Feather French Manicure

Hello!

Today I have a hopeful attitude and a hopeful manicure! It's been a terrible week where I've been ill and haven't made any progress with my mental health, but I've seen my mental health worker today and have made a plan to get back on track.

Yesterday I cut my nails very short because I felt like a fresh start, and today I went for a simple French mani with a twist! I painted two coats of OPI Bubble Bath and sponged a little white onto my tips rather than doing a bold line. I added feather water decals from Born Pretty Store to my ring fingers and used a matte top coat:

It feels nice to have something simple(ish!) on my nails ^_^

Lisa xx

Paperchase Manicure

Hello!

Today's manicure is inspired by the Paperchase notebook I use when studying Old French poetry! The design is of shining metallic butterflies over aged vintage postcards. This mani took me a long time to get around to finishing as I've been ill... it was weird to have just the nude base colour on my nails for four days!

The nail art techniques I've used are the clingfilm technique, regular stamping and stamping decals ^_^

And here is the inspiring notebook!

I've tried quite a few times to make stamping decals with limited success, but I'm really happy with how these ones turned out! I made little butterflies with Bundle Monster plate 307 and coloured them in with metallic polish.

For the clingfilm part I painted a coat of Barry M's Gold Foil over a fully dry base of OPI's My Vampire Is Buff, and dabbed at it with my scrunched-up clingfilm while still wet. And the regular stamping is the pretty script design from Moyou Princess 11. Everything is topped with plenty of Sèche Vite.

Hope you like it!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Black & Silver Bow Manicure

Hello!

Today's manicure is a sparkly monochrome design that I wore to go with a new black-and-white gingham dress that I naughtily bought from Primark on Tuesday!

The foily glitter is Noel Street by Nails Inc and the bow is stamped from this KKCenterHk stamping plate. I don't normally go for monochrome manis but I thought this one was quite cute!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Barry M ~ Huckleberry

Hello!

On Sunday I showed you Barry M's Rosehip, one of their new Spring Gelly polishes, and now I'm back with Huckleberry! Huckleberry is the pale pastel blue of the collection.

To be fair to Barry M, I may be feeling overly critical of Huckleberry as I was hoping to find my personal idea of a perfect blue - something pale and delicate with no brightness or chalkiness. Huckleberry is indeed lovely and pale, but it just has that hint of brightness that I didn't want. In addition I needed to apply 3 coats as it goes on a little patchy. Here it is:

It is a lovely colour in its own right so maybe I shouldn't penalise Barry M for not making my blue dreams come true... but my search continues!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

The Frenchest of Manicures

Hello!

I fancied something quite sweet for my newly short nails so I decided to combine a glitter, a French sheer and some Parisian charm for this manicure!

I painted my ring fingernails with Nails Inc's foily pink glitter Holly Place and the rest with the milky sheer Innocent by MeMeMe. On my middle fingernails I applied these Eiffel Tower decals from YRNails to complete my French look!

I have been studying some Old French poetry while I'm trying to get better so this mani does quite encapsulate what I'm about at the moment!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Barry M ~ Rosehip

Hello!

Barry M have just added 3 new pale pastels to their Gelly range in time for Spring. I bought the pink and blue shades and today I tried on the pink, named Rosehip. It looks lovely in the bottle, so feminine and delicate.

Unfortunately, application wasn't great for me. The consistency of the polish is just about right but I applied 3 coats and the finish still wasn't perfect. The Gelly range tends to be highly pigmented so I had been expecting better. The colour is also slightly brighter than in the bottle, which is a shame.

It's funny; looking at the photo I see such a beautiful colour and I immediately want to give it another chance! Maybe I had a bad first application, who knows.

I will be showing you the blue, Huckleberry, soon. I really want to love these polishes so hopefully things will go a little better next time!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Porcelain French Manicure

Hello!

This manicure uses some of the water decals I just bought from Born Pretty Store: these delicate blue porcelain designs. I thought they'd look good as a French manicure so I painted my nails with OPI Bubble Bath, added white tips and accent ring fingers, then applied the decals!

I needed to be more careful to apply thinner coats of white on my tips, but I love the porcelain romance of these decals <3

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Models Own ~ Northern Lights

Hello!

The manicure I'm wearing right now is so sparkly it makes me want to wiggle my fingers constantly ^_^

I bought Northern Lights by Models Own during their 50% off sale; it's a pale pink glitter with tons of holo sparkle. I started with a quick coat of pink to ensure opacity, painted on two coats of Northern Lights, and one coat of Sèche Vite was enough to smooth it out. I couldn't resist adding a couple of water decals on my ring fingers, so I chose these birds from KKCenterHk.

