And here’s my last Christmassy manicure. If you’ll excuse the chips and wear, I’d be grateful - didn’t get to take a picture till 10 days in!
This was China Glaze Glittering Garland with Andrea Fulerton striping polish in white stamped over with a Bundle monster plate snowflake. This needed more glitter.
Filed under konad, nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!, notd
So, here’s my Christmas manicure! It’s using Zoya Sooki, with a coat of OPI’s Getting Miss Piggy with it on all the fingers except the ring finger. I then used tape and Model’s Own Sterling Silver in a shameless copy of a tutorial I picked up on Pinterest by Nailside. Topped it all off with a couple of diamantes (because I’m just that classy) and a couple of coats of Seche Vite. A week later and my diamantes are still stuck firm.
Also featuring in this pic is my Christmas present from the husband – a set of three handmade 22 carat gold rings with gorgeous ruby, sapphire and emerald stones. I loooove them, and they match the gold of my wedding ring. 
I’ve got some posts backed up with other recent manis so I’ll get posting over the next few days before I’m back to school!
Filed under fashion, nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!
I painted my nails especially for my birthday. These were OPI The one that got away stamped with Orly Luxe using Konad M57 – leopard print, and then a coat of China Glaze Golden Enchantment – a gold holographic glitter. And again, everything is topped with a big old layer of Seche Vite, the shiny glossy topcoat of the gods.
Clearly my tastes are not so refined. I’ve used all these polishes/stamps before so nothing was a surprise except that it appears I can’t keep a patch of nail polished on my middle finger of my left hand – it just keeps chipping off there. Very weird. Again, I couldn’t find my SD card and I wanted to get a photo before I ruined them, hence the stamping excess all over my fingers. I love how well Luxe stamps.
As for what I did for my birthday, well, I dressed as Bookaboo for my nephew’s 3rd birthday party.
Bookaboo:
Me:
I thought I looked excellent, but I was the only person visibly dressed up in the car on the way there and got some really funny looks!
Then we went to see Matilda the Musical, which was absolutely EXCELLENT. You should totally go. If, y’know, you live in SE England… otherwise it might be a bit of a trek. (Boringly, I changed my outfit) The music is written by Tim Minchin who is basically my favourite comedian ever. I just crack up, although I would suggest not YouTubing him if you have a nervous disposition.
Afterwards, we quickly stopped in to get a takeaway from MEATLiquor as I just can’t get enough of their burgers and deep fried pickles. OMG, so good. You should go, if you haven’t already. Seriously.
Yup, I said it. Holographic goodness is the bee’s knees. I used GOSH holographic (don’t ask what I paid for it) as a base – 4 coats, it’s hideous to apply, waited 24 hours and then tape-mani’d purple stripes onto the end. That’s also GOSH but it has no sticker. I still ended up taking big hunks out of the holo polish and it was horrific looking by today, 5 days later. The price you pay for holo, I guess….
Excuse the photo quality – I have misplaced my SD card!! Also weirdly, my iPhone picks up the holo better than our dSLR.
Filed under nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!
Sorry I’ve not been around much – school is kicking my ass. I’ve still been painting my nails, but not as regularly as I would like, and nothing to be proud of. Anyway, now it’s half term and I’ve tried out galaxy nails. I’m not loving them but can’t really tell what I’ve done wrong and now I’ve managed to get an infection in the one stubby nail (that’s got a falsie on it!) I don’t want to hurt it more with acetone. 
I used Orly Star of Bombay as the base for this, which I promise is dark blue in real life, and then Barry M White, China Glaze Papaya Punch and China Glaze Traffic Jam mixed with Barry M White for the galaxies. Everything’s topped off with a coat of Fairy Dust and it’s making my camera go squiffy – apologies in advance for that!
Pictures!
A blurry one for sparkle:
Hopefully I’ll have time to post again before the next set of school holidays! 
Filed under nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!, notd
Well, day 5 and I’m still going with my nail polish strips – a bit of tip wear and the regrowth is starting to bug me…
I’m not having a lot of time to paint my nails or blog at the moment and that makes me sad. However, my in-laws went on holiday to the US and brought me back some nail goodies, and they included Sally Hansen Salon Effects Polish Strips. I have to say I was sceptical about how these would work but I LOVE them. I’ve got two packs, the one I’m wearing, a cheetah/leopard print and a lacy effect one and I am already sad that I’ll have to take them off at some point.
