Geometrically Pinking

Hellooooo!

So this week has been busy!  I had my MSc viva on Tuesday, and so my Master's is now done!  Had an email today to let us know we all passed (always a relief!), but have to wait until July to find out how we did.  Now just all the professional exams and assessments to do...ugh.

A few weeks ago I was desperately searching for a dress for a black tie event.  It was TK Maxx that came through for me in the end, and while I was there it seemed sensible to treat myself to the China Glaze Road Trip mini collection.  This is Pinking Out The Window.

This is a weird polish - in a good way.  Sometimes it's really pink, and then sometimes it's far more peachy.  And occasionally it decide to be neon.  As you do.

After a couple of days wear, I decided to add a bit of a gold geometric pattern.

I didn't actually mean to paint the bottom part of my index finger nail, but I was watching TV and obviously not paying enough attention...

This design was created using striping tape and Avon Golden Vision.

Please excuse the dint in my thumb!

Have you tried any of the China Glaze Road Trip collection?

Zig Zag Glitter

Hello everyone, I hope you're all enjoying a nice lazy Sunday :)

I'm having a great weekend so far - I went into London yesterday with a few people from work and we went wine tasting at this place called Vinopolis.  It was great fun!  You get a quick session showing you how to taste wine properly (I struggled with the slurping technique as first, but I got there in the end!) and then you have a card loaded up with electronic tokens, and you just pick a wine to taste, stick your card in the machine and it dispenses it into your glass.  And if you were in the right place at the right time, you could get the odd free glass as they changed the bottles lol.

Anyhoo, I promised you some more Viva La Nails products and that's exactly what I have for you today!

When Viva La Nails sent me some polishes to review (you can see that review here) they also sent a few nail art goodies.  One of these was a pot of glitter dust.  

I don't have a picture of the pot for you, because I got too excited to get in and get at the glitter.  But it's a 5g pot (it's the same size as some that I ordered on ebay last year, so it's a standard size) and you can see what it looks like here.  I just wanted to mention how good the packaging is though - in the past I've had glitter products arrive that have leaked everywhere, but this seals tight and also has a little plastic layer that you place over the top of your pot before putting the lid on.  So all your sparkliness is nice and secure.

On to the pictures!

I decided to create a simple design using tape.

I used Sally Hansen Green Tea for my base colour, and then I used some tape when the polish was dry to get the zig zag accent with the Viva La Nails zure Glitter Dust.

I did some dots of glitter on my thumb, but I made a rather amateur mistake.  I forgot to let the base colour dry before sprinkling glitter over for my dots.  Oops.

The glitter is super fine (and super sparkly) so, as you can see, I didn't have any trouble getting clean lines and sharp corners with this.

And just because I got my ring back from the jewellers yesterday, here's another picture :)

You can see this product here, along with all the other colours.  Each pot is only £1.95 with free shipping if you spend over £25 (that's a lot of glitter).  Also, if you're in the UK, then your product should arrive the next day!

Flip Flop #25: Tape

Sorry! My boyfriend came home on Thursday, which you'll notice correlates rather well with my last post...whoops!  His presence isn't good for my blog lol.

Anyway, the choices for day 25 were Youtube Tutorial or Tape.  I said a few posts ago I might do a flame manicure using the needle drag technique, which I'd seen in a Youtube video a little while ago.  However, I had this idea for a subtle tape manicure that I wanted to try out, so the flame manicure will have to remain on my to do list!

I used Barry M Gold Foil on my index and middle fingers, then taped off the criss cross pattern with some striping tape, and used Sally Hansen Green Tea on top.  I used two coats of this on my other three nails, but I managed to get away with just one coat for these nails!  Then I applied a couple of studs just to finish the look off.

Here's a little glimpse of my right hand, because the taping turned out better here rather strangely.  Please ignore the mess of nail polish though, my left hand is not very gifted lol.

Flip Flop #20: V-gap

I swear all I did yesterday was paint my nails, how am I still 4 days behind??  Oh well, here's day 20 for you!

The choices were Flowers or V-Gap.  Since I haven't tried a v-gap before, I decided to go with that.  Looking at other people's day 20 manicures though, there seems to be a lit of difference of opinion of what a v-gap manicure is.  I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but I've stuck with what I originally thought it was.

Unfortunately it's one of those incidences of Seche Vite just being too darn shiny, but I think you can make the design out alright in this picture  I used Layla Ceramic Effect Green Galaxy (purchased from Sally Magpies).  Then I taped off triangles down the middle of my nails and painted two coats of Barry M Black.

Now for some Layla porn.  Soooo pretty!

It's a gorgeous forest green squishy jelly, that almost looks black in some lights (or rather, not in direct light).

The base is seriously packed full of microglitter. (I don't know why it looks lumpy in the picture, I didn't notice that irl at all).

There are also medium and large green hexes.  All these pictures are two coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

Sigh...it's beautiful.

Flip Flop #8: Colour Blocking

You may have noticed that the URLs for some of these posts say flip flip instead of flip flop, because I type flip flip in the title every flipping time!  Sometimes I notice before I publish, sometimes I don't lol.

Anyhoo, I shall be playing catch up today and tomorrow!  I had a lovely weekend back at my parents, although they fed me far too much and I left 3 pounds heavier than I arrived (that can't be good in a weekend can it?).

So here's day 8 of the Flip FLOP Challenge.  The choices were Colour Blocking or Black & White.  Since I require far more guidance for inspiration than colours, I went for colour blocking.  I'm not sure if colour blocking has to involve tape, I suppose anything involving block of colour counts, but I always think of tape manicures, so that's what I did.

If you're an older follower of this blog, you may know that tape manicures are a bit of a nemesis of mine.  Nowhere near the level of water marbles, but they give me grief none the less.  I just can't get my lines clean!

However, I am very pleased with myself on this occasion.

I couldn't face the faff of painting, drying, taping, painting, drying, taping...etc etc.  So I just painted my nails white, taped off sections with striping tape, and then painted these sections, leaving me with white borders when I removed the tape.

I love them.  Definitely something I'd do again, and they were relatively quick to do.  The only faffy bit is getting the tape to stick to your nail instead of your finger (presumably tweezers are a solution to this...).

I used Barry M Matt White as my base colour, then filled in my sections with Max Factor Cactus Apple, Jessica Ruffled Bottoms and Hello Kitty Play Ya (cutest bottle ever...).

Polish Days: Get Your Bling On!

The more observant amongst you will have noticed I didn't do the last two Polish Days.  I just forgot...  I actually have a calendar on my computer where I write all challenge manicures I'm going to do, I just don't look at it.  It's like when I go shopping; I write a shopping list and take it with me, but I don't look at it until after I've paid and left the shop, to see