Tutorial ~ How to apply Full Nail Water Decals

Hello!

I have been a bit brave and made a video! It shows how to apply fiddly-yet-beautiful full nail water decals. It was only filmed on my poor Samsung Galaxy Ace, but hopefully the commentary guides you through!

The decals in the tutorial can be bought at YR Nails for £1.50; I bought them and am a happy customer!

Hope it helps,

Lisa xx

Liebster Award!

Hello!

I was very kindly nominated for the Liebster Award by Tara of Tara'sTalons! The award seems to be a sweet way of sharing and spreading the love of smaller blogs, which makes me smile and can only be a good thing! Copied from Tara, the way it works is that you:

- post 11 random facts about yourself
- answer 11 questions the person who nominated you has asked 
- ask 11 questions, and 
- link 11 blogs with less than 200 followers (not including the blogger who nominated you).

So here goes!


11 Random Facts about myself

1. I just left my job yesterday; I'm very sad but it had to be done.
   
2. Today I received some full nail decals from YRNails in the post, and can't wait to try them.
   
3. My family has a beautiful white tortoiseshell cat, officially named Vienna, unofficially called anything but!
   
4. I love the Sims 2; currently, Sim-Lisa is waiting for her husband to die so she can move on, start a business and become a White Witch!!!
   
5. I love watching Masterchef but do not cook at all.
   
6. I am 24 but have a Hello Kitty advent calendar, oh yes!
   
7. I have met Dita Von Teese twice; she is very kind and polite - she took the time to remember my name and photo before meeting me - and of course she is a great performer!
   
8. I lived just south of Paris for 9 months as part of my uni course.
   
9. I used to be a goth; I still love the lacy, romantic side, but can't stand skulls and spikes anymore.
   
10. My bedroom is an Absolute Tip.
    
11. I have very bad depression but am currently doing well and learning how to help myself; it definitely gets better!

11 Questions asked by my Nominator, Tara (thank you!)

1. Where did you grow up?
   Right here in Gateshead, North-East England!
   
2. What is the best thing about where you grew up?
   We're paired with Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and together we have an amazing culture, lots of history and the perfect mix of old and new.
   
3. If you could only use one range of polishes for a whole year, which brand would you choose?
   Barry M! They have a great range and are always coming out with new on-trend collections.
   
4. What is your party trick?
   I do origami and can make Inflatable Bunnies and a really cute bird.
   
5. Why do you blog?
   Well I've been pretty bad at it recently (sorry!), but mostly I love all things pretty and being enthusiastic about brands I've bought and loved.
   
6. What is your favourite animal?
   Cats! =^.^=
   
7. If you had to live in another country, where would you choose?
   Probably France because I speak the language and it would be good practise to live there again :-)
   
8. What blog is your favourite/gives you the most inspiration?
   I couldn't possibly choose because it's the pick-and-mix of everyone's amazing ideas that gives me inspiration!
   
9. What three famous/well known people (living or dead) would you invite to a dinner party and why?
   Marilyn Manson, because he's funny and clever. Prof. Brian Cox, because he has the same childlike wonder and enthusiam for science as I do. Jesus, to get his thoughts on negativity in the name of Christianity.
   
10. How did you get interested in nails?
    My mam bought me my first polish from the local pharmacy when I was very young! Somewhere between the ages of 6 and 9. It was a very "fake" pink by Laura Paige.
    
11. What is your favourite TV programme?
    At the moment it's Fringe, packed with intrigue, suspense and weird science!

11 Question for my Nominees

1. What do you have on your nails right now?
2. If you could choose a zoo animal as a pet, which would it be?
3. What did you want to be growing up?
4. What was the coolest thing you ever learnt/did in school?
5. If you could learn any language, what would it be?
6. Are you interested in makeup/fashion in general?
7. What is the best thing about your hometown?
8. What is the worst thing about your hometown?
9. What do you think the new Royal baby should be named (sorry if you hate the Royals!!)?
10. If you could only eat one thing for a week, what would it be?
11. If you could design a signature nail polish representing you, what would it look like?

And, my nominees!

Pretty Kitty Claws

The Teenage Shopaholic

The Nail Noodle

Crazy Polishes

JustTalkNails

PenguinsLeftGreenPolish

She who does nails

Nuthin' but a nail thing

Nail Pron

Pie's Eyes & Other Sparkly Stories...