Here’s a picture:
See how cool they look?! I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of application – I got it almost perfect; it’s been 24 hours, I’ve not babied them at all and they’re still absolutely perfect (apart from the couple of places I screwed up applying them). Y’know what else I love? Nail art look with NO dry time. I put a coat of Seche Vite over the top so it took 5 minutes for that to dry, but that was it. I think it took 15 minutes, all told. But my favourite thing is how SHINY they are. Not just glossy from the SV, but shiny-smooth-metallic type of shiny. I don’t think I have a nail polish that gives me that sort of an effect, but I’d love to hear your recommendations.
I just want all the designs now, I can take or leave the solid colours, I have enough colours. But the designs? Yes please. All of them. Sally Hansen, if you’re listening, please start selling these in the UK somewhere other than dodgy internet retailers importing them and probably costing me £10 million in customs charges. If I could just have one more it’d be either Fly with Me (butterflies) or Misbehaved, of which you can see a review and some closeup photos here.
Oh, and on an unrelated note, a really cute photo of my husband and his cat asleep on the sofa holding hands.
Filed under nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!, notd
I took delivery of my new watch today. I might’ve mentioned that I’m dyspraxic, and one of the main ways it affects me is that I can’t tell the time on an analogue clock. Well, with school starting, this is an issue so I treated myself to a brand new shiny digital watch. But this ain’t no ordinary watch! It’s pink and sparkly!! I also painted my nails to match. My pictures are rubbish becase it got dark early and surprised me.
This is two coats of Traffic Jam, part of China Glaze’s new Metro collection. While I don’t think it’s a unique colour, it’s really nice, raspberry coloured and a bit brighter than it’s looking on my screen. I then popped a row of diamantes on and plonked two coats of Seche Vite on top.
Here’s my watch! It’s from a new watch company called Phosphor and has some special technology that I don’t really care about. I just like that it’s PINK AND SPARKLY.
See! It’s 7.27! The sparkles flip over to show the right time. Again, my picture is bad today because it got dark so quickly (at 7.27!!) so I’ll link you to the manufacturer’s website too – here. I’ll see if I can swap it out tomorrow.
I bought my watch from Twisted Time and I really have to shout out to them for fantastic service. I bought my watch at noon on Wednesday, paying £5 for next day delivery, they shipped by 3pm but I didn’t recieve my watch yesterday I phoned them, I think before they opened, today and left an answerphone message asking for a tracking number because neither of my deliveries scheduled for yesterday arrived. Within half an hour they’d called back apologising, having already rung Royal Mail, refunded my postage and checked the status of my parcel. I was impressed.
Filed under misc, nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!, notd
The title is nerd for gradient. I really liked the idea of yesterday’s mani, but not necessarily the application. So today I decided on a glitter gradient. I didn’t use a sponge for this one because it didn’t transfer the glitter very well, just brushed it on in layers. This means that the ends of my nails are extremely thick but I think I can stand it, because I love this! I took a long time picking the colours, as I’ve amassed quite a lot of glitter polishes now… The base colour is China Glaze For Audrey and the glitter is one of my £1 polishes, LA Colors in Treasure Island. Next time I go to Westfield (the only place I know that stocks them) I think I will buy them all. It’d be the price of maybe 10 OPI polishes, maximum but I would have ALL THE COLOURS. Then maybe I could have a really long shelf and put them in rainbow order!? That appeals, but what doesn’t is that you just know my mum would come along and put a few out of order to annoy me.
Anyway, pictures.
As per usual, this is topped with a coat of Seche Vite. I’ll definitely be doing these again in future.
Filed under nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!, notd
I wish we were getting lovely sunrises here at the moment, or sunsets. I wish we were getting any sun at all. Anyway I tried a sponge gradient and made sunsets on my fingers. Or flames. Whatever. It reminds me of tequila sunrise cocktails, which is one of only a few tequila drinks my stomach can stand.
It was pretty easy to do, and the gradient looks more blended on my actual nail – I think the photo has highlighted the lines. Anyway it was some cheapo yellow which was horrible to work with (any recommendations of good yellows?), the free Mavala polish with Elle magazine this month, and Zoya Sooki. I sponged them on with a makeup sponge (although, do it the opposite way up to me – sponge at the tip – you can see the redness of my cuticles – that’s nail varnish) and then I topped with China Glaze Golden Enchantment, which is the gold version of Fairy Dust and equally awesome. One coat of Seche Vite (from a brand new bottle – heaven) and I was done. Certainly a lot quicker than the cupcake nail art! I used a youtube tutorial for how to do it, a good one is here.
Filed under nail art, nails, Nails of the Day!
