Flowers, Glitters and Tattoos!

Hello!

First of all, I'm sorry for the month-long absence! I haven't been doing my nails as often due to a mixture of depression, tiredness and being caught up in my cross-stitching hobby (scroll down for pics!). However, I'm here to make it up with four manicures featuring floral nail wraps, fine glitters and temporary tattoos.

All the wraps and glitters are from Charlies Nail Art and I happen to have a 15% off Ambassador's coupon code for you: GNAF15 . I'll include links to where to find the nail art goodies as I write ^_^

1. Summer Dream Manicure

Summer Dream water decal wraps with Ocean Blue fine glitter, finished with a diamond tattoo from Claire's Accessories.


2. Summer Bloom Manicure

Summer Bloom water decal wraps alternated with Nicole by OPI's Sweet Surrender, finished with Flower Power tattoos by MoYou London.


3. Indian Summer Manicure

Indian Summer water decal wraps finished off with another MoYou Flower Power Tattoo.


4. Yellow Blossom Manicure

Yellow Blossom water decal wraps with an accent nail of Holographic Silver fine glitter.

I hope you like these manis! I love my Charlies water decals: they're super easy to apply and look beautiful. And, if you're interested, here are two cross stitches I've been working on - Flower Teapots!

Hugs, 

Lisa xx

My Christmas Manicure

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

So I decided on my Christmas manicure and it is currently complete on one of my hands (hey, there's still time till midnight, right?). It's inspired by one of my manis from last year but with added glitz and colour!

My red Santa tips were done using Jade Echarpe de Seda, page reinforcer stickers as guides and my white Barry M nail art pen for detail. The accent nail is OPI My Vampire is Buff with a letter to Santa stamped on using MoYou Princess plate 11. I topped it all with a shimmering glitter I found in Claire's Accessories a couple of years ago.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas - thanks so much for reading!

Festive Hugs,

Lisa xx

Glitter & Neon Accent Time!

Hello!

Yesterday I showed you Bubblegum from Models Own's Ice Neon range. After I swatched it I really wanted to try it as an accent paired with a sheer French shade, so I put Bubblegum on my ring fingers and broke out OPI Bubble Bath for the rest! Afterwards I had the idea to add an extra accent of glitter, and for this I chose a gold and copper glitter mix from Claire's Accessories.

The combo is a bit more... party?... than my usual style but I love the change!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Sparkly Glitter Gradient

Hello!

I've been in a bit of a polishing (and blogging) rut for the past week, but today I'm back with a simple but super-effective glitter gradient!

I started off with 2 coats of a lovely sheer French shade, Graceful by MeMeMe. I then painted the sparkle-packed Noel Street by Nails Inc onto a cosmetics sponge and dabbed it onto the tips of my nails moving downwards. I topped it with a dabbing of copper and gold multiglitter from Claire's, then finished off with a coat of Seche Vite. Simples!

I'll be back soon with a stamped mani and another of the Jade Special Glitz collection, e-see you soon!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Claire's Gold and Copper Glitter

Did I mention that I wish Claire's polishes had names?!

This is another £2.50 buy: a polish containing sprinkles of small gold glitter and large copper and gold hex glitter.  And it looks REALLY cool.  Here are 2 coats over 17's creamy brown Forever:

This mani makes me think of cookie crumbs!  The spread of the glitter was a little uneven, but adding that second coat helped and gave a great look.  I am really glad I bought this!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Claire's ~ Iridescent Glitter

Hello!

I do wish that Claire's polishes had names!!!  Iridescent seems the best way to describe this glitter top coat ~ a lovely, ethereal blue shimmer.  And it only cost me £2.50.  I put a coat of it over yesterday's Black Multi Glitter by Barry M, and here it is:

It is soooooo pretty.  It makes me think of a fairy-frequented pond lit by moonlight!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Pastel Skittles!

Just a cute little mani, all topped with a subtle glitter top coat from Andrea Fulerton ^_^

Pink ~ Sweet Kisses by 17

Yellow ~ Spring Blossom by Ulta3
Green ~ Green from Claire's pastel nail polish mini set
Blue ~ Sheer Blue by W7
Purple ~ Woo Me by 17

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Claire's Purple-and-Blue Glitter

Happy New Year!

This was a Christmas present from my parents that I picked out myself at Claire's, a mix of small blue glitter and larger hexagonal lilac glitter in a clear base.  I'm wearing it over one of the polishes from my Strictly Come Dancing box set - Dosado, a grey lilac shimmer (swatch to come, it's so unique and I love it!) - with 3 coats of the glitter.

Yay, purply glittery goodness ^_^

Claire's polishes cost... £2.25 I think?  Very cheap.  They have all sorts of glitters, sprinkle ones like the polish above and dense full-coverage ones which are also amazing.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Boxing Day Mani

Hello, and all the best of the season!

