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

OPI DS Glamour

 

Still full of yucky cold, so did a simple paint job, but with one of my most beautiful and prized polishes - OPI DS Glamour.  This was one of my very first lemmings, and when I got it, I almost didn't want to use it because I didn't want it to run out!  But of course, polishes are made to be worn.  Especially when your sinuses feel like big wads of cotton wool....

This is just a perfect polish - a gorgeous blue with a beautiful linear holo shimmer scattered through it.  It's just a pity there are no direct sunlight shots, but chance would be a fine thing!  It applies flawlessly in two coats (although not absolutely perfect, I didn't do any cleanup on this mani) and I just LOVE it.  Why, oh why did OPI stop making these original DS polishes?!   I didn't use any topcoat on this polish either. 

I was debating stamping over it, and couldn't - sometimes a polish is just perfect on its own.  Apologies about the pic overkill - I was trying to get all its different nuances under varying light sources.

As an aside, I am quite pleased with the general state of my nails at the moment - they are finally in a shape I am happy with (although I have a small split on my right hand....aaaargh!) and are growing like weeds.  All the cuticle oil and hand lotion I am slathering on seems to be doing its job!

Base coat Orly Bonder
2 coats OPI DS Glamour

 

Black and gold

I was streaming with cold when I did this (well, still am) and just wanted to do something simple.  So I did 2 coats of Barry M (a really nice glossy black) and instead of sponging the tips, I sponged the base of my nails with OPI Goldeneye.

Of course, this backfired, as I now had fingers COVERED in gold glitter which was a complete pain in the arse to get off!  Nevertheless, I do like the combination of black and gold, and may still do my original idea soon, which was a black and gold skittle mani.  Just need to get rid of this damn cold first!

Base coat Orly Bonder
2 coats Barry M Black
Sponged OPI Goldeneye
Top coat Seche Vite

 

 

Models Own Mystic Mauve & Purple Ash triangles

This is just a simple taped mani (sometimes my taping is good, sometimes terrible - today was "meh") using two polishes from Models Own - Mystic Mauve and Purple Ash.  I have also used OPI I Snow You Love Me from the Mariah Carey Holiday Collection 2013, but I will do a proper swatch on that at some point, as I didn't use it as a polish in this mani, I just picked bits out!

Mystic Mauve is a foil effect pale lilacy colour - very pretty and applies smoothly with hardly any streaking.  Purple Ash is a gorgeous dusty purple creme - I love this colour!   Again, it applies smoothly and as an aside, I really get on well with Models Own brushes! 

To finish off, I embellished the point of each triangle, using OPI I Snow You Love Me as a glequin source!  It actually worked okay - the pics don't show the holo effect massively, but there is a pattern on each circle, so it gives a pleasing 3d effect on the nail, while still laying flat. 

Base coat OPI Nail Envy
2 coats Mystic Mauve / Purple Ash, plus additional taping layer
Glitter from OPI I Snow You Love Me
Top coat Seche Vite

 

 

Peacock Feather nails

 

I picked up some silver peacock feather water decals from Hail the Nails ages ago, so decided to try them out today.

The decals are all silver, so wanted a way to bring all the peacocky colours in, so I started with a base of OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, and sponged on randomly patches of OPI Catch Me In Your Net (a very awesome polish of turquoise glitter) and OPI Goldeneye, much like you would with a galaxy manicure I believe (I haven't tried one yet).

I then added the water decals and put a tiny little bright blue rhinestone in the centre of each feather "eye", which I got from Born Pretty Store.  They could have done with being a bit bigger,  but I only have 1.5mm rhinestones....at the moment.  I fully intend on ordering a rainbow set of 2mm ones soon! 

Finished off with lots of Seche Vite.   Having had a disaster with designs earlier in the week, which I removed without a hint of a camera in a strop, I'm fairly pleased with how these turned out!

 

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
 

Models Own Banger over OPI Russian Navy

Tis my birthday, so decided I wanted somethin' sparkly on my nubbins!  I picked up Models Own Banger the other week, which is from the Fireworks collection, a set of glitters.  This one is made up of small fuchsia glitter, large hexagonal blue glitter, medium hexagonal pale blue glitter and strips of holo blue/green glitter (think there's a few other varieties in there as well!).  And the bottle is PACKED with glitter - no fishing around with your brush with this one. Fabulous in other words!  I really love the mix of different shapes, and the blues, greens and pinks are just lovely.

Although I love layering glitters over black, I don't want to be a one trick pony, so I did a base of OPI Russian Navy, a deep blue/black, which set it off beautifully.  Banger is named well - reminds me of fireworks in the night sky!

Base coat Orly Bonder, 2 coats Russian Navy, 2 coats Banger, top coat Seche Vite.

 

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

OPI Make Him Mine (Mariah Carey Holiday 2013)

After trying my first sand effect polish from Claire's, and being rather wonderfully surprised at how pretty it was, I decided to try one of the gorgeous Liquid Sand shades from OPI's Mariah Carey Holiday 2013 collection - Make Him Mine. 

This is a gorgeous soft, rose gold shade (and I loooove rose gold), though very subtle.  Described by OPI as "textured glistening rose", it has a gorgeous shimmer to it with medium pieces of glitter, and is a very flattering shade (would be work appropriate as well I think, if you are restricted to the colours you wear).  My only small gripe would be that after two coats, I still have some visible nail line, so I think it would take 3 coats to make fully opaque.

