OPI How Great is your Dane and foil stamping

Hi all,

I can't believe it's been a full two months since I've last posted anything. I've only just checked my blog email account for the first time too.  Even my actual digits are feeling neglected, barely getting re-done every week.

I still have a monster back-log of manicures to post that need editing etc etc, and since moving in with my boyfriend I feel like majority of the photos have been taken on my iPhone so the quality isn't great.

Maybe some time this year when we've moved house, have gotten settled and have a little Frenchie pup I'll manage to catch up with everything and start fresh!

Until then, here's some wintery nails which I think are from September October time, when I had started growing my nails into a long almond shape, but after a bad break after much filing/growing/care I soon went back to the usual, and easy square shape.

Base Coat: CND Stickey

Base Colour: OPI - How Great is your Dane

Stamping Colours: Barry M - Gold Foil, Revlon - Copper Penny

Image Plate: Moyou Bridal number unknown

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard as Nails 

And here's a swatch of the lovely How Great is your Dane:

It usually takes a lot for me to love a brown, and this shade ticks every box.

Until next time!

Green Jelly and Hot Pink Chrome Stamping...

Hi guys, every time I post these days I feel like somewhere in the text is an apology!

I don't want to be one of those people who's full of false promises, or always saying I'm planning to do certain things by a certain time.  I'm doing my best. The truth is, my love for blogging and nail art just isn't the same.  Don't get me wrong, I still love sharing what I've done with my nails, and I've even bought some new stamping plates recently.  However, as life is a mushy haze of work, driving lessons, gym (no matter how short my visit :P) and people I love, the effort I put into my nails comes after that.

At the moment I'm actually letting my nails grow slightly, and they're oval/round rather than the mostly natural square they grow in.  I'm debating going for slightly more of an almond shape in a week or so too.

Anyhoo... onto the nails rather than the tiny rants.

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Barry M - Watermelon#

Stamping Colour: NYC - Foil'er Up

Image Plate: Cheeky Jumbo Viva Mexico

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

So this was a little bit of an odd combination, and I'm not 100% how it came about as this was about two months back now.  I think it may have came from not owning many stamping polishes other than chromes that can stamp over dark colours.   Now, Barry M - Watermelon is not the darkest, but it is a very strong bold colour.  I think NYC - Foil'er Up sort of works.  Sort of.

Here's a swatch shot of Watermelon in case I haven't shown one before.  Lovely Deep Green that's almost muted.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend. Mine was another lazy one, snugged up in bed or the sofa watching TV. Bliss.

Models Own - Slate Green, Gold Foil & Blue Stamping

Hi hi all, happy Wednesday, I'm feeling slightly better today although my head is still massively fuzzy. But half day today, and I'm going for food. So should be good :]

Today I've got quite the simple combo, one that didn't quite work out, but I like how sheer the stamp is all the same.

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colours: Models Own - Slate Green & Barry M - Gold Foil

Stamping Colour: W7 - Blue Lagoon

Image Plate: Konad M64

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

And here's the base of Models Own - Slate Green & Barry M - Gold Foil I painted on Gold Foil to a scrunched up ball of cling film (plastic wrap/saran wrap) and dabbed it over Slate Green.

Hope you're all having a good week so far :]

Dotting Tools - We Stamp On Sunday

Hi hi all, hope you've all had a good weekend. I have a feeling tonight is going to fly by and I'll be back at work before I know it :(

Sad times aside, yesterday when I did my nails for this Adventures in Stamping challenge it was actually sunny! So there's quite a few photos ahead, not loads, but a lot more than the couple of images I've been restricted to recently due to the use of flash only.

I also have a pretty special polish to show you (special to me) as it's gorgeous, and one of only two true matte polishes that I love the formula of. I believe to be a dupe for Orly's Iron Butterfly. This is amazing to be, cause I've wanted a polish like this for a couple of years now, and with W7's bargain price of £1.99; yes please!

