opaque enough. It was really easy to do, too - I just put a blob of the stamping polish on my plate, then a smaller blob of the colour polish and mixed them with a nail art brush before scraping and stamping as usual. The polishes I mixed were Orly Lucky Duck, Sinful Colors Amethyst, Nails Inc Notting Hill Carnival, Orly Shockwave and If You Moust You Moust again. The plate I used was Bundle Monster 421, which has two versions of the love hearts - the usual, lovely dovey ones (lover, cutie pie, crazy 4u etc) and not so lovey dovey ones, which I stamped on my right hand (stalker, go away, don't call me, dumped, and my personal favourite, not tonight!). Please excuse the lumpy thumbs, they both have patches that I'm struggling to get smooth.

I think the stamping on the "mean" side came out better, but I don't actually mind the miss-stamping because I think it looks like the real sweets. Or that's my excuse anyway...

I'm starting a little Valentines week tomorrow, so check back for that!

Hx

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It's So Fluffy, I'm Gonna Die!!!

Hi!

We're big Despicable Me fans in my house, and so I had to have Dollish Polish It's So Fluffy I'm Gonna Die for the name alone. Actually, I wasn't keen on the colour when I saw swatches so really I did just buy it for the name. That's bad, isn't it? Anyway, when it arrived I really did like it more than I thought I would, as it's much more complex than it seems. I had a bit of an indie fest for this manicure, pairing It's So Fluffy with Lacquerdaisical Unicorn Poo, and stamping a unicorn from Nailz Craze NC02. I actually think Unicorn Poo is the star of the show here - it's a glitter packed topper full of holo micro glitter, holo shards, bar glitter, hexes, stars and black hexes. I started with a base of OPI Pink Friday, then two coats of It's So Fluffy on pinkie and pointer, two coats of Unicorn Poo on ring finger and thumb, and stamped the unicorn on my middle finger with Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Speedy Sunburst.

It soooo pink! And if you haven't seen Despicable Me and don't get the unicorn/fluffy references, sort your self out and go and see it! Seriously, if grumpy Mr NN who usually only watches car shows and bloke things can stand watching it 20 thousand times since we got it on DVD at Christmas then you know it's good!

Hx

Laquerdaisical Unicorn Poo was a PR sample provided to me for free for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own and 100% honest. Please see my disclaimer in the tab above for further details. All other products featured were purchased myself.

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GOT Polish? Green!

Hi!

Today's Golden Oldie Thursday is bought to you by the colour green! Zoya Apple was my green of choice, and it's just so, well, appley! If appley isn't a word, it should be. I'm sad my lighting wasn't better for these pics because it has a lovely delicacy in the sun. I'm also sad that green doesn't seem to suit me, which is possibly why I don't wear this polish more. I stamped some retro-looking wibbly squares on top. Groovy baby.

Hx

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OPI Pure 18k White Gold and Silver Topcoat

Hi!

As it was my birthday over the weekend I treated myself to a couple of special polishes (wouldn't be a birthday if I didn't, right?) and this was one of them. I popped my Sally's cherry and dished out £8.70 on it from the clearance section! It would be stupid not to, right? I wanted it since it came out, but the full price of £30ish is crazy money for one polish to me (I could feed the 4 of use for a week on that if I had to!) but 8 quid is more justifiable. I got the gold version for Christmas last year, and I actually think this is better. The formula isn't as thick and there seems to be more flakes in this one. Anyway, here it is over two coats of NYC Purple Pizzazz. Yum!

I haven't stopped looking at my nails all day! Well, more so than usual. I do tend to look at them quite a lot anyway...

Hx

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Off-Topic Tuesday - Vanish Gold

Hi!

When I'm not painting my nails, playing with make-up and beauty products and generally gallivanting around being glamorous, I'm a Mummy of two crazy boys! Probably the least glam job in the world, but I love it. One thing I do not love however, is the sheer amount of laundry two small boys produce. I thank the laundry fairy daily for my washing machine, which seems to be constantly on, but still it's sometimes not enough to get stains out of clothes. And there are stains aplenty. Bzzagent* sent me some Vanish Gold powder to try, and we all had a bit of a laugh when a pack of beetroot and a pipette fell out of the box! Vanish Gold promises stain removal in just 30 seconds, and so I gave it a try. Armed with a small boy's white vest (pre-stained with chocolate milk), I did as instructed and squirted 5 (or so...) drops of beetroot juice onto the vest, then mixed some of the powder with warm water in the scoop provided, ,before pouring it onto the stain and rubbing with the bottom of the scoop for 30 seconds. Apparently the bobbles on the bottom of the scoop help the product to penetrate into the fabric. Once that was done, there was barely any beetroot left, just a slight yellow mark on the fabric, so I threw it in the wash with my usual detergent and another scoop of Vanish in the drawer and sat down with a beetroot sarnie...

Pre-beetroot

Oopsie!

Slight yellow mark before washing

 I washed as usual, 40 degrees with bio washing powder and a scoop of Vanish Gold. Every trace of the stain vanished! Even the dried in chocolate milk which I hadn't pre-treated.

All clean!

I've been adding a scoop of this to every white wash I've done since, and I have to say I have noticed that my whites are looking brighter. My eldest son has white polo shirts for school which I can never get clean, and it's even faded some stubborn ink stains. There are a few things to note though; as you can see I struggled to get the granules to completely dissolve and my washing machine did too. Putting a scoop into the drawer is what Vanish recommends, but when I opened the drawer for the next load I found a big lump of it that hadn't dissolved and had set rock solid. I have had this problem before with other similar products and usually get around it by putting the powder straight into the drum, but it is worth making a note of. Secondly, I didn't test what would happen if I let the beetroot stain set before pre-treating it, so I can't vouch for dried in stains of that kind. And I ate the beetroot. Yum!

Do you have any stain removal tips and tricks? Are you a parent of small boys too? Just how do they manage to produce so much laundry? And only ever one sock from each pair...

Hx

*I'm a Bzzagent and was supplied with the opportunity to experience the product featured. All opinions are my own and unbiased. Please see the disclosure tab above.

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Tri-Polish Tuesday - Pink, Brown and Grey #1 - taped tips

Hi!

I'm excited about this month's TPC colours - pink, brown and grey. There just seems to be more options than last month - you can go pastel, neon etc without changing the colours whereas red is red so options are limited. Anyway, for the first challenge I kept it simple and went for a brown base in the form of Barry M Mocha and taped some elongated glitter trianges in Models Own Pink Fizz, a lovely rosey pink glitter. I'm really loving simple designs like this on my almonds, I should do them more often! My pictures again aren't fabulous, we're in the midst of 100 days of rain here in the UK it seems, so I have to apologise that they're more than a little dingy.

Next weeks TPC will be valentines themed! See you then!

Hx

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Happy Birthday to me!

Hi!

It was my birthday on Saturday, and my nails celebrated with a bit of glitter! It wasn't a 'milestone' birthday (I turned 32...not sure how I feel about that...) and so it was just a quiet one with my family. For the manicure I used three coats of Bourjois Rose Lounge, a sheer pretty pink, and two different gold glitters for the tips: Milani Gold gems and an un-named gold micro glitter. The accent nail is stamped with Barry M Gold Foil and an image from Pueen 45.

I had convinced my self when I was planning this manicure that I had OPI Bubble Bath in my stash, but I've never actually owned it. Do you ever do that? Think you have a polish but don't? I felt really dumb when I realised! Dementia must be setting in... Anyway, I think this worked just as well in the end!

Hx

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