Sidewalkers and Skeletons

So I know I said I would be posting more but I have really become the worlds worst procrastinator over the past few months. I end up putting off taking pictures so much that the manicure is off before I can gather any evidence to show that I ever wore it.

However, this manicure I did manage to picture!

I started off with Barbara Daly's Goodbye Yellow base coat, followed by two coats of Sidewalkers by NYC and then Grand Central Station top coat, also by NYC. I then stamped using Shade 23 by MUA and Bundle Monster plates BM-225 and then BM-211 on my accent nails for a slight variation. I topped this off with Rimmel top coat.

I really liked the colours used in this mani, I think they matched the design pretty well and they were nice and unusual, not the kind of colours you usually see on peoples nails! The design was also nice and subtle, not standing out too much.

Thanks for reading!

101 Violet Dalmatians

I have a little bit of stamping to show you today (messy stamping mind you!). I was in a bit of a rush when I did this manicure so please excuse the sloppy stamping, I had no time to go back and sort it, but que sera sera!

I first applied Barbara Daly base coat, two coats of Nails Inc's Bluebell and one coat of Avon's Very Violet (which is a beautiful lavender/pinky purple duochrome, sadly it was covered up by the stamping although it was more visible in real life than in the pictures). I then applied NYC top coat, stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-211 in Pink Tease's Black and topped that off with Rimmel top coat.

You can see a little bit of the lovely duochrome hiding in the picture above but I'll definitely have to swatch it on it's own to show you properly at some point!

Quite a few people likened these nails to dalmatians (hence the name of this post) and some others seemed to think they looked like dinosaur eggs...

Thanks for reading!

Fuschia Nets

I have a polish from Avon's new Color Trend collection and a spot of stamping today.

Avon's Fuschia is a matte finish metallic purple/pink full of silver flecks. On it's own with no top coat/stamping it looks amazing, I really wish I had taken a photo for you guys! I guess I'll just have to swatch it properly some time.

I applied Barbara Daly base coat, two coats of Fuschia and NYC Grand Central Station top coat. I then stamped with Pink Tease's Black with Bundle Monster plate BM-223 and finished off with Rimmel top coat.

I really like this fish net/damask design as it's one step prettier than your standard fish net look. It's a little fancier!

Thanks for reading!

Amethyst Feathers

Purple is definitely my favourite nail polish shade to wear and this polish definitely didn't disappoint me. Sadly I don't have a picture of this glorious colour on it's own as I was originally planning only to stamp on my accent nail but I got a bit carried away with the stamping and covered all of my nails...

On to the design!

I applied Barbara Daly base coat, two coats of Amethyst from Body Collection and 2true top coat. I then stamped with half of the feather design on Bundle Monster plate BM214 with Technic's gold striper polish (their metallic stripers are great for stamping). I finished off with Rimmel top coat.

Amethyst is a lovely dark aubergine metallic purple polish that I loved on it's own. To be honest I probably preferred it without the stamping but I still like the feather detail. A nice autumnal design I think!

Thanks for reading!

Pink Mirror

I have the beautiful sister of Blue Mirror to show you today, with a little added stamping.

This foil polish is just as lovely on it's own as the blue version is, just slightly less metallic. Still very eye catching  though! Sadly I was so excited about stamping that I forgot to take any pictures of it on its own. Never mind.

I applied Barbara Daly base and one coat of W7's Pink Mirror (yes it's a one coater, how perfect is that?!).  I then used MUA black and Bundle Monster plate BM208 with the two different smashed/scattered looking patterns. I used the partial coverage design on all but my accent nails and the fuller design on my accents. I then used Rimmel top coat.

I really like this design, the partial coverage design reminds me a little of the sections on a butterfly/dragonfly wing, I might have to incorporate that into a design someday!

Thanks for reading!

Holo French Manicure

I have another holographic to show you today!

This one I bought a while back on a trip to Livingston and the Bodycare shop. It was only £1.99 so I didn't have high hopes, but I thought it would be worth a try.

On a side note, a Bodycare shop opened up in my city a few weeks ago and I bought some other Technic polishes. One of them is completely fine but the other one smells like really strong sewage, I'm not even joking! I have no idea if its the formula for that colour or if there is something wrong with my bottle but its terrible! I'm really tempted to take it back to the shop just to see the shop assistants face when they smell it! Haha, safe to say I wont be using that polish!

Anyway, onto my nails.

Without top coat

Without top coat

Without top coat

I applied Rimmel base and two coats of Technic's nameless holographic. I was pleasantly surprised! The holographic is really quite visible, even indoors. Definitely better than what I was expecting! The formula is quite thick as well, so two coats was all I needed. My Catherine Arley holo either has to be layered over silver polish or you need quite a few coats for full coverage.

