Tuesday 30 October 2012

Halloween Nails & Costume

Hi all!

I thought I'd post my nails from Saturday, and my costume. I only have one photo of my complete outfit (hair done, mini hat, and medals) but it's a group shot, and I'm too lazy to ask the ladies if I can post it here :P

What do you think? I loved it, I actually scared people while I was out; it was great :D Wearing dark contacts made me wish I had dark eyes though hahah.

These nails aren't actually the finished product - but I ran out of light before I had a spare moment to take any photos.
Base Coat: CND - Stickey
Base Colour: MUA - Shade 19
Other colours: Cutex - Sweet Pea, Revlon - Teak Rose
Acrylic Paints
Topped with Essie - Muchi, Muchi
Matte: Rimmel - Matte Finish

Later I added Rimmel - Celebrity Bash to make the blood glossy
Got this idea from Samarium's Swatches I added too many coats of Muchi, Muchi though and hid most of the random grossness of the acrylic paints. These looked much better as a finished product!

Hope you're all having a good Tuesday =]

Saturday 27 October 2012

Halloween Blood Splatter

Hi all!

I know I've been slacking lately, and even forgot to add the polish picture to my giveaway, but I promise in the next week I'll try to get back to normal posting, or at least try to keep up with my reading list, which is really really huge right now lol.

Tomorrow I'm not going to be doing a stamping challenge, as I'll be chilling with my favourite girl post Halloween night out. However you might get some gore-tastic Halloween snaps :]

These are not the nails i'll be wearing, these were done a week or so back. I tried to do a straw splatter mani, but after getting frustrated, and even trying to splat with a brush handle I reached for the rough side of a kitchen sponge and went to town. I will do a straw splatter mani some day!

Base Coat: CND - Stickey
Base Colour: Elf - Desert Haze
Reds: Beauty UK - Purple
Essence Nail Colour3  - Kiss On Top Of The Rock
Rimmel - Celebrity Bash
Top Coat: Sally Hansen - Advanced Hard As Nails


Hope everyone's having a good Saturday! When this posts i'll be covering my face in latex and tissue getting my zombie onnnn!

Wednesday 24 October 2012

500 Followers Reader Appreciation Giveaway!

Hi all, I still can't believe I made it to 500 readers! So to thank you all for sticking around and making my life more interesting I'm having a little giveaway. I really wanted to get my hands on another bottle of Gosh - Holographic Hero, but I can't find another bottle anywhere! But there are some pretties in here :]

This is my first time using a Rafflecopter form, so if there's any problems please let me know and I'll try to fix it, or run back to Google forms :P To enter you must be a public follower of this blog, and simply fill in the form below. This Is open Internationally, however I'm not responsible for any custom charges etc.

EDIT: I'm not sure how I managed to forget a photo of the polishes! Just shows what state of mind I'm in recently! Sorry everyone!



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Blue-ming Swatch, Flakies & Stamping

Hi all. I've kind of been neglecting the blog recently, and I really can't help it, my mind is just else where, hell i haven't even painted my nails since last Tuesday!

Today we have a mani that I did a few weeks back now, and unfortunately I didn't get any swatch shots on the day due to the fact I've still got to get a daylight bulb/light box set up, so a week or so later I seen the sun and speedy speedy got the lovely Color Club Blue-ming back on my nails to get some pics.

I love love love this colour, I have no other colour like it. It's pastel but it's bright, turquoise, and leans blue or green depending on the lighting, and the formula is so so good. I need more Color Clubs in my life.
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colour: Color Club - Blue-ming
Flakies: Golden Rose Scale Effects - 02
Stamp Colour: Sally Hansen Insta-dri - Tealy Fast
Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM314
Top Coat: Rimmel 60 seconds - Clear
And here are the swatches. So pretty, and while it's not a dupe for Illamasqua - Nomad, it' has the same bright tones I lust after, so I'm a happy bunny.
 

Hope you all are having a better day than I am :] Oh and the Giveaway will be posted tomorrow :]

Sunday 21 October 2012

Halloween - We Stamp On Sundays

Hi all! Things may be a little quiet on the blog front in the coming weeks. I have quite a bit on my mind at the minute, and quite a bit of change coming up; and I'm finding it hard to stay focused on pretty much anything.