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: W7 - Night Suede (also used for dots)

Flakies: Golden Rose Scale Effects Polish - 13

Stamp Colour: Barry M - Silver Foil

Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM224

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

Matte coat: Rimmel - Matte Finish

Above is with flash, pretty green!

Below is before I added to extra matte coat.

And for the base and flakies only combo, which looked quite nice as flakie polishes tend to dry a little matte.

This flakie is still true love for me, in fact the four I own are. Never disappointed when I reach for them. Here's what I used for the mani, and I will show you swatches of the beautiful Night Suede after that.

Now; onto the pretty pretty Night Suede. This first picture is a rough one coat, no clean up required! The other two are two coats, totally effortless polish to use.

So W7 - Night Suede looks pretty much like dupe of Orly - Iron Butterfly, but as I own it I can't compare. It's a gorgeous dark charcoal with tiny silver flecks, and it looks great matte or glossy, but matte for the win!

If anyone owns Iron Butterfly let me know what you think.

Until next time my pretties, I'm gonna go stick on a film and order a curry =D

Steam Punk Nails

Hi all

Little bit of a late post today, but If I don't do it now i'm going to crawl into bed until morning!

These, in my head, were awesome, but something about the stamp didn't really work. I think the stamp may be engraved too deep, as only one nail out of ten came out with actually spikes on the cogs, instead of smooshy circles.

That being said, I really enjoyed wearing these, I like how the whole thing pulled together. If only the stamp had worked out!! Yikes, ignore the blurry photos!

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Jacava - Chocolate Melts

Sponged Colours: W7 - Suede & Black

Stamping Colour: Miss Sporty - Electric Beige

Image Plate: Cheeky CH33

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

Here's the base before the stamping:

Hope you guys have had a good Wednesday! I spent mine working, and snacking on Seaweed heh.

2true - Soft Grey & NYC - Techno Foil Stamping

Hi all, Hope you're having a good Friday! Thank goodness the weekend is here!

Today I have another polish that I was sent to review from 2true for more on the company, and the other polishes I have reviewed click here. This post isn't really a review but a quick stamp/swatch.

For more colour accurate photos of Soft Grey, visit Lucy's Stash Here as I could not for the life of me get it to photograph without the green tone before stamping!

Soft grey is a medium grey creme that sometimes looks green to me, just not as green as my photo. Below is two coats that offered really great coverage, and I had no problems at all maneuvering the brush/formula, which lead me to basically no clean up whatsoever.

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour:: 2true Fast Dry - Shade 13 Soft Grey

Stamping Colour: NYC - Techno Foil

Image Plate: Konad - M73

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

This is how the polish looks most of the time, and below is when my camera caught it looking very green.

I really love polishes that give you this kind of look in only two coats, so smooth, and as the name implies it dries really quick too.

*Product was sent for consideration of review*

Light Stamp Over A Dark Base - We Stamp On Sundays

Hi all, happy Sunday!

So the challenge for this week over at Adventures In Stamping is to stamp with a light colour over a dark base. I voted all excited for this, as I was expecting my new polishes to arrive (totally ran out of white so I bought 3 new colours as well) but they're lost in the post, so these pink and silver nails will have to do! The pink is darker than the silver so that still counts right?

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: W7 - Unnamed Pink

Stamping Colour: Barry M - Silver Foil

Image Plate: Cheeky CH51

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

As these were the nails I was wearing all week I've not quite had the chance to take a photo of the plate I used, or the polishes like I would normally.

The W7 polish is a really surprising pink because I really love it on myself, which pretty much never happens with pink! It came in a pack I received for Christmas off my Nan/Aunt/Uncle, which had two polishes, a lip gloss and a mascara. This however means it has no name. *frustration*

Hope you're all having a good Sunday. I've had a pretty chilled one, pretty much ignoring most of the stuff I need to do in favour of cups of tea, and TV. Oh well!

Snowflakes Inspired by Spellbinding Nails

Hi all! Hope you've enjoyed some nice time off from school or work.