With stamping and top coat

With stamping and top coat

 

I then decided to add a little stamping. I used Konad plate M19 and Konad black Special  Polish to create a French tip design and added a Rimmel top coat. This was my first time using this plate and I had heard that it is one of the hardest plates to use due to positioning and ensuring there is enough polish filling the design. I didn't find it that much of a problem, and I think my positioning was alright for a first try.

Another plus with this polish is that a top coat didn't ruin the holographic at all! And I know how much of a problem that is with more expensive holos. The only problem is getting a good photo of the holo-y goodness! So all in all I'm pretty impressed with my little bargain.

Thanks for reading!

Angel Flowers

Guest appearance from my mum's nails today!

So for ages (I'm talking months) I was hankering after Max Factor's Angel Nails and when my Tesco's finally put their make-up products on three-for-two I could finally justify the purchase of more polish, despite having a box full of untrieds! But it was three-for-two! I had to do it!

This week my mum asked me to do her nails for her and what polish did she choose? Angel Nails.

So here is Max Factor's Angel Nails from their Nailfinity line with added purple stamping.

I applied OPI's Chip Skip, Barbara Daly's Goodbye Yellow Base and two coats of Angel Nails.  I then stamped with Nail Supreme's purple and Bundle Monster plate BM-224 and topped that off with OPI top coat.

Angel Nails has fantastic application. It's a thin polish but the coverage was great and the colour was opaque in two coats. It is a very pale champagne pink micro glitter and it is soooo shiny, people kept asking my mum if she had foil on her nails!  She received so many compliments at her work and she was super happy with this mani. I'm pretty sure most of that bottle of polish is going to end up being used on her instead of me, she loves it that much!

Thank you for reading!

Peacock Nails

I love peacock feathers. I think their shimmery iridescence is absolutely stunning so when I saw people using the Bundle Monster plate BM212 (which I own) to make peacock nails I just HAD to have peacock nails too.

I had always wanted to do peacock nails and first saw the plate being used when I was searching YouTube for peacock nail art. This is the video I first came across using the plate.  I also saw a blog post by Gwenn at Sugar Nails using this plate too.

I started off with a Goodbye Yellow (Barbara Daly) base and a Rimmel base as the green polish stained my nails really badly, despite a base coat, the last time I wore it.  It's one of my favourite polishes but I always hated wearing it but the base combo seemed to stop any staining, so I'm very happy :)

I then painted two coats of Peacock Green (perfect name for this mani) by Models Own. I added a 2true top coat then I stamped using Nail Supreme's gold and the BM212 plate.  I then used a dotting tool to place alternating dots of Maybelline MNY in 553 and Barbara Daly's Carnival. And topped all of this off with a Rimmel top coat.

All the tutorials and blog posts I saw using this stamp all stamped with a silver polish and I couldn't understand why.  Peacocks have a very warm, golden shimmer through their feathers so I decided to use gold and I definitely think it was the right decision.

I received sooooo many compliments for this mani and it is definitely my favourite of all the manis I have ever done, so this will probably be a regular appearance on my nails!

Thanks for reading!

21. THE END + stamping

I've finished the Plasma Plays In 21 Ways nail challenge! I have to say I am so glad it's over and I can probably say that I will never do a nail challenge again. While it was fun learning new techniques, I hated feeling so constricted and not being able to choose my own colours and things to do.  From now on I will probably just take ideas from challenges but never fully commit to the whole thing. It's much more fun to do your own thing anyway!

Onto the nails

21 Finally, add a black stamp to that yellow

I used the Bundle Monster plate BM201 and MUA black for stamping over mani number 20.  I wasn't too happy with the positioning of the stamp on my index finger and there is slight smudging on my pinkie but I really couldn't be bothered taking it off and doing it again, I just wanted the challenge over with...

I felt that the stamping massively improved the yellow and I received a lot of compliments for this mani!  So it definitely grew on me, although I couldn't shake the image of having ten wasps attached to my fingers...

Thanks for reading!

8. Stripes...

8 Get your stripe on. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal, one, two, seven?! oh what to do!


This is gonna be a pretty pathetic post, I'm warning you now.

To start with I didn't have my striper brushes yet so I didn't have an easy way to make stripes unless I did stamping. Then I had no stamping plates with proper stripes on them so I had to use a warped stripe design and finally I forgot to take pictures until I was halfway through removing the manicure... So all you have are pictures of solo fingers that kinda survived.  So here we go!

I applied Rimmel base coat, three coats of Fun Fair by Barbara Daly, MUA black for the stamp and Rimmel top coat.  I used a Bundle Monster plate but I can't remember what number it was and it's too late to go rifling through my nail stuff now!

When this was a full manicure it was lovely, I was even getting compliments from teachers!  But in these pictures it looks awful!  But oh well, life goes on, it's only a manicure...

