Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink...

Hello!

Before we get to the nails, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all my readers and followers - I've hit 100,000 page views on the blog! It's taken a long time, thanks to technical issues and several breaks from blogging, but I promise this time I'm going to try to keep it up! Thank you everyone :) I hope every single person who peeks at my blog enjoys reading it as much as I like writing it.

Now, onto today's Stamping Sunday manicure - based on water. I used Revlon Royal - a lovely squishy royal blue jelly, and paired it with a very special UK indie polish - Peace Is Free by Quirk. Peace is Free is a mix of neon purple and blue hexes which glow under a blacklight! I don't have a blacklight to prove it, but check out Quirk's Facebook page for more pics and updates. Once that was all dry I stamped these silver waves from MoYou London Sailor 03 in Barry M Silver Foil.

Then I experimented and added another thin layer of Royal over the stamping to create a stamping jelly sandwich. I think Royal is a teeny bit too opaque but I liked the subtle effect!

Hope you've had a nice weekend :) The 33 day challenge continues tomorrow!

Hx

Pin It

NOTD – Shopping the stash for a new look...

Hello!

After taking off China Glaze Flying Dragon (Neon-that-isn't) I wanted something soft and pretty (I don't do soft and pretty very often...) on my nails for a while. I've seen some lovely things done with the new OPI New York Ballet polishes – milky jellies and a glitter topcoat, but I don't have any and my bank balance is less than healthy at the moment, so I decided to try and create something similar with what I already have. You Callin' Me a Lyre? is the pink jelly from the collection and I decided to try and recreate it by using a coat of Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, topped with Bourgois Rose Lounge. Rose Lounge is a sheer milky pink, which apparently is one of the polishes worn by K-Mid on her wedding day to Prince Billy. Apparently. Anyway, a coat of that over the Barry M made a more or less opaque crelly-like soft pink, not exactly the same as You Callin' Me a Lyre, but as close as I was going to get. I then added a coat of Revlon Stunning, in place of Pirouette My Whistle from the OPI collection, added another layer of Rose Lounge and then mattefied it all with 17 Nail Xtras Matte topcoat.

 

Before I mattefied it...

Exactly what I wanted, and without having to buy anything new! Ok, so if I had bought the polishes especially for this manicure it probably would have come in at about the same cost as two ebay-sourced OPIs (Barry M £2.99, Revlon £6.49 and Bourgois around £6) but since I had them already it cost nothing. Chuffed. I hoping that the Rose Lounge will have the same effect over some other pale crème polishes so that I might be able to recreate the grey and lavender OPI soft shades from the NY Ballet collection.

Do you have any of the NY ballet polishes? Did I get close?

Hx

Pin It

Purple Crumpet Spring Challenge - Representing Light and Ticker Tape Parade

I missed yesterday, and decided to combine two posts into one - I did do yesterday's mani - which was to represent light - but I wasn't happy with it and couldn't get good photos. It seems one of my adorable children have played with my camera and I can't get the settings right again, so prepare yourselves fr some blurry assed photos! That plus the baby having tonsillitis and spending most of Easter Sunday at the emergency doctors meant I had no energy for blogging! The photos for my ticker tape parade are slightly better, so keep reading for those.

Firstly, I couldn't think of anything better than a crapton of glitter to represent light! I used two coats of Barry M Lilac Foil and then topped it with Color Club It's a Hit, which I won in a giveaway from Pointless Cafe - thank you Sheila! It's a hit has large lilac hex glitters in a clear base and you really have to work at getting them spread evenly. It really is packed with glitter, but this means they clump together and you have to dab them onto the nail. It also means though that you can get pretty good coverage, and I used 3 dabbed coats to make an accent nail on the ringfinger. I thought it would be bumpy and annoying but it only took one coat of Poshe to make it smooth and I wore it for two days before the temptation to pick it off took over! Once again, I'm so sorry for the bad photos, I'm almost ashamed to post them but I don't want to miss a day of the challenge so close to the end!

And for my ticker tape parade, I went ofr my first ever jelly sandwich! I have wanted Revlon Royal for a little while now, so when I saw it in a blog sale I snatched it up. Can you say perfect blue? It's a beautiful, perfect squishy royal blue, and I can't wait to use it under Fantasy Fire. But first I tried layering some bar glitter in between two layers of it. I'm not a huge bar glitter fan, I think it looks a bit hairy and weird, but I can cope with it like this! I used Kleancolor Grand Finale, holo silver bar glitter, and Meteorites Vulcan Probe, lilac, purple and fuchsia bar glitter. It wasn't super visible until you caught it in the right light and then it popped!

I actually ended up accidentally wearing something really chocolatey yesterday! I'm off to throw my camera at a hard thing until I can get a decent picture of it for you...

Happy Easter!

Hx

Pin It