The Dog Ate My Stamping Polish

Yes, its true. As I like spending time painting my nails, the hound gets jealous and he 'hides' polishes. This week alone I have lost a bottle of Seche Vite and two bottles of China Glaze. He usually hides them under the sofa, and brings them out when you least suspect it so he can run away while chewing.

So, when I came to stamp today and my wonderful Barry M Silver Nail Foil was missing I knew who to blame. As I had an idea of what I wanted, nothing else would do and I have had to buy a replacement bottle. However, he is threatened that if he doesn't find it quick smart he is going to be in big trouble.

Today's pink for Breast Cancer Awareness is actually Magenta Motion from the Sally Hansen Insta-dri range. It goes on so well you only really need one coat. Although I have used two. The stamping is from Konad plate M65.

I think it looks quite delicious.

31 Day Challenge #15 Delicate Print

Sorry this is a day late, but things as explained in the post before were all at sixes and sevens. It won't be a long post, but I just wanted to get the pictures up and out there.

Here is my delicate pattern. Using one of my new Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's in Emerald Express and a stamp with Konad M71. I am really pleased with how it looks.

31 Days Challenge - #13 Animal

I cannot believe that it is Monday again already. The Olympics are over, its three weeks till our holiday - yay and I have been almost chatting to someone who was my best friend for 20 years before we had a pretty nasty row about 5 years ago.

I am cheating a bit as the manicure I am showing you today I did for a friend a few weeks ago to go with a wedding outfit that she was wearing. I loved it so much I thought that I would recreate it, and I was just as happy with it the second time around.

For this I have used Barry M - Gold Foil, Konad Special Polish in Black and accents of Color Club Gingerbread. I am really chuffed with the results. Oh, and the stamp is Konad plate M57, the very first one I owned.

Here are the other ladies taking part in the challenge

BFF Challenge, Black and White

I have a bit of love for black and white polish. So I was chuffed to have this come up again so soon. Doubled with the fact last night my husband actually paid attention to one of my nail plates and announced it should be done in black and white. I listened, and here it is.

I have used Barry M Multi Glitter in Black and Konad Special White polish.

MSE Challenge Week 6 & 31 Day Challenge Day 6 - Black and White

Yesterday was a lucky day. Firstly my friend came back to work. This was an advantage in so many ways. Firstly, she does the same job as me so my workload got a little easier, Secondly she brought my nail mail home with her. Woo Woo! Thirdly, I don't like talking to people about 'stuff' and will tend to just keep it inside, so with everything that has been happening at the moment it is great being able to talk to someone who understands and trusts.

But no one wants to hear about that, so lets hit the nails. I am a lucky lass that these two collided as I was knackered yesterday. I was so knackered that I didn't realise they collided until I came to take the first one off to prepare to do black and white again. What a tard!

Anyway, I went for a bit of a retro pattern from a BBM stamp, and used

Color Club - French Tip White
Konad - Special Polish - Black

I really really loved this, although it doesn't come out as good in the pictures as it looked in real life.

The other people taking part in this challenge can be found at the following web address for the MSE'ers

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3779621

and are the following people for the 31 day challenge.




Now onto the exciting stuff.

Nail mail, woo hoo. I am lucky enough that my friend's parents live in Torremelinos, so I could have some Essence and Catrice delivered to them which where stupid expensive to post to me in the UK. I am forever grateful to them for accepting the parcels ( Although I have heard they were bemused about the whole thing)

So here are the pics, and the names of the polishes

Essence Twins
Romeo and Julia
Bella and Edward
Chuck and Blair
Gabriella and Troy

Catrice
Absolutely Chinchilly
Greys Kelly
Londons Weather Forecast
Aretha's R-E-S-Pink
Raspberry Fields Forever
Sold Out Forever
Khaki Perry

Catrice

Rusty But Sexy

Salmon and Garfunkel

Essence Color and Go

Time for Romance

Make it Golden

Essence Snow White

Evil Queen

Prince Charming ( I think this is a dupe for a NYC polish)

The Huntsman

Catrice Million Styles

Million Dollar Baby

If anyone has any more of the twins they don't want, please let me know as I would love the full set!

31 Day Challenge, Day 2 - Orange

Day two was here so quickly! But I am prepared and already had ideas in my mind ( and it still isn't water marbling day, where my fingers will look like a toddler has been let loose with soppy crayons on me)

So, I decided to go for a pretty orange, and to Jazz it up a bit. So, out came the stamping kit. I am a bit of a sucker for stamping and it was how I originally got suckered into this dark world of being a polish aholic.

