Halloweenie with Charlie's Nail Art!

Hi!

We're well and truly into Autumn now, with this week seeing me digging out the boys woolly hats to replace their sun ones (and me putting on my winter coat for the first time this year resulting in a spider crawling out of the hood and making it's way down my face...eek!). I know to many of you, Halloween nails should be reserved for a few days running up to the event, but I received these glow in the dark gems from Charlie's Nail Art to review, and they just screamed halloween to me! Feeling inspired, I created these slimy nails using the gems as eyes and lumps of slime (which delighted my 7 year old!). The gems were really versatile; I turned them into eyeballs just with a dot of black polish, and they even glowed through a green jelly polish (Sinful Colors Irish Green). They need a little charge in sunlight to glow, but I was surprised that they actually needed very little and were glowing straight out of the envelope! They cost just 99p for 100 and come in white or pink.

Have these inspired you for halloween? Check out Charlie's Nail Art for more spooky nail art goodies, I'm particularly loving the cute pumpkin decals!

Hx

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Neon Stars featuring The Nail Arcade!

Hi!

Today I have some cute neon star studs from The Nail Arcade to share with you! I love anything neon on my nails, but haven't ventured into the world of neon studs yet, so these star shaped ones really appealed to me! I used a mix of the stars to accent some neon star stamping using Pueen 44 and my new Mundo de Unas stamping polishes (which I will do a separate post on soon). They were easy to apply (just popped them onto some wet topcoat, and then added another layer of topcoat to seal them in) and they've so far lasted three days with none pinging off or losing their colour! I think these are a great way to take your neon into Autumn/Winter if you want to be seasonally appropriate, and don't break the bank at just 95p for a wee bag of 50 studs. What's more, they are a UK based store, so you don't have to wait weeks for them to arrive, and you're supporting local business. Win win!

The lovely Rachel at The Nail Arcade sent me a sweet little package of goodies to try out, so you can expect more posts from me singing their praises! And in the meantime check them out on Etsy, Twitter and Facebook!

Hx

Some products in this post were provided free of charge for review purposes. As always all opinions are 100% my own. All other products were purchased myself.

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Black and white and bling: Born Pretty Store Black and White Rhinestone review

Hi!

Today I have for you some simple blinged up monochrome nails thanks to Born Pretty Store! I chose these black and white pearlescent rhinestones from their huge range because they looked just a bit different to the other studs and gems I have in my nail art stash. They come in a wheel with circle, heart and elliptic shapes of each colour and there are 200 in total. As with most rhinestones they're easy to apply - I simply used an old eyeliner pencil to pick them up and popped them into my topcoat. I didn't use topcoat over them, as I find this alters the shape a little, but they lasted a day without accident! You could go very simple or very extravagant with these, they're a really versatile nail art gem!

These are just $2.80 with free shipping worldwide, but I warn you if you go to the Born Pretty website be prepared to lose a couple of hours as it's a veritable Aladdin's cave of nail and beauty goodies. They ship from China, but these came within about 10 days and were well packaged. You can also get a further 10% off your order by using my code NBL91.

I have a few more things to share with you over the next few days too :)

Hx

The item featured was provided to me for free in exchange for a review. My opinions are 100% my own and always honest.

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Adventures in Stamping - World Music Day

Hi!

Apparently yesterday was world music day, so to celebrate this week's stamping Sunday theme was music. I decided on a bright gradient with some music notes in black for a summery look! The three polishes in the gradient were all from the Models Own Polish for Tans collection - Bikini (yellow), Beach Bag (peach) and Shades (pink) over Crabtree and Evelyn Snowdrop. The stamping was from Cheeky CH31 and I stamped with a new-to-me black - MUA Pitch Black. I usually use Konad Black, which is ever so slightly more opaque but an absolute pig to clean up. This is the only other black that I've been happy with stamping wise, and you can pick it up on the high street for a quid! I would suggest grabbing it if you see it as I've been looking for a while and kept coming up empty handed. Now I'll grab another as soon as I can!

I think keeping it simple over a bright busy base is the way to go. It looks striking without being too in your face. I really like and I'm glad it didn't chip after spending most of the day swimming today, so bonus!

Hx

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GOT Polish? Red!

Hi!

What a bad blogger I am! I promised you this post yesterday but I'm a day late again - at least it's only a day this time and not a week! I'm doing a part-time job three mornings a week (only temporary at the moment) and it's knocked me out of whack a bit. I will try to be better I promise! Anyway, this week's Golden Oldie Thursday is bought to you by the colour red, and I decided to be brave and try out a Robin Moses design. If you haven't heard of Robin Moses, google her, youtube her, stalk her on Instagram because she is awesome! I also cracked out the acrylic paint which I bought years ago, tried once and then threw into the nail art drawers when I couldn't get them to work to fester ever since. Impatient, moi? Anyway, I think I will need more practice since my lines were a little thick (and a thinner brush, maybe) but not too bad for a first (ok, second) go. The polishes I used were Nails Inc King Edward Street and China Glaze Fairy Dust in the negative spaces, along with black acrylic paint.

You can see the Robin Moses original here. I don't think she has anything to worry about...

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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GOT polish? Neon!

Hi!