I'm thinking that this could potentially make a nice textured gradient with the Claire's one that I reviewed here as well.....

Base coat Orly Bonder, 2 coats Make Him Mine.

And as a bonus, I spent 6 hours doing hardcore gardening on Sunday and managed not to break a single nail.   Amazing!  Although I have now tempted fate, and I'll probably break one on a cushion, or something stupid like that.... 

OPI In The Cable Car Pool Lane & OPI Goldeneye Reverse French Manicure

In The Cable Car Pool Lane is from the OPI San Francisco Collection 2013 and it is a deep, wine red / burgundy jelly.  It is so shiny that I had great problems photographing this and you can see annoying reflections in nearly all the photos!  Nevertheless, it is a gorgeous colour - I always have a weakness for these deep berry colours, so it's a winner for me.

To glam it up a bit, I paired it with Goldeneye, another OPI polish from the Skyfall Collection in 2012. after seeing the combo over on Nailz Craze in a different mani.  I decided to do a reverse French manicure, just to have a hint of the gold, but really, my photos do this polish a serious disservice.  This is probably the most stunning gold polish I have worn, a perfect warm, yellow gold.  It is a densely packed glitter, but after about three coats, builds up to an almost foil finish and is absolutely beautiful, sparkling in the light.  Well, apart from the light around my camera that is.

And as ever, you do what looks like the perfect mani to the naked eye - but once you take the photos and zoom in, it don't look quite so good!  Oh well, I think I'll start doing all my mani's under a humungous magnifying glass!

I've taken some pics with flash and without to try and capture them, but for both these polishes, the photos seriously under-represent what they look like in real life!

Base coat Orly Bonder, three coats Goldeneye, two coats In The Cable Car Pool Lane, top coat Sally Hensen Insta-Dri.

 

With flash

Without flash

Without flash

With flash

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.

  

OPI Planks A Lot and Mermaids Tears Polka Dots

Planks A Lot and Mermaids Tears are from OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection, back from 2011.  I bought these at the time along with Silver Shatter - I can't say I am actually that keen on shatter polishes, but these two shades are very pretty.

Both are what I would call quite dusty shades, Planks A Lot being a soft lilac, and Mermaids Tears a very muted jade / mint colour.   Both crème polishes, and I find they apply really well, with no streakiness after the second coat.

The colours compliment each other really well I think (I hope so, it's kind of the basis of my sitting room accessories theme!) and I have just got my paws on my new dotting tools.  So what better time to try my first polka dot mani!

Apologies for the untidy bits around my nails - it's amazing how everything looks hunky dory, until you zoom into those photographs!  My skin tends to suffer in colder weather as well, and it is beginning to get quite chilly - slapping on the moisturiser three times a day at least though like a good girl!

Hope you like it!

Orly Bonder base coat, two coats of OPI, two coats Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

Holding Mermaids Tears

Holding Planks A Lot

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumnal Gradient with China Glaze Agro

China Glaze Agro is from The Hunger Games Capitol Colors Collection Spring 2013, and is a lovely, rich olive green shimmer, that applies nearly to opacity in one coat, though I used two here, and very little brush-strokiness.

I then decided to try my first ever attempt at a gradient polish with it, and sponged the tips with OPI Sprung.  It is getting colder now, and with thoughts turning to autumn, I was inspired by leaves turning from green to gold.  As I said, it is my first attempt at a gradient, but I'm actually quite pleased at how it turned out! 

I normally take photos in the morning sunlight as well....but there was none! So took my camera to work and waited for a bit of sunlight.  I also have a lightbox and lamps on the way, so will no longer be limited by available natural light - cant wait to have a play! 

Nail Envy base, two coats of Agro, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

An InLinkz Link-up

OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre? / OPI Pirouette My Whistle

From the OPI NYC Ballet Soft Shades Collection Spring 2012.

I decided to go soft, girlie and pretty today, which doesn't happen that often as I tend to like my colours. 

I settled on OPI's You Callin' Me A Lyre from their NYC Ballet Soft Shades Collection from 2012 - I don't have the whole set, but bought this, Barre My Soul (a pinky beige sheer) and Pirouette My Whistle (the glitter overlay) when they came out.

I don't often do sheers, but do make the odd exception.  I find I don't tend to apply them that well (or the formula is difficult) so end up with streak city.  This one however is fairly foolproof - hardly any streaking at all.   I did however put four coats on, to build up to the opacity I wanted.  This is a soft, pink, sheer jelly formula - I trained professionally to be a classical dancer, and this does actually remind me of ballet tights! 

Sunlight

Natural light

I did this last night, and when I looked at them this morning, I decided it needed a bit more (like I said, sheers aren't really my thing and I can be bored of them fairly quickly!) so added one coat of Pirouette My Whistle, also from the NYC Ballet collection - a clear varnish with a suspension of silver microglitter and shimmery white hexagonal glitter.  I love this - they work really well together, and have a pretty feminine look.  I am always happy when the glitter pieces distribute nicely and you don't have to spend ages trying to spread them out on the nail!

And then to finish off, I put a little rose water decal on my ring finger as an accent.  I love this look, considering it is my not so favourite sheers!

Sunlight

Natural light

An InLinkz Link-up