Last October I went on holiday and at the time I had about 9 pink nail varnishes. When I came back my Hubby's Auntie suggested dotting tools and since then the obsession has flown. On last count I had 278 polishes ( not including the 16 on the way from Kiko, 23 from my friend in Spain and the 14 Hits I am yet to add to the list)

But, onto the challenge. The polishes I have used are...

Collection 2000 - Fruit Salad. This is a creme coral/pale orange colour. Infact the first orange I ever wore as up until this point I swore I would NEVER wear orange nail varnish.
Konad Special Nail Paint in White for the stamp
Colour Club - Sugarplum Fairy for accent dots around the stamp.

Here are some others who are doing the challenge with me.

Nail Mail, donations, butterflys and sunlight

This blog is going to be a bit of everything. But, I have had the best post today ever and done a very pretty manicure.

So, for the post. China Glaze is cheaper to purchase from the USA and have delivered to me here. I know think about all the air miles it creates, but then I think about the fact it is about £2 cheaper a bottle and my desire for the polish just takes over. My mum purchased the Flip Flop Fantasy for herself, but didn't like it enough to even put it on her fingers, so donated it to me. I am such a lucky lady.

So, these babies arrived today

From left to right we have...

Prism
Flip Flop Fantasy
Marry a Millionaire
Secret Periwinkle
Cha Cha Cha
Holly Days

I am so in love with them all I don't know what to try first! Although I think it will have something to do with Marry a Millionaire and Secret Periwinkle.

In addition I have decided to branch into Gel, as I was a lucky enough girl to get a UV light for my birthday. So, have got these beauty's

Having never Gel'ed before I have limited myself to three colours to use on my unsuspecting victims friends and family. So I have stuck with Night Reflection, High Voltage and Ocean Deep. Quite nervous about starting, but how difficult can it be to paint varnish and stick it under a lamp?

Then, I brought these.

The three on the left are Barry M, The gold and lilac foil are for stamping and the blue sparkle just appealed to my inner magpie.

Then the three on the right were just my adore colours. It is a make of nail varnish 'Miss Sporty' which is very inexpensive, but they have some really lovely nice colours and they wear well. I especially love that some of them are touch dry in about 3 seconds.

Now on to my latest mani. I wanted something more delicate than those I have done before. So I went for a lovely pale lilac with a silver butterfly stamp over the top. So, here follows the pictures...

The picture on the left is in natural light, and the picture on the right is in bright sunlight.

As normal, I started with a Seche ridge filling base and a Seche Vite top coat as I love it being very reflective.

Lean Green Painting Machine

I decided to try a new polish today. I can really easily be guilty of constantly using the same colours/stamps/effects constantly. So, today I decided to do something completely different.

When I started getting into the polish thing I held the belief that pinks and lilacs suited my skintone, and that was what I would stick to. I had a few blue, but nothing much else.

But, 6 months on and things have changed. I have developed a real passion for green, and even the occasional orange. However, yellow is unlikely to every take a big part of my heart. Although I should say that you should never say never!

So here is todays.

I started with my regular base of Seche ridge filling, and moved on to a couple of coats of Barry M. I love their polishes as they always have such a good colour to them and are easy to apply. However, in a world where more is more I decided to top it with a coat of a HITS Speciallita Cabra Cedge. This is a bright green with a very slight but pretty sparkle to it. Then I stamped with a new Konad plate and a type of stamp I have never used before...

Let me know what you think of the results

My adventures in nail polish

Well, this is my first blog! A big step for me from hiding in the shadows and showing my friends and family what I love to do with nail varnish to putting the pictures out there for the rest of the world to see.

I love looking at other nail blogs and could spend weeks purring over the shiny and sparkly. However, I like to use a variety of polishes. It doesn't have to be one of the in brands for me just to adore the colour and just 'have' to own it.

So my first showing. This came with inspiration from the film Kramer vs Kramer which I remember watching when I was just a young one. The lad in the movie had a bedroom which had cloud wall paper which I just loved, but never had any myself. But now I have cloud nails.

For this I have used

Seche ridge filling base coat
Colour Club Duplicity main colour
models OWN Indian Ocean for my accent nails
Konad Special Polish White
Konad plate #M79
Seche Vite top coat