I've had a week off from blogging, and while I've enjoyed having time to relax, and family to distract me from missing certain people, I'm so far behind with reading other blogs that It may take me weeks! That being said; I'm not back in work until Wednesday and so I'm going to try and take today, and a (probably) hungover Tuesday to catch up and get some posts scheduled for the coming week.

Today though I have some nails for you that were inspired by the lovely Sarah over at Spellbinding Nails I was doing my friends nails a couple of weeks back, and was needing some inspiration, so I hit up Google images and fell in love with these.

Here's my nails:

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Color Club - Cornflower

Sponged Colours: China Glaze - Frostbite

Manhattan - 67n

2true - Glitterati - Shade 1 Sapphire

Image Plates: Bundle Monster BM14 BM319

Stamping Colour: Special Konad White

Dotted Colour: NYC - Niagara Foils

Top Coat: Sally Hansen - Advanced Hard As Nails

Here's Zoe nails:

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Color Club - Cornflower

Sponged Colours: China Glaze - Frostbite

2true - Glitterati - Shade 1 Sapphire

Image Plates: Bundle Monster BM319

Stamping Colour: Special Konad White

Dotted Colour: China Glaze - Millennium

Top Coat: Sally Hansen - Advanced Hard As Nails

These photos really dont do the 2true Glitterati polish in Sapphire any justice, the glitter looks like scales, it was so eye catching in person. But more on that polish when I review them :]

Hope you guys like these, I certainly did when I nabbed the idea from Sarah :D

Fesitve Leopard Print

Hi everyone! Officially a week until Christmas *squee*

I'm still wishing it will snow, but I doubt it :( it would totally make if for me if it did. But still; I'm looking forward to the family, the banter at the dinner table, the food, the drinkies ;] and all the bits in between :D Is anyone else excited?

These nails were inspired by a post I seen about a week and a half back, and I can not remember for the life of me from where :( So if you know where I got this idea please let me know!

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil

Stamping Plate: Konad M57

Image Colour: BYS - Black Satin

Dotted Colours: Barry M - Red Glitter & NOPI - Fell From The Tree

Accent Glitter: Barry M - Yellow Topaz Glitter

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

I took these photos at work, using my coworkers SAD lamp as the light source, I'm still not used to it, and I was leaning all the way over my desk, so next time I'm gonna try and pay more attention so not to get shaky pics.

The Gold/Holographic glitter is one of the new ones I've recently purchased from Barry M - I'll have a post up tomorrow showing the four I recently bought on some sort of glitter binge :D It's a really lovely mix though. Micro holo glitter, small gold and holo glitter, and medium gold and holo glitter, very sparkly in real life.

I hope everyone's having a good Tuesday so far!

Using Gold - We Stamp On Sundays

Hey all! I hope everyone's had a good weekend :] Mine seems to have gone far, far too quickly.

This week's challenge over at Adventures In Stamping was to use gold, either as a base colour, or as a stamp. I wore these nails on Monday  and knew I wouldn't have much time to do my nails today, so I decided to use them for the challenge.

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: FCUK - Bronze

Stamp Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil

Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM223

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails 

Short but sweet from me today, I want to get my nails shortened and painted for the week ahead :]

Using Matte - We Stamp On Sundays

Hi all! Happy Sunday!

This weeks challenge over at Adventures In Stamping was to use some aspect of matte in our manis. I was originally going to do a new mani for this challenge stamping over a matte coat, but when I finished stamping the nails I was doing at the time, I knew they'd look great matte.

For this I used both ends of an Essence Colour3 stick. Midnight Blue is the base colour, and City That Never Sleeps is the lovely jelly flakie, that reminds me of Magnetic - Freakin' Violet. I then stamped with more blue - NYC - Niagara Foils using Bundle Monster BM 321, and added Rimmel - Matte Finish.