This weeks' challenge for Adventures In Stamping was Halloween! Now when I started painting my nails for these I didn't really have a plan, and this is why they turned out so pants in the end lol. I should have left them with just the barbed wire.
Pumpkin: Konad M13
Konad Special White, Essie - Orange You Glad
I used white first, scraped; added orange over the white, scraped and stamped
Base Coat: CND - Stickey
Base Colours: Gosh - Holographic Hero
Rimmel - Celebrity Bash
Rimmel - Black Satin
Stamp Colour: Miss Sporty - Electric Beige
Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM323
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails
 

Here's the sponged base.

 

So hopefully I'll have the giveaway up tomorrow, so there's one good thing to tell yous :]

Wednesday 17 October 2012

W7 - Lava Flow & Another Swap With Susana

Hi all! Happy Thursday!

I have a quick swatch of W7 - Lava flow today, I was intending to stamp over it, but when I had it on I really didn't know what I could do with it. I also have new swap goodies from Susana to show you!
W7 - Lava Flow & Rimmel - Matte Finish
This is two coats of Lava Flow, an off white, almost lilacy base with matte black glitter, and regular red glitter floating around. When I first seen this polish many months back (I bought this back in July!) I loved it, but I just didn't like it on me, and I wished the red glitter was also matte. Which is why I added a matte top coat too, and it helped a bit.  In all honesty I liked this a lot better in person, at arms length than I do in these photos.

And onto my lovely goodies from my most recent swap with the lovely Susana, loads of new goodies to try! I got these a couple of weeks back now, but I'm yet to try anything still! I'm so bad!
 Very excited to try Violet Microglitter that's not even half the sparkle you can see in real life!

She also sent me some green tea, which is the nicest I've ever tried. I was going to wait to take a photo before trying it, but I really couldn't wait :P Thank you Susana!

What do you guys think of Lava Flow? 

Sunday 14 October 2012

Invasion of.... - We Stamp On Sundays

Happy Sunday guys!

I've just went over 500 followers! how exciting :D! I have a prize and everything picked out for a giveaway, so hopefully that'll be posted by the end of the week :]

This week's Adventures In Stamping challenge was to let your imagination run wild, and create on "invasion" mani. Unfortunately I just haven't been too inspired or energetic recently regarding everything not just my nails, and I just settled on a mediocre idea that is cute, but not all crazy like i'd originally hoped.
Base Coat: CND - Stickey
Base Colour: Kiko - Cornflower
Sponged Colours: Catrice - London
                                 NOPI - Loyalty To The Royal-ty
Stamping Colour: Konad Special White
Image Plate: Konad M27
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Advanced
And some swatch shots of the pretty Kiko - Cornflower that came to me in my second swap with Susana

For some reason I didn't take any photos of the sponging, but all i did was use the rough side of a kitchen sponge and a tiny bit of yellow, and then the soft side with the blue and tapped it on my tips & worked up to about half way.

Here's what I used:


And that's them! Hardly an invasion, but I've wanted to use this plate for quite a while now, so I did :P

Thursday 11 October 2012

Leopard Print, Crosses, Gradients & Studs

Hi all, happy Thursday! I'm one follower away from 501, and my next giveaway ( I started following myself recently) yay!

Today we have some nails that I loved wearing, so so much, these made me feel a bit like a bad-ass :P

I started with a base colour of Beauty UK - Soft Grey, and created gradients on all my fingers using three other colours, Gosh - Berry Me (index), Barry M - Gold Foil (thumb & ring) and W7 - Black ( middle & pinky) I then stamped over my ring, and index nail in BYS - Black Satin using Konad M57. I added a stripe of black down my thumb, added studs, and added some crosses made of striping tape to my middle and pinky fingers.

A couple of days later I added in some dots to the stamped nails in opposite colours, which was the original plan, but I was doing these for a "night out" & I didn't want to mess them up.
What I used:
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colours: Beauty UK - Soft Grey
                      Gosh - Berry Me
                      W7 - Black
                      Barry M - Gold Foil
Stamp Colour: BYS - Black Satin
Image Plate: Konad M57
Gold Striping Tape
Silver Round 2mm Studs
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails
Above is the added dots,and below is the thumb :]


And a picture of the sponged base for good measure, ignore the chip in the index (thank god I have a replacement CND - Stickey in my little mitts now :D)


What do you guys think of these? I'll definitely be doing this sort of mix and match again, or maybe even this design again.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Essie - To Buy Or Not To Buy & Multi-coloured Stamping

Hi all, happy Tuesday!