I'm not sure that every country has Boxing Day - traditionally it's when wealthy families gave gifts to their servants, but basically it's just the day after Christmas!  For me it's when my family go to see my nanna and uncle :-)

This was another mani choice to sort-of go with my sparkly jumper, and I chose Claire's baby pink glitter (I wish their polishes had names!)  I first painted a coat of No7's metallic pink Milan in case of any bald patches, then I added two coats of the dense glitter.  Here we are!

I love this glitter and am still wearing it now - OK, partly because I'm nearly out of cotton pads and this will require a massive removal effort, but I am very very happy to wear this on my nails all day long!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Christmas Day Haul & Mani!

Hello, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

I've been so lazy in posting, but I'm back and am going to line up a few posts with the neglected photos I have just uploaded!

We'll start with my Christmas presents - I was a lucky lucky girl this year!  I received an Android phone (I think it's a Samsung Galaxy?), the features of which fill me with wonderment and confusion!  I am currently addicted to mobile timewasting games.  If I can manage it I might do a 'Mani on the Move' post sometime using this clever new phone.

I also received some fabulous polishy presents, both expected and unexpected.  These are the things I found myself: Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure for £1.99 on a market stall (!), a lovely purple and blue glitter from Claire's Accessories, and a set of fishnet stocking nail wraps from Ann Summers.  These are my first nail wraps, and seemed a bargain at £6.25 for 24 - I'm hoping that by being very careful I will get two manis out of them, and that they will look decent!  Here are the pics:

In addition to these I got a French manicure set from my brother and a Strictly Come Dancing themed box set of polishes from my parents - now I do not watch Strictly Come Dancing, but this makes zero difference to how much I love this present!  The set has been made by Boots - I checked this because a couple of the colours look the same as ones from the Boots No7 line.  Further investigation will be done ;-)  So here are the surprise presents:

I can't wait to try all my new polishes out.  But now, onto my Christmas Day mani!

This was a mani of Glitter Gal's Frappe (over a base of pink to make the colour richer) with some festive snowflake nail art stickers on a few accent nails.  The colour was chosen to go with my warm sparkly jumper.  It was a bit rushed as my nanna was coming over, but it was Christmassy enough!

Whew!  Well I hope you are still enjoying the festive season, I will be be back soon with my Boxing Day mani ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Bourjois 1 Séconde ~ Shade 9

Hello!

Today I have a market-stall find, Bourjois' 1 Séconde polish in Shade 9 (pity it doesn't have a name).  It is a very deep, rich purple with a nice rich shimmer to it.  Here are two coats:

It is a very lovely colour indeed! 

The polish bottle makes a lot of claims: fan-effect brush, one brushstroke, one second to apply, one coat, 50 second dry time.  The extra-wide fan brush is brilliant, and I wish more polishes had them!!  It really does make application a lot easier.  As for the one-coat claim... this could never be opaque in one coat; it's a definite two-coater.  It also took longer than 50 seconds to dry completely, but it still dried quite quickly and I did paint thick coats on a lot of nails.  All said, the brush is what really makes this polish a quick, convenient and easy one to use.

As I have already mentioned in this blog, dark and demure colours really don't suit me.  I would definitely be pairing this polish with something else to make it more "me", so I did a quick test with four glitters to see how it looked.  Here we go...

Index ~ Sapphire by La Femme Beauty
Middle ~ Magic by Accessorize
Ring ~ Dream by Accessorize
Pinky ~ Light pink glitter by Claire's

The combination that really caught my eye was with Magic ~ it added a different, deeper look to the glitter and so I plan to wear a mani with this pair ~ watch tomorrow's post!

Hugs,

Lisa

Polish-aholics Anonymous Monday Nail Art Challenge!

Hello!

This is my first ever Challenge, and after seeing the nail art coming through in the Polish-aholics Anonymous Facebook group I realise that I seriously need to up my game next week!

The theme is TV-, book- or movie-inspired nails.  My first thought was to think of something to represent House, as that is one of my favourite programs ever... but then I remembered the Glee slushie and had to have a go at that!!

The inspiring image is a colourful slushie popping over an equally colourful contrasting background.  Here we go...!

Polishes used: Missguided's Teal Splash, Miss Sporty's Hip Pop, Claire's' pink glitter and Bourjois' 1 Seconde pink glitter. 

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Glitter Gradient

Hello!

First of all, credit goes to the lovely and helpful Lusting Over Lacquers for posting a how-to for this mani!

For my glitter gradient I chose purple on purple.  The base is the dark-ish pastel purple creme from Claires' mini pastel set and the glitter is 'Purple Dazzle' by W7 (I bought this in Xtras but have seen the brand in New Look and on market stalls).  I painted two coats of pastel purple then I wet a cotton bud, dipped it in Purple Dazzle, dabbed two coats from the tip of my nail down then sealed it with a top coat.

