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

 

 

China Glaze Foie Gras matte damask nails

It's Chocolate Week this week - did you know that?   Originally I thought I would use my China Glaze Foie Gras to do a chocolate themed manicure, but I just couldn't make up my mind what to do.  Never mind, it's not too late - it's Chocolate Week till Sunday!   So for now I decided to do a bit of stamping with it, and also try out the matte topcoat I picked up from Claire's a couple of weeks ago.

Foie Gras is from the China Glaze Hunger Games Capitol Collection 2012, and is a lovely creamy chocolatey brown.  It does dry darker on the nail than is visible in the bottle, and you can kind of see that in the pics, but it is perfect coverage in two coats.  I have to admit, this is my only brown (at the moment!) but it is a brown that I am quite fond of.

I stamped this with Konad Special Polish Hepburn Blue, and used two plates from Bundle Monster 2012 collection - 306 and 318.  I think I like the mix of the two different stamps, but sometimes I think I should have just stuck to one - what do you think? 

And then to finish off, I used Claire's matte topcoat.  This is the first matte topcoat I have tried and I am really impressed.  It gives a lovely satiny sheen, and I can't stop touching it! I have to say, I have been really impressed with the polishes I have bought from Claire's lately.    Oh and apologies about the slightly shoddy cleanup.  I was falling asleep at this point and it looked okay until I pointed a camera lense at it....

Base coat Nail Envy
Two coats China Glaze Foie Gras
Stamping polish Konad Special Polish Hepburn Blue
Top coat Claire's matte topcoat.

An InLinkz Link-up

OPI Muir Muir On The Wall

This wasn't what I had planned at all.  I had a manicure for Breast Cancer Awareness Think Pink lined up, with a beautiful deep pink and various other bits thrown in, but it just wasn't happening.  So I took it all off again in a strop, and decided to go with a simple paint job with one of my untried's. 

This is Muir Muir On The Wall, from the OPI San Francisco collection 2013.  I have no idea why it is called Muir Muir On The Wall - who, what or where is Muir?  The only Muir I know is a Scottish guy at work!

That aside, it is a beautiful vampy shade, perfect for autumn/winter - a gorgeous blackish burgundy, brownish under normal light, and with a deep purple shimmer in flash lighting.  It is also, in the bottle at least, a duochrome, with flashes of a slightly greenish gold.  I couldn't capture this very well in photos (a little bit on the first one below mostly) but you can see it quite clearly in the bottle.  Sadly, it is not that visible in real life but nevertheless, it is a gorgeous velvety colour.





With flash

And then, I jazzed it up a bit by stamping the rose pattern from the Bundle Monster 2012 plates using Barry M Foil Effects in gold, and adding a few gold studs here and there which were from Claire's.  They look enormous in the photos, but they are quite small!  Nail photos I guess are always disproportionate though!

Base coat Orly Boner
2 coats Muir Muir On The Wall
Top coat Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month October 2013 - Pink Friday mani!

So we are in October, and the whole of October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with "Pink Fridays".  So perfect excuse to do a pink themed mani!

Now, I will say right up I wasn't particularly happy with it - it's cute, but it didn't go particularly smoothly.  Plus those tip images on stamping plates are a bugger to get straight!

So, to start of with, 3 coats of China Glaze Something Sweet.  On my little finger, Barielle Pink Diamond - a really beautiful pink glitter.  I did a silver sponged gradient on two nails, using Barry M Foil Effect in silver which is probably the bit I was most miffed with as I completely botched my middle finger (but was too tired and ran out of time to do it again). Stamping is done with Bundle Monster plates BM324 and BM321 and a Konad Special Polish in one of the pinks (sorry, don't know which one - I have the tiny little bottles and can't find it on them!) and then finished off with tiny little pink crystals to accentuate, from Born Pretty Store.  And COPIOUS amounts of Seche Vite....

 Well, at least it's massively pink!!!

a england Saint George & Bundle Monster plate 314

Now I realise it was less than a month since I first wrote about a england Saint George (see here), but this beautiful, dark, rich teal green polish, shimmering with holo goodness, is too pretty to be put aside, so I pulled it out again.   And oh, how gorgeous it is, and applies so velvety smooth.  It really is a joy to apply.

This time however, I stamped it with Bundle Monster plate 314, using Barry M Foil Effect in gold.  Having picked the gold and the silver Foil Effects up from Superdrug after reading they were fantastic for stamping, I am happy that all reports rang true - loved stamping with it!  And I think my stamping is getting better - and if anyone is thinking "But it's not lined up the same on all her nails!", that at least was deliberate, to try and make them all look part of a bigger pattern, and I kept rotating the stamper.

Base coat Orly Bonder, 2 coats Saint George, stamped with Barry M Foil Effects Gold, top coat Seche Vite.





L'Oreal Color Riche Black Swan & Bundle Monster Plate 323

After realising I didn't have any blacks (the horror!), I thought I''d try out a L'Oreal polish for the first time in years.   I was very pleasantly surprised - The Black Swan is a super glossy, pitch black polish, that is opaque in two coats.   Not to mention the easiest brush I have EVER used!

And as my latest dabblings have been around stamping and polka dots, why not combine them in the one mani?!   So I used plate 323 from Bundle Monster's 2012 collection for the lacy bit as a  corner accent, and then added polka dots to the rest of my nail.  For the stamping I used Konad Special Polish in white and then used Barry M Matt White (which isn't  matte, confusingly - named after someone called Matt White?) to do the dots.   Was quite pleased with this one and had a few compliments too!

Base coat Orly Bonder, two coats L'Oreal Color Riche The Black Swan, stamping BM323 and Konad Special Polish in white, polka dots Barry M Matt White, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

An InLinkz Link-up

China Glaze Something Sweet & Bundle Monster plate 314

Except from dabbling with a couple of Konad plates I got in a kit a couple of years ago, with tiny little images on like a couple of stars (which were a bit uninspiring but I do know Konad do some lovely images), I haven't done any stamping.  Until today!  My new set of the Bundle Monster 2012 plates turned up yesterday and I was excited to give them a go.

Last night I had a go and got seriously frustrated and nearly started throwing things around in a temper.  So I went to bed and tried again this morning - much better!  I'm getting the knack of getting the image off the plate onto the stamper, which is the fiddly bit for me.  So this is my first ever stamping manicure - be gentle!

I am not generally that big on pale pinks, but I do like China Glaze Something Sweet and thought it would be a nice base for the tendrilly image I planned on using from BM 314. 

Something Sweet is a baby pink creme - massively streaky on the first couple of coats, but does level out eventually.  In fact, I used between 3-4 coats for this, depending on whether all the streaks were gone or not.  But it is a pretty, candy-floss pink cream and flattering on my skintone.

The stamping over the top was done with plate 314 from the Bundle Monster 2012 set and I used OPI DS Extravagance after reading that holo's tend to stamp well.  I may order some Konad stamping polish in silver, black and white as a base set, unless anyone can recommend others that they use?

Not too bad a job - a few missed patches, but overall I am quite chuffed with my first effort!

Orly Bonder base coat, 3-4 coats Something Sweet, stamped OPI DS Extravagence, Bundle Monster plate 314, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.