Snowflake Nails (plus bonus Christmas dog!)

 

I have been very lax recently - no excuse, but my nails have been shocking.  Partially cos I keep doing really stupid things, and knocking the corners of them off!  And then I decided to try thinning scissors out on my cocker spaniel, and ending up thinning my index finger instead - ouch!  You might notice in the pics below that I am tucking my index finger a little out of view - no-one needs to see that....

But it's December and I am seeing snowflake mani's everywhere, so thought I would try out my Bundle Monster plate 323 that I have been saving for a suitably festive period!

To start with though, I started with two coats of OPI Cuckoo For This Color, a gorgeous teal green shimmer.  Over the top, I tried something I have been waiting to try for ages - Models Own Jack Frost, a fine - medium irredescent glitter.  Really lovely and I wished I had taken some pics before I stamped over the top, as the snowflakes somewhat obliterate it, but I may try it on its own over another colour another day.  Really pretty and insanely sparkly!

Then the final stamping, with a few accents using bits of glitter from OPI I Snow You Love Me.  Very festive!

Base coat Orly Bonder
2 coats OPI Cuckoo For This Color
Stamped with BM323 and Konad Special Polish White
Top coat Seche Vite
Glitter accents from OPI I Snow You Love Me

 

 

And completely off topic, here is the pic I took of Lottie, my eleven month old spaniel, which I am waiting to arrive on custom printed Christmas cards!  The portable studio lighting and tripod I use for photographing my nails came in very useful!!!   However, Lottie is in her first season at the moment, so is mooching around like a hormonal teenager....  oestrogen has a lot to answer for!

OPI Grape....Set....Match

 

Apologies for the lack of posting for over a week - work has been mental and have been travelling to various locations around the country to do roadshow presentations, which has been fairly exhausting.  I did do what was meant to be a lovely mani at the beginning of the week, and it turned out so pants that I couldn't bring myself to post it  sure we've all those mani's before!  Topped of with having to cut all my nails short as I managed to damage about four of them in quick succession (hefting laptops around in rucksacks while travelling around didn't help). 

OPI Grape...Set...Match... was from a Serena Williams Grand Slam Duo from a couple of years ago.  It is a gorgeous, true royal purple shimmer, adorned with a mixture of fuschia pink and electric blue microglitter.  One of my favourite purples and I don't wear it nearly enough!  It is a little sheer, but builds up nicely -  I did use three coats for this mani.

I remembered seeing a gorgeous Indian pattern of the same purple and gold, so decided to use my Bundle Monster 2012 plate 312, and stamped with Barry M Foil Effects in Gold.  As I didn't want to cover up the gorgeous purple too much, I did it just one on accent nail, and added a few dots (oh I love dots!) on the rest of my nails.  Good job really - I am terrible at centring stamping still, but on one nail I think I can just about get away with it! Oh well, I didn't even do any stamping till about a month or so ago, so can only get better....

Base coat Orly Bonder
3 coats OPI Grape...Set....Match...
Top coat Seche Vite
Stamped / Dotted with Barry M Foil Effects in Gold

Orly Star Spangled

I was quite excited to see that for the December issue of Cosmopolitan magazine (UK), they are giving away a choice of four mini Orly shades.  Well, of course I had to get one!

The one I went for was this - Star Spangled.  I didn't have a red glitter in my stash, whereas the other shades available (Country Club Khaki, Naughty and Hair Band) were a little similar at least to what I already have.  I also was excited to try it, as I read that it was a good alternative to China Glaze Ruby Pumps, arguably one of the best red glitters you can get, and which sadly I don't have at the moment.

It is a beautiful deep red jelly, packed with bits of red glitter and when you see this in the sun, it just glows.  Application was lovely, even with the annoying tiny mini brush, as I found with all my (disappointingly small....at the moment) collection of Orly, although it did take three coats to build up to opacity (and it's still not quite opaque).  I just love this polish - the fact it was a freebie was amazing!  I may well have to order a full size bottle though.

I also decided to do an accent with it, so on my ring finger, I did a base of Barry M Lychee, and stamped Bundle Monster plates 311 and 303, using Konad Special Polish in black and dark red respectively.  It's like a tiny love letter, kissed with red lipstick!  Had lots of compliments on my nails today - I hope you like it too!

Base coat Orly Bonder
3 coats Orly Star Spangled
Top coat Seche Vite

Models Own Southern Lights & Bundle Monster 321

 

Just a quick one - I thought the sparkliness of Models Own Southern Lights was so gorgeous, that I would try stamping over it, as I didn't want to take it off just yet.  I wanted to keep it quite subtle so I used the flower image from Bundle Monster plate 321 from the 2012 collection and stamped it with Konad White Special Stamping polish - I like the effect, it looks rather wintery!  The snowflakes would look lovely as well, but I didn't want to use them as I have some very pretty snowflake stickers that I want to use at some point, so went with the flowers this time.  Getting better at this stamping malarkey!

As before, I had to take these under my kitchen lights to try and get a hint of the sparkle (nothing like what you see in real life!) so apologies for seeing anything like shadows and tiles in the background.

Base coat Orly Bonder
2-3 coats Southern Lights
Top coat Seche Vite
Stamped with plate BM321 and Konad Special Stamping Polish in White

 

 

Models Own Southern Nights

I did say I was going to stamp something pretty over the Barielle Secret Encounter that I swatched the other day, but don't you just know it, less than 24 hours later, massive chips everywhere put me off!

So here we have another untried - Models Own Southern Lights from their Wonderland collection.   Southern Lights is a lilacy grey base, PACKEDD with fairly fine holo glitter.  The sparkle on this one is just WOW (I ended up painting my best friends four-year-olds nails with this too, but good for girlies young and old!). 

This would be great layered over another colour (I will try this at some point) or, as I did here, just layer it up until opaque.  I used 2-3 coats to get an opaque finish - it is a little rough textured, so I used Seche Vite to smooth the whole thing over.

Of course, holo is quite difficult to photograph, and I did my best but not that happy - and then I went into my kitchen with overhead halogen lights, and immediately found my rather large light box (my kitchen cabinets are cream, so are the backdrop haha).  So the first couple of pics are my normal light box, so you can see the soft lilacy-grey and then the last one is with my kitchen lights!  Unfortunately it did make my hands turn the colour of lobster....

Base coat Orly Bonder
2-3 coats Southern Lights
Top coat Seche Vite

 

Barielle Secret Encounter

 

This is another Barielle polish I picked up on a mahoosive TK Maxx visit, a couple of months ago now, but has remained untried till now.  I don't know why - it is so my sort of colour.  A deep, rich, burgundy, plummy purply colour with the most gorgeous fuschia shimmer that only shows in the brightest of lights.

I will probably do some kind of stamping over this later, but love this so much, I just had to show it in its virgin polish goodness.  Unfortunately it was so damn glossy, it was quite hard to photograph!

Base coat Orly Bonder
2 coats Secret Encounter
Top coat Seche Vite

 



Team Helmer!

I can finally join team Helmer - picked one up the other day, put it together without too much swearing and then even managed to customise it a little with some wall stickers I picked up from Ikea at the same time.  Fits in beautifully underneath my desk (Ikea desk as well, so guessing it was made to fit as standard) - I think it looks okay! 

And of course, Lottie had to get in on the photographing - my pup is such a poser.  I am still figuring the best way for me to organise it, but I still have a relatively small collection (less than 200) so currently it is separated by various brands in four of the drawers, I have a nail art drawer and a nail care drawer.  If you have one, how have you organised yours?