Thanks for reading!

6. Metallic Stamping

Post number six of the Plasma Plays Challenge :)

6 Stamp some metallic polish over that dark with the image plate of your choice!


For the metallic stamp I decided to go for a silver stamping polish and an no name brand plate with this pretty flower design on it :)  I got the plate in a set of nine for about £4.99 on eBay and they have some really pretty designs on them and they are a really great price!

Now onto the actual design...

Please excuse the horrendous cuticle on my middle finger!  I don't know what happened, I put hand cream on everyday and I use cuticle oil every time I take polish off but for some reason they get all dry and cracked :(

I really like the combo of the dark plum-y polish and the light silver stamp.  It really made the design stand out.  I had a little problem with positioning but I always have that problem if it's small designs and it wasn't too noticeable so no biggie!

The base is two coats of Nails Inc Victoria and I used Nails Supreme in silver for stamping :)

Trendsetter

 Trendsetter by China Glaze is a very unique nail polish colour.  I've never seen anything like it and I'm very undecided about it.  On the one hand I love how different it looks and when I had it on I couldn't stop looking at my nails, but on the other hand I couldn't decide if I was fascinated by it's prettiness or ugliness...

I applied a Rimmel base, two coats of Trendsetter and a coat of 2true top coat.  But with it just like this I really wasn't satisfied, I felt like I would be hiding my nails to stop people from seeing them, not what you want when you have just bought a new polish!!  So I added a full nail floral design with my Bundle Monster stamping plates and I was so much happier!! I loved my nails after this!

So the moral of the story is, if you have an ugly nail colour, just cover it up with pretty stamps! :)

But seriously though, I would definitely do it again with this stamp, I totally love it now!

Traffic Jam

 I have a lot of deep pink/purple nail polishes but this is definately one of my favourites!

I love the application of China Glaze polishes and this one is so pretty on.

I applied a Rimmel base coat, two coats of Traffic Jam, a green floral design with my stamping plates and 2true top coat.

I really like the stamping on this.  The green polish I used for stamping I've never really liked and I think I've only ever used it once, but for stamping it's fantastic!

Super cute mani, I liked it :)

Totally Teal

 When I was in Boots recently I received a money off voucher for No7 products.  So what did I do?  I went straight to the nail polishes!

This colour immediately caught my eye as it is so unique and totally different to the polishes I usually go for.  So I got this for only £4 :)

And the brush is absolutely brilliant!  I love it, so easy to use!

I applied Miss Sporty base coat, one (should have done two really) coat of Totally Teal, added some black flower designs with my stamping plates and finished off with a Rimmel top coat.

With the flash on the flowers are quite noticeable but in real life they are much less obvious :( For stamping on this colour you would definitely do better with a white or silver or possibly even a gold!

But despite that I was quite happy with how this turned out!

Silver Rose

So I was kinda stuck on the silver polish from my last post and decided to use it again because I loved it so much.                                                                

  I used a Rimmel base coat, two coats of Maybelline's Silver Speed and two coats of a nameless silver glitter from Claire's on all my fingers but my thumb.  On my thumb I used my stamping plates and used a large rose design. And a 2true top coat over everything.

I love this manicure!  Glitter in general just excites me so much, but this silver glitter is astonishing in person.  I adore it!  And the rose was very simple but added to the look, stopping it from looking too rediculously glittery.

I got a lot of compliments for this manicure and I will definately do this again at some point :)

Maybelline's Silver Speed and Cosmic Flash

With this design I decided to have a little fun with my stamping plates and see what I could do with this pretty design.

I appled a Miss Sporty base coat, two coats of Maybelline's Silver Speed on all my fingers except my ring fingers, which had two coats of Maybelline's Cosmic Flash.  I then finished with a Miss Sporty top coat.  Added the stamp from a fake Konad plate and finished with my thick Rimmel top coat that I keep for stamping :)

I really wish I had painted all my fingers silver and just put Cosmic Flash on top of that on my ring fingers.  I think that would have looked much better, but que sera sera.  At least I will know what to do if I ever try this manicure again!

But apart from that I really like it!  I love silver polishes, they always make me think of space and stars which makes me happy :)

Black Damask

 I got my Konad plates quite a while ago and bought more generic plates from a seller on ebay as it was only about £5 for 9 of them, seemed like good value to me!
So I bought them and they are really good, just as good as Konad ones.  The only downside is that there are hardly any full nail designs :(

This is the first design I tried on the new plates.  Bear in mind that I'm pretty new to stamping and they don't look too bad!

I used MUA purple for the base and I think the colour really works with the design. 

I got lots of compliments from people asking if it was Minx, and they were genuinely shocked when I said I did them myself :)
Quite proud of my efforts