Sparkling Wings & Flourished Manicures

Hello!

Recently I've been doing plenty of stamping - a Born Pretty review pack and MoYou order meant I've had a lot of exciting ideas to try - and so this post shows off two of my latest stamped manicures! I'm thinking of cutting my nails short again just to get a bit of variety in, but even then I've still got some stamping in mind. I hope this isn't too monotonous for my readers?

The manicure I'm wearing right now features a sparkling pink glitter, Rose Chic by Maybelline. This polish can be worn as a gorgeous textured glitter but here I've smoothed it out so I could add some stamping in the form of a floral flourish, taken from MoYou's Mother Nature 05 stamping plate. My base coat is Picture Polish Revolution in the hope that it will make the glitter easier to remove!

The manicure I had on beforehand was a butterfly manicure, using one of the many wing designs on MoYou Kitty 12. For this I started out with one coat of Essie Ballet Slippers for the nude part of the nail. Then I took three holo polishes - Holographic Hero by Gosh, Wistful by TopShop and Red Taboo by Layla - and used a sponge to mix and dab them onto my nails as colour for the wings. I stamped the design on and top coated! I also wore one of my MoYou hand tattoos, some origami butterflies, which I've shown in the photo.

As you can see I overlapped a bit with my colour sponging which I'd hoped I could cheekily pass of as stylistic, but I don't think as many people liked when I posted it on Instagram.

Depending on how I'm feeling, the next mani you see may be of short nails - and perhaps featuring something other than stamping, just to mix it up for once!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Love Heart Stamping

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

Hello!

On Thursday I was very happy to receive a new review parcel from Born Pretty Store, and this is the first manicure I tried using this Love Heart Plaid stamping plate. 

The plate has two full nail images - a love & hearts pattern and a plaid/tartan pattern - plus eight love designs, some in different sizes so you can choose them to fit your nails. I actually did two manicures to show you because I am a member of a Scottish clan and wanted to recreate our tartan via nail art! I will post that manicure tomorrow.

For this mani I started with a red holographic polish by Layla then stamped on a variety of the lovely designs in white. Here it is:

http://www.bornprettystore.com/nail-stamp-template-love-heart-plaid-pattern-qa84-p-14903.html

They really are adorable and I wasn't expecting to find the designs as cute as I do!

As always, you can get 10% off your Born Pretty Store order with my coupon code CMBQ10

I'll be back tomorrow with my tartan mani!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

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

Butterfly Holo

Hello!

For this mani I was already wearing Layla's Emerald Divine to cheer me up as I went back to work, so I decided to freshen it up with some butterfly wing stamping!

This is done using Nailz Craze plate NC01. I also used my Barry M nail art pens to do quick little white dots and to fill in where my stamping wasn't perfect :-)

You'll also see that I'm trying out a watermark on my photo, under advisement from very helpful fellow polishers! I hope it's not too intrusive.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Back-to-Work Nails

Hello!

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time in 3 weeks. It went well! I made it through the shift feeling happy and well, though today I'm not feeling so good. I go back for another short shift tomorrow so fingers crossed!

For my back-to-work mani I wanted something lucky plus a beautiful linear holo to make me happy, so I chose Layla's Emerald Divine. Here it is, in natural light then with flash:

Holos are so cheering!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

31 Day Challenge ~ Inspired by Nature

Hello!

Today's challenge is to do a manicure inspired by nature, and I just had to break out my Nailz Craze plate and try my first butterfly mani! There are so many inspiring manis out there with a myriad of gradient and colour combinations, just like in nature.

For my base colour I chose Layla's Red Taboo, a gorgeous red holo. I stamped the butterfly design on using Konad Black then dotted on white spots to finish. Here it is, in natural light and with flash to show off the holo:

Eeeee, I love butterfly manis! Next time I'm going to try a gradient or duochrome.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

31 Day Challenge ~ Your Cheer-Yourself-Up Mani

Hello!

Today's challenge isn't really a challenge at all, as it is to show a mani that cheers you up! All nail polish cheers me up so it was very hard, but in the end it had to be a holo. I adore having a beautiful colour on my nails with a strong rainbow shimmer that moves up and down as I wiggle my fingers ^_^

The colour I chose is new to my collection, Layla's Emerald Divine:

Purdy purdy purdy. It was much sparklier in brighter light too.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Outdoor Girl Nail Art Wraps

Hello!

Today I have on some nail art wraps by Outdoor Girl in a design called Plain Rose Choco. I saw them in Poundland and, even though I knew they weren't "proper" wraps, I loved the design so decided to give them a go.

There are a variety of sizes in the pack and the instructions are simple - stick the wraps onto your nails, smooth them down and file the excess off the edges with the nail file provided. As I mentioned, they're not true nail wraps, more like thick full-nail stickers with a good adhesive. Because of their thickness it was very hard to get them completely smooth on my nails, and so I have a lot of creases around the edges which annoys a perfectionist like myself! In addition to this, after I filed off the excess I was left with some tip wear and slightly ragged edges on some nails - the nail file was very coarse so that may have been the issue. After I applied them I added top coat and wrapped my tips. This wasn't mentioned in the instructions, but had I not done so I think the stickers would have started to lift up as I used my hands and nails throughout the day.

All that being said, I am still very much in love with the design. Here are my nails:

All in all the Outdoor Girl nail wraps are a cheap option that I couldn't resist trying out for the pattern. In future though I'll probably stick to my YRNails full water decals - in fact, I will gladly be peeling these stickers off tonight and replacing them with the YRNails!

In other Lisa-related news, I have a new job - yay! As usual I'm worried about my health and how it'll affect my ability to work, but I do like the job so far and am happy ^_^ It's a casual workplace so happily I can wear my nails as I like! Here is a quick pic of what I wore to my training day and first shift, Layla's Red Taboo holo:

Indoors at my workstation the rainbow holo really shone through and I kept looking down at my nails in between calls ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Layla ~ Coral Glam

Hello!

Today's polish is one I managed to get thanks to an Amazon gift voucher from my uncle... I'd originally ordered a laptop cooling pad but it never came back in stock so I went on the hunt for something sparkly instead! Layla's Hologram Effect Polish in Coral Glam seemed like a beautiful holo that would still be suitable for work if I manage to find a job ~ perfect!

The brush and formula for Coral Glam is good but the application is a little patchy; I've heard that there's a special file or base you can use to get a better result, but I didn't know that when buying. Nonetheless my end result was a gorgeous linear holo and a peachy coral tone that complements my light skin tone really well. I used three coats and topped it with a quick-dry top coat - at first it seemed like the top coat ruined the holo, but as it dried the stunning linear effect came back. Here it is!

How pretty?!

I also own Red Taboo and Emerald Divine from the Layla Hologram range so may research how to get the very best result in future, but until then I am a happy girl!

Hugs,

Lisa xx