Emma's Little Corner

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Sparkly Heart Bracelets!

Hello!

This is a quick break from my polishy posting to show off the bracelets I got from the website I work for! They are Shamballa heart bracelets in pink, blue, clear and purple and they are prettyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Regular readers will hopefully know that I only big up products that I genuinely love. I bought these bracelets myself out of my paycheque and, aside from being sparkly and beautiful, they remind me of my journey through recovering from depression.

They are on sale right here :-)

In polishy news, I have again been a naughty LisLis. I got the two Models Own polishes free with More magazine at the moment and am currently wearing Nude Beige (one coat!!) with an extremely glittery topping! Pics to come!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Barry M ~ Ruby Glitter

Hello!

First of all, some good news regarding my Sally's saga! The back story is that I ordered 7 polishes from them; they could only send 1 yet charged me the same shipping. Yesterday I received an email containing a very profuse apology and promising an immediate refund of my £4.75 shipping. I'm more than happy with that. Phew!

Now, onto today's polish! Barry M's new Ruby Glitter. I really shouldn't have bought it, but couldn't resist the combination of mysterious red sparkle and a 3 for 2 offer. Naughty LisLis.

Ruby Glitter contains larger borderline red/pink hex glitter and smaller black glitters. I chose to layer 2 coats over a deep plum, Nails Inc.'s Victoria. Here it is with top coat:

It's pretty!!!

I think a plum colour is really the perfect base for Ruby Glitter, but I would like to try it over a lighter colour to see the black glitter a bit more. It is really cool though, reminds me of cranberries with all the Thanksgiving talk going on!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Boots 17 ~ Wishing Star

Hello!

Today I have for you Wishing Star by 17. It's a new release and is labelled as a 'Dazzle The Night' polish. It costs £2.99 but Boots have a 'Buy 1, Get 1 Half Price' deal on cosmetics right now so I chose this along with a Models Own glitter which I am also excited to try!

I have lots of photos of Wishing Star because it changes in the light and it is GORGEOUS. It's champagne! It's green! It's lilac! It's foily! It's sparkly! It's vintage! It's party!

Heehee ^_^ I do rather like this polish. Shown below are 3 coats of Wishing Star in various lights.

Did I mention I love this polish?

Wishing Star looks like it would be incredible as a layering polish as well, so I will be trying it out over some colours soon!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

YRNails Water Decals

Hello!

This post is showcasing a couple of the water decals I bought from YRNails with my very first paycheque! It's a UK site and has lovely unique decals for £1 each, which seemed like the perfect way to treat myself despite my scary overdraft ^_^


This first mani is using my Lace Heart decals on accent nails - smaller ones on my ring fingers and larger ones on my thumbs. Lovelovelovelovelove...

And the mani I'm wearing right now features my Eiffel Tower decals on all nails! The base polish is 'Without A Stitch' by Sally Hansen which I bought today from my trusty market stall - I'd say it is a delicate latte colour and it is very chic! Voici mes ongles français...

Ohhhhhh la la!

Câlins,

Lisa xx

P.S. Sad-face update: I ended up filing a Paypal claim for my Shrieked water decals, which was upheld and Paypal refunded my money! As for Sally's, I have emailed their customer services twice now with no response.

Lisa's Happy-Face First Payday Post

Hello and welcome to the Happy-Face post!

Well, after three weeks of settling in and being very happy at my new job, I received my first paycheque on Thursday! I am so proud; I keep thinking about how far I've come and how much I've struggled to get to this point. I am still working very hard to stay mentally well and am trying to improve my life in tiny little steps; fingers crossed!

Mostly I need my wages to get me out of my scarily big overdraft, but I have allowed myself some treats! I ordered some water decals from YR Nails which I cannot wait to receive, and today I bought 5 lovely nail polishes. Superdrug has a 3 for 2 sale on all cosmetics right now (the cashier told me and I was like, *backs away from till and dashes to the make-up section*!), so I bought Barry M's Blackberry, Accessorize's Ladybird and Collection's Love Jewel. Then on my fave market stall I found two promising Sally Hansens for £1.99 each - Spectrum looks like a green-blue mermaid shimmer with a flash of purple, and Crinoline looks like Lavender Cloud except with a pink tint instead. I cannot wait to try them out but Ladybird might be first on my list!