(the flash on my camera went off funny for that last pic, but I'm including it because I think it looks really cool ^_^)

I really do like the gradient look!  My only problem with my mani is that I was using a really cheap glitter (it cost £1.50) and it gave a gritty finish.  It's a nice enough basic glitter polish, but I would love to do this mani again with a finer glitter like my holo INM Northern Lights.  That might well be my next post!

See you soon,

Lisa xx

Rockin' Smash-Up Nails

Hello, and it is a happy birthday to my boyfriend!

Now, my boyfriend is the loveliest most wonderful guy in the world... but he does not give a crap about nail polish.  However, I sometimes like to make believe that he does and choose my polish accordingly.  Today I am doing my mani in his honour!  His favourite colours are black, silver and purple and he tends to prefer (well the closest thing to any form of reaction) my more 'rock' manis, so I went with Models Own Black Smash-Up over Miss Sporty's Metallic Crystal.

Pow!  I used to be a goth so I am really quite happy with my nails today ^_^

This is a coat of Smash-Up over 3 coats of Metallic Crystal; I think I took this photo before applying a top coat, which is why the shatter looks matte.  The Smash-Up polish was a birthday present, and cost £5 at Boots.  I love this polish; it gives really distinct shatters.  It looks great over a glitter as well.  Hang on, I'll dig up the old photo where I wore it over Claire's pink glitter...

And, while I'm at it, here it is over Miss Sporty's Planet Pink (bought when they were 3 for 2 at Superdrug, along with the above Metallic Crystal and a gold):

Yes, I really do love this shatter!

Yesterday I joined Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook and discovered a veritable treasure trove of nail blogs to follow.  If you've noticed me pop up on your list, know that I've been drooling over your blog!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Accent Nail ~ Rhubarb and Custard!

Back again with some short-nail polishing!

I personally am a big fan of accent nails - some combos do look like their owners painted their nails in the dark (am really setting myself up for criticism with that one!!!), but I think a bit of nail art or a strikingly different complementary colour on one or two fingers looks just lovely.  Also, I'm a bit of a lame sentimental girl and I like to have something different on my ring finger to remind me of my boyfriend.

Tonight I decided to try out a colour combination I've had in mind for ages now: bright, sparkling pink glitter with a light yellow creme.  Rhubarb and Custard!

The original idea I had was all nails the same, a yellow base with a slanted tip of pink glitter - but since they are really bold colours and I have no sense of style or taste, I decided to keep the glitter to my ring finger.

The polishes I used for this was the yellow from Claire's mini pastel set and a seemingly nameless pink glitter, also by Claire's:

Aaaand, here is the mani:

 

With flash:

And a blurred shot, just because the sparkle looks dreamy:

I'm wearing 4 coats of yellow and 3 coats of pink glitter, with a single-coat base of pastel pink just to make sure the colour was solid.

It's unfortunate but I think the yellow is the 'dud' of the Claire's pastel set; 4 coats and it's still a touch streaky, plus the polish doesn't dry very well - one false move and I'm positive it'll chip.  I always drool over the Model's Own stand in Boots and consider buying their pastel yellow, but am never sure that I'd use it enough, especially to justify the £5 price tag.  The Claire's pink glitter, however, is just yummy - packed with sparkle and attitude!  I think it only cost £1.50 as well, bargain.

So, what do you think - cute combo or a mani too far?

Lisa xx

Itsy-Bitsy Polka-Dotted Nails!

Hello there!

Before I show you today's mani, I will show the result of yesterday's nail breakage (it did hit me that I made a whole blog post over a broken nail... oh dear!).  Here is a photo of my naked nails before...

... and after:

My poor nails feel decapitated!!  Sob sob.

At least I've decided to use my short nails to try out some cute manis; today I went for sky blue with sheer polka dots.  Here are the polishes I used:

Here we have Save The Nail's Eau So Hydrated base coat - I found this in Boots and it sounded just like what I was looking for to help out my overpolished nails.  You can see that it has been extremely well used!  Towards the end of the bottle the consistency has turned a little gloopy, so I've moved onto Sally Hansen's Double Duty (far right), but after I cut my nails yesterday I painted them with Eau So Hydrated and went round my boyfriend's with my Boots roll-on Nail & Cuticle Oil.

Anyway, next we have the blue from Claire's Accessories' mini pastel set (got this for my birthday 2 months ago, the set cost £7), then a silver-white nail art pen from Rio's pastel nail art set (bought from Argos, also for my birthday).

Here is the pastel blue on its own, 3 coats to even out the colour:

 

And with little polka dots painted on top with the nail art pen, finished off with a coat of Double Duty...

Natural light:

Taken with flash:

^_^

I painted my nails a tad too thickly so I don't think it's going to be long-wearing... but I'll just use the opportunity to experiment with other designs!

See you soon,

Lisa xx