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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GOT Polish? Totally Tropical!

Hi!

Today's Golden Oldie theme was tropical, and I thought I'd try my hand at a little stamping decal again! My golden oldies were China Glaze Peachy Keen and Color Club Poptastic (should have used Flip Flop Fantasy really!) I also used Milani Gold Gems and Sinful Colors Paris for a little glitter gradient. Don't look too closely at the decal, it folded over at the edge and smeared a little bit. I will perfect them one day!

Fits the tropical bill, no? I loved the gradient despite the little decal accident! I really can't wait for summer, I can't stop cracking out the neons! My pedi is even neon in readyness for real flip flops!

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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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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Pretty & Polished Cuttlefish

Hello!

Helly the lemming slayer strikes again! This polish has been on my wishlist ever since it came out last spring, and I finally got my grubby little mits on it and straight on the nails it went! Cuttlefish is a thermal glitter polishes that changes from a mid-teal blue when cold to a lighter teal/aqua when warm, with green and blue glitter added in the mix. I just love how more glitter is revealed when the polish is warm, like it's come out of hibernation! I used two coats, and then two of topcoat because it is a little thick and bumpy, but I had no problems with application. The accent finger is Sinful Colors Snow Me White stamped with MoYou Sailor 04 and Color Club Perfect Mol-ten. LOVED this manicure. I wore it to Ikea and kept bumping into things because I couldn't stop looking to see if it had morphed! And because I'm a klutz...

Such prettyness! I want MOAR thermals!

Hx

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GOT Polish? Stripes!

Hi!

Second instalment of Golden Oldie Thursday and the theme is stripes. I kind of shot myself in the foot here because I used purple and that's next weeks theme, so I shall have to find more old purples for that... I'm sure I'll manage ;) For this manicure I used OPI DS Temptation and Sinful Colors Amethyst, both of which were gifts from over a year ago (they have been worn though!) I then put down some striping tape on the Amethyst nails and stamped over it, creating stripes within the stamp. I used quite a "busy" pattern from Bundle Monster 201 with Barry M Silver Foil. If you're a regular reader you'll know I'm not a whizz at striping tape manis, but this went without a hitch for once! I went with a coat of Beauty UK Pinkabloo on my thumbs, which is an OPI Polka.com dupe.

I like how subtle the stripes are, and I love Amethyst. It's my perfect purple :)

Hx

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The closest I'll ever get to a pair of Louboutins...

Hi!

Happy New Year! I hope you're not suffering the dreaded wine flu too much... I was totally rock and roll and saw the new year in with a cup of tea. 2013 was an utter bastard to me, so I'm glad it's over. Anyway, here are the nails I saw the new year in with! I've wanted to do this ever since I saw it on Adele at the Grammys my nails are long enough now, yay! I went for classic black and red and used two coats of Barry M Blood Orange with a nail art brush on the underside of my nails (on top of base coat - no staining here please!) and Sinful Colors Black On Black on the top. I topped the whole lot, top and bottom, with Poshe to make it shine and rocked my Louboutins...

Sadly, this is the closest I'll ever get to a pair of Louboutins, unless 2014 is the year I win the lottery. That means that 2014 would also have to be the year I start buying lottery tickets...

Hx

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33 Day Challenge day 18 - featuring two patterns!

Morning! 

Today's mani was a bit random for me. I love me a skittle, so 2 patterns in a skittle would normally be my perfect manicure, but I just felt it was a bit garish with ALL the glitter. Got lots of love from people though, so what do I know lol. I used a combination of W7 Gold Dazzle and Sinful Colors Paris for the gold, and the pink and blue are Beauty UK Gel Effects Pink Orchid and Sally Hansen Model Behaviour.

The next challenge is to follow a tutorial, and I haven't found one yet so off I go!

Hx

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33DC Day 14 - Abstract!

Morning!

We're well into the 33 day challenge now, and I feel like I'm having more wins than losses...hopefully that will continue! I was pretty pleased with today's offering. Let's face it, "Abstract" gives you a pretty broad spectrum to work with, so I googled around a bit and came up with this.

Kind of based on this abstract pattern...

 I wanted more of an ombre effect so I used shades of the same colour on each nail, starting with the darkest. It perhaps would have worked better if I'd started with the lightest, but I wanted the triangle at the bottom to be dark like in the picture.

I used 15 different polishes for this design - a sure sign I have way too much! Mr NN saw the box full I was using and joked that I'd never be able to hold them all for the photos. Smartass.

Listed from dark to light:
Purple (Pinkie) - No7 Violetta, Sinful Colors Amethyst, OPI Parlez Vous OPI
Red (Ring) - Nails Inc Victoria, Tate, King Edward Street
Blue (Middle) - 2True Shade 10, Nails Inc Baker Street, Models Own Feeling Blue
Green (Index) - China Glaze Holly Day, Nails Inc Eden Grove, OPI Stranger Tides
Monochrome (Thumb) - Sinful Colors Black on Black, Beauty UK Slate, Beauty UK Soft Grey

A fairly easy design, although it took me a long time it was satisfying and simple to do (I just freehanded in layers, no tape here!)

Abstract enough?

Hx

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A bird in the hand...

Hi,

It's been a tough weekend here, so no waffle today, just the nails. Today's adventures in stamping theme was over a black base. I wasn't feeling very inspired so I went for some simple cats n birds from MoYou Kitty 11 with Konad Special White on Sinful Colors Black on Black. I rarely use single images so it made a nice change.

Hx

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