Also with my wages I bought an alumnus membership to my university library (£20 for a year, so good!) so I can do the reading I couldn't do at uni when I was depressed. Language truly is my passion and I definitely want to learn more.

Aaaaaaand, I got some new clothes for an incredible price from Primark! I may show you them in another post, highlights are a loose pink knitted cardi and a navy blue polka-dotted dress that I feel really pretty in ^_^

Oh, and finally I got some jewellery from the site I work for that I have yet to pick up. I will definitely be showing you those as I'm very proud to associated with such nice jewellery!!!

I hope you enjoyed my happy-face post and hope also that it made up for the sad-face one!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Lisa's Sad-Face Online Seller Post

Hello!

This is a strange post for me to make as I'm usually very positive and enthusiastic about all the lovely nail treasures I've found. However, I've had a run of bad luck recently and wanted to share two bad online experiences I'm having. But I will be posting a Happy-Face post after this one because a lot of good things have happened to me recently too!

--------------------

Firstly, Shrieked. After noticing shares and pins of photos featuring their beautiful water decals, I found their Big Cartel store and purchased a set of Swooping Birds decals. That was on 12/10/12. I never received my decals and have not had a word of communication from Shrieked; nor have Big Cartel, who have contacted them twice on my behalf. I have now submitted a Paypal claim which will hopefully get me my product or my money back. So a word of warning to watch out for Shrieked.

--------------------

Secondly, Sally's. I know a lot of others got caught up in this too! They had a crazy-good deal with China Glazes priced at £1.30 and on 3 for 2! I bought 6 China Glazes and a bottle of Gelous, which all would have cost me £15 with shipping. Instead they massively messed up and ran out of the China Glaze so, without asking me, they just sent the Gelous and charged me over £10 for that and shipping - a price I never, ever would have paid for one bottle of polish! I emailed them 5 days ago asking politely for the shipping to be refunded, and I have yet to receive a response.

I think Sally's have really messed up here and shown themselves to be such a bad business. To a) sell to both retail and trade, and b) to put on crazy deals without having a live stock updating system is unthinkable really. But the terrible customer service is what makes it the worst!

--------------------

So, this is my Sad-Face post. Of course if anything changes I will update the blog (and clear the sellers' names if they come up with an amazing excuse for having messed me around!). Now enough negativity and onto the Happy-Face post!

See you in a minute,

Lisa xx

Happy Halloween!

Hello!

Well it has been a scary Halloween so far, as I had to have my blood taken and of course I went all faint! And sadly that is the extent of my Halloween fun as I don't do parties and I'm not sure I could get away with trick-or-treating at my age and weight ;-)

However, I did do two special manis over the past week for the occasion. The one I have on now is little devils stamped over a fiery sponged gradient! Here it is...

...and the other was spooky pumpkins stamped over bright, bright orange:

Woooooooooooooooo!

I did love experimenting with my nails for Halloween, but I can't believe I used to be a goth because I'm really wanting to go back to girly manis now! I guess my days of rebellion are over :-(

Hope you all have lots of fun today!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Barry M ~ Orange Web Effect

Hello!

For Halloween, Barry M have released a limited edition orange 'Web Effect' polish. From what I've heard it's the same formula as their Croc Effect, but nonetheless a cool idea. Recently they've had a promotion in Superdrug where you buy 2 Barry Ms and get a crackle/croc/web polish free, so I picked this up along with a Gelly and a Jewel :-)

I asked the lovely ladies in the 'A Brit of Nail Polish' Facebook group for advice on the best application, and I was told to apply it to touch dry polish with as thin a layer as possible, using the other side of the brush to brush off any excess. This worked and I got a good result, so thank you!! For my base polish I went for a very light pastel green, Absolutely Shore by Essie. Here is the result with top coat:

I wouldn't exactly call it a web, but it's still pretty cool! It does not suit my skin tone at all though, so I'm not sure if I will be wearing it long :-( Still, props to Barry M for all the great ideas they've been coming out with as of late.

Spooky hugs,

Lisa xx