Base Coat: CND - Stickey

Base Colour: Essence Nail Colour3 - Midnight Date

Flakies: Essence Nail Colour3 - City That Never Sleeps

Stamp Colour: NYC - Niagara Foils

Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM321

Gloss Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

Matte Top Coat: Rimmel - Matte Finish

The dimension the flakies give it almost make it look like crushed velvet ^-^

Glossy

One very thin coat of City That Never Sleeps

Midnight Date - 2 Coats Sunlight

Midnight Date - 2 Coats Shade

What do you guys think? I loved wearing these matte, but the picture of the finished product with a gloss top coat really makes the green flakies pop out!

Hope you're all having a good Sunday! :]

Finaflor - Madri, Glitter & Stamping with Bundle Monster BM 306

Hi all! Happy Thursday!

Quick post from me today, as I write this it's Wednesday night, and all I want to do is sleep as Cheese (one of my cats) decided to wake me up last night, something like, every two hours. I've not been a very productive bunny today!

Finaflor - Madri is another polish that came to me from the lovely Susana of Blog do Verniz Amarelo it's such a strange deep purple, that looks kind of like chocolate at times, it's hard to describe. It's got such an awesome formula too, one coat was full coverage, but two deepened the colour. I really want to try this for stamping, and see what kind of colour it shows as.

Base Coat: La Femme

Base Colour: Finaflor - Madri

Glitter: Etos Nail Effects - 03-04

Stamping Colour: NYC - Foil'er Up

Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM 306

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

Best colour shot of this :]

Better shot of the glitter

That's all for today! Hope you liked these :]

Essence Nail Colour3 - Ticket To The Show, Front Row Or Backstage & Gold Lighting Bolts With BM 305

Hi all! Today I have a delicious combo for you, Essence Nal Colour3, Ticket To The Show, with a Layer of Front Row Or Backstage and some stamping.

First up is the finished mani:

Base Coat: La Femme

Base Colour: Essence Nail Colour3 - Ticket To The Show

Layering Colour: Front Row Or Backstage (on all nails except ring finger)

Stamping Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil

Image Plate: Bundle Monster BM 305

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Hard As Nails

 
Now onto the swatches. Ticket to the show is so beautiful, a very rich black with rainbow shimmer, and it's a one coater! I used two coats for the swatches, but that's just habit! It was quite hard for me to capture the rainbow with the overcast day we were having in the UK :(

Here's a swatch shot of Ticket To The Show, with one coat Front Row Or Backstage? I love how chocolatey and warm this looks. Something I'll seriously be wearing again soon.

Hope you're all having a good Tuesday!

Beauty UK - Jelly Bean & Gold Paisley Using Bundle Monster 315

Ahhh! Happy Friday my lovelies!

I am feeling a little better recently, I'm not going through a mass of tissue blowing my nose every 10 minutes, so things are looking up :] I also have such an amazing  polish to show you today, and I may need to buy a backup bottle because I love it that much hahaha.

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while now; you may have heard me talk about "Saints Row purple" and how I've been on a hunt for the perfect bright purple polish that's not too pale and doesn't lean too plummy. After buying a watch that I thought was the perfect purple (it looked it online) about a year ago and it was too warm, I'd almost given up hope.

That's when the new Beauty UK candy collection comes in. Jelly Bean, oh Jelly Bean, where have you been all my life! Pretty fitting as I some times get called Jelly Bean or Jenni Bean hehe.

This is the best polish formula wise that I've ever came across from Beauty UK. It's opaque in one, more vibrant in two, and dries really quick too. It dries the typical neon matte ( I have no photos sorry) but looks pretty with top coat too.

Base Coat: La Femme

Base Colour: Beauty UK - Jelly Bean

Stamp Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil

Image plate: Bundle Monster BM 315

Top Coat: Rimmel 60 seconds - Clear

  

Here's some swatch shots to show it in a different light.

So yeah, look at that beauty! Ignore the little glittery specks, I must have had something on my top coat brush :(

Hope you're all having a good Friday :]