I've had a bit of an unintentional blogging break for a few days, but I'm back with this weeks golden oldie for you, and the prompt was neon. I've been loving a bit of neon lately but for these nails I went for pure trash and I love it! My neon was a mini Orly in Hottie - a bright pink that looks slightly coral toned. I think it would have been brighter if I'd used white undies but I knew I'd never get it even with the chevron French tips, and that the overlay of fierce animal print would hide any visible nail line - this was three coats and the VNL was a plenty! I accented it with zebra stripes and leopard print (with glitter - China Glaze Glistening Snow - because it just needed to be more in your face...) I think this is possibly one of the loudest manis I've ever done! And I'm helping out at my sons school today...perhaps I should have changed it! I had to shorten my nails a little because of a break and I thought it was the perfect time to try the chevron tips. They're not 100% but I really like the shape.

What do you think? Tacky or timeless? I think I know the answer...

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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GOT polish? Hot pink!

Hi!

Today's Golden Oldie Thursday is feeling hot hot hot! Actually, we have had some sunshine lately, so hot pink was appropriate. After bashing the Revlon polish I used for last week's golden oldie, I actually reached for Revlon again, this time it was a shimmery fuchsia by the name of Strawberry Electric. The last time I blogged about this polish in the good old days of a pink Wednesday I might have mentioned once or twice how much the name annoyed me. Strawberry Electric? It should be Electric Strawberry surely...? Anyway, name aside this polish was actually much better than last week's coral. I used two coats and then stamped with Pueen 68 and konad black. My stamping isn't the best, so I added some black rhinestones as a distraction. Shiny...

Hot hot hot indeed! Not my favourite polish, but a great golden oldie :)

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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Green meadow flowers

Hi!

This week over at Adventures in Stamping the challenge was to stamp over green. It just so happens that I had Barry M Meadow from the Silk collection sitting in my untried drawer, and so that was the base I decided on! A super pale pearl green with a semi-matte finish, Meadow is a lovely spring colour that took 2 coats to be opaque. Not my favourite from this collection, but greens never are. I stamped over it with Pueen 39, isolating the butterfly from the larger image for the accent nail. I used Konad black pearl to stamp with and then filled the wings and hollow petals with Sinful Colors Out of this World to give them a bit of shimmery iridescence.

I am desperately low on my favourite topcoat (Poshe, in case you were wondering), and what I do have is thick and bubbly, so please excuse the messy edges. I got a little over zealous with the cleanup brush around the cuticles too... More topcoat has been ordered so normal service will be resumed shortly!

Hx

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GOT Polish? Coral!

Hi!

Today's Golden Oldie is one of my favourite colours, at least on my nails! I have a fair few coral polishes, from high end to drug store, neon to pastel. I chose a pretty polish with a troubled upbringing - I am never wowed by this brand unfortunately. Revlon Tropical Temptation is a really nice colour, but the formula leaves much to be desired - it's thin and watery, patchy and streaky, the brush is thin and stiff, I got nasty bubbles and it chipped within hours, which rarely happens to me anymore. I used three coats when it really could have done with another, but I used a fan brush to 'antique' it with some gold (Nails Inc Chelsea Bridge Road). I love how coral and gold goes together and originally had planned a skittle. Instead I stamped a lock and key on my ring finger, which sort of matched the antique theme.

Not wowed by this, but maybe it was the polish that put me off. Revlon are the higher priced end of the high street for me, but I think I got this one at a discount store. Good job really...

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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GOT polish? Valentines!

Morning!

This weeks Golden Oldie Thursday theme is Valentines, which fits nicely with my theme week! I based my idea on a cute design by Nicole at Nail Polish Wars and busted out the crackle polish! I started with a base of Essie Mojito Madness, then marbled it using the cling film/saran wrap method and Essie Bikini So Teeny (basically paint a coat of the polish over your original colour, then dab some off with scrunched up cling film). Once that was completely dry I painted a coat of Barry M black crackle on my ring finger and cut a stencil out of tape for the heart on my middle finger.

I think I should have used a purple instead of lilac, but otherwise I'm happy. And it was pretty simple too. Win win.

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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Studs and Roses

Hi!

I was in the mood for roses, and I won some of Mr Barry M's new matte polishes from the lovely Lane's Laquers, so I decided to combine the two and throw some studs at it for good measure! I used Vanilla and Espresso, stamped with Konad Black and plate BM 323 for the roses. The stripes were freehanded and came out somewhat thicker than I wanted, and none of it was topcoated to keep the matte effect. But this also meant that 6 out of the 8 studs pinged off while I was getting my eyebrows threaded...

I don't know, but it kinda reminded me of Robyn Thicke when Miley Cyrus ground her rubber clad but against his groin. Not pleasant. I liked it enough but it didn't last the day... Vanilla is going to be a favourite though. What do you think?

Hx

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Palate Cleanser of the Week - Models Own Emerald Black

Hello!

This week's palate cleanser is this beauty from Models Own. Emerald Black is part of their Beetlejuice collection of duochromes, which they add to every now and again. At first glance, it looks like just a pearly black, but under the right light it shifts green with a tinge of blue. In sun, the green really glows and makes it really special. Shown here is two easy coats, plus Jacava London topcoat.

Pretty :) The one thing I find with Models Own polishes is that they have that smell. The slight headache inducing, definitely not big 3 free kinda smell, but if you can overlook that they have a huge range and are always on top of the trends. I really like Emerald Black and think it would be a great base for some stamping ;)

Hx

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