Small post for you today as there wasn't much daylight knocking around when I was trying to take these photos. I also have some polish-pimped plugs at the end :]

I started with a base colour of Essie - To Buy Or Not To Buy, which is a gorgeous lilac colour with some really pretty ice blue fleck-like shimmer. It does hide on the nail, but not as much as these pictures would make you think. I then did some multi-coloured stamping using this method, using Beauty UK - Jelly Bean & W7 - Blue Lagoon
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colour: Essie - To Buy Or Not To Buy
Stamping Colours: W7 - Blue Lagoon
                                  Beauty UK - Jelly Bean
Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM 321
Top Coat: Rimmel 60 Seconds - Clear
Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of the base colour, due to my base coat making things bubble like crazy (something that's never happened to me before but you can't see in these pics too badly) and I was honestly chasing the sun around the house. I'll definitely be swatching this colour properly some time soon to show just how pretty the blue fleck-like shimmer is :] Above is two coats, and the first layer bubbled like crazy due to my base, and the second kind of helped to cover it up.

On to the polish-pimped plugs I mentioned:

These are just some plain black saddle acrylic plugs that I wear (in my stretched lobes) from time to time, and I decided they needed a boost. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, as they're just sitting in my piercing box along with many other items, all boring and plain. When I first got Golden Rose Scale Effect 04 I was tempted to do it, but I kept forgetting!

For these I put down a coat of black polish, and then one coat of Golden Rose Scale Effects - 04 and a top coat. I still need to go over the edges again and maybe put another top coat on to help them last, but for now I'm pretty happy with how awesome they look, with about 10 minutes of effort!

What do you think about the plugs?

Sunday 7 October 2012

Using Metallic Polish - We Stamp On Sundays


Hi all, Happy Sunday!

This week's challenge over at Adventures In Stamping was to use Metallic polish. When I heard this I had an idea of what do to, but when I was rummaging through my polishes I was feeling a little bit blah, and couldn't really be bothered to distinguish between polish finishes; so I just grabbed (possibly) the only polish that's name included 'Metallic' and started painting lol.

So I started with W7 - Metallic Mars, and stamped with W7 - Gold Mirror using Dashica Big SpD-A.
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colour: W7 - Metallic Mars
Stamp Colour: W7 - Gold Mirror
Image Plate: Dashica Big SpD-A
Top Coat: Rimmel 60 Seconds Clear
With flash to show the purple
Such a pretty base colour.
And here's what I used:


Hope everyone's had a good weekend!

Friday 5 October 2012

Amy's Nails - Mint, Blue & Pink Gradient, Diamond Drops & Owls

Hi all, happy Friday!

It feels quite weird posting today instead of my usual Thursday, but I was just too tired yesterday to function properly :P

Today's nails aren't even my own. These are some nails I did on my friend Amy probably about a month back now. By the time I was done (I took ages, sorry Amy!) the light was starting to go, and Amy snapped some photos on her phone.
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colours: Color Club - Blue-ming
Color Club - Hydrangea Kiss
Essie - Tour De Finance
Shredded top coat: Color Club - Diamond Drops
Owl: Barry M - Gold Foil
Black Nail Art Pen, Rimmel - White Tip
Essie - Tour De Finance
& Gold Gems
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails


These were so pretty! I love the gradient colours so much :D I'm a little bit gutted with how the owls turned out, but considering I hadn't done any free hand stuff in months I can't complain too much. I wish I'd taken my acrylic paints though instead of using nail art pens, as I much prefer working with acrylics.

I hope yous like them!

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Turtle Shell Stamping With Essie - Navigate Her, And Essence - Choose Me!

Hi all! Happy Tuesday!

It's probably a weird Tuesday for me, as I'll be working, which isn't the norm, that said, it means this is a scheduled post, so I hope everything goes out okay.

Today we have the First Essie I ever tried (I wore it a day plain when I first bought it) I'm just so impressed with the Formulas on all the Essies I've tried, and this is such a beautiful green!

Onto the stamping though! I stamped over Essie - Navigate her with Essence - Choose Me! Which came to me by the lovely Susana in our first swap. I say first, as we've just done our second, and I'll be posting about that maybe tomorrow! I stamped with images from Bundle Monster BM 313.
Base Coat: La Femme
Base Colour: Essie - Navigate Her
Stamp Colour: Essence - Choose Me!
Image Plate: Bundle Monster, BM313
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails
  
This is how much the little flecks shone

And here's a swatch shot of Navigate Her, two coats, no top coat.



What do you think of these? I loved wearing them =D