Sparkle sparkle!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Hello Kitty Stamping Manicure

This post contans products which were sent to me for review :-)

Hello!

Today I am showing you the second of the stamping plates sent to me for review from KKCenterHk: a plate with a variety of Hello Kitty designs! The images include Hello Kitty herself, cute teddy bear outlines and some polka dot and nighttime patterns.

For my manicure I decided to try the stamping decal technique to show off Kitty to her best (although she would look just lovely stamped straight on!). If you want to learn how to do it, Nailz Craze has a simple and helpful tutorial here - basically you colour in the stamping design before putting it on your nail. I'm still learning myself, but the designs on this plate seemed perfect for practise.

Here it is:

And here is the plate with all its designs (click to see on KKCenterHk):

I am overjoyed to have Hello Kitty on my nails! The images are absolutely adorable. As with the last plate I did have some trouble picking up the polka dots though, probably because they're so fine. You can see that I still need plenty of practise with my stamping decal application...

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Black Feathers & Glitter Sandwich!

Hello!

After being sent some feather water decals for review from Born Pretty Store I went back and bought a ton more for myself. They've just arrived and I now possess a zillion manicures' worth of various pretty feathers ^_^

The first decals I decided to use were the black feathers from this listing (I bought all 11 designs as the bulk price was really a steal). I also had an idea for a delicate base manicure to apply them over: I painted a coat of Sonnetarium's beautiful Snowfall glitter then topped it with 3 coats of OPI's sheer white Don't Touch My Tutu! Here it is:

God my cuticles are a state! I'm so sorry! But I'm really pleased with the feathers over that sandwich base. I can't wait to use more of the decals, but maybe I'll apply some cuticle butter first ;-)

Hugs,

Lisa xx

P.S. A little personal update ~ I was feeling terribly depressed yesterday but have since seen my mental health worker and have a slightly renewed sense of hope with plans for taking little steps to get better :-)

Rainbow Butterfly Wing Manicure

Hello!

I'm feeling terribly depressed today so here is a cheering-up mani featuring no less than 5 holographic polishes in a butterfly wing design!

The stamping plate is Nailz Craze NC01, the stamping polish is W7 Black and the holos are, in rainbow order:

Layla - Red Taboo
Layla - Coral Glam
Layla - Emerald Divine
NailNation 3000 - Parma Violet
Glitter Gal - Frappe

Oops, and the little dots are Holographic Hero by Gosh!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Cute Bow Stamping!

This post contains products which were sent to me for review :-)

Hello!

Yesterday I was very happy to receive a package from KKCenterHk in the post containing two stamping plates for review. I love getting nail mail and hadn't had any in a while!

The stamping plate I'm showing you today is numbered QA29 and has a variety of 12 very sweet images to use, including 5 different bows. I figured the best way to show them off was with a skittles mani ~ it's just turned March and we've had a couple of nice days, so I got the pastels out and stamped on bows and hearts and all things lovely:

And here's the plate from the KKCenterHk website so you can see all the designs:

http://www.kkcenterhk.com/p11373/N.NAIL-Love-Sweet-Cute-Miss-Words-Bow-Heart-Chink-Stamp-Plate/product_info.html

The images have a lovely simplicity to them that makes them so cute and easy to use. The bows and chick would be great for making stamping decals too (which I'll be trying to do myself with the next stamping plate). The one flaw I had with the plate is that the polka dot design is harder to pick up and stamp perfectly, which you can see in the photo.

What do you think ~ do you reckon it's close enough to Spring to rock a pastel mani?

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Copycat Mani ~ On Wednesdays We Wear Polish

Hello!

A couple of nights ago I had painted a base of white for some completely different nail art... then Cassandra from the blog On Wednesdays We Wear Polish posted this beautiful manicure and I immediately wanted it on my nails!

The design is a white base with pale blue stripes, with a Moyou floral design stamped on top in black. For my version I used KKCenterhk stamping plate QA02 for the stripes and Moyou Pro 07 for the floral. Cassandra used matte top coat with her mani whilst I kept mine glossy.

Here's my version:

I love this look! I'd never thought of having a base pattern with a bolder stamp on top, and this is an idea I might try again in the future. Of course, all kudos go to On Wednesdays We Wear Polish ~ thank you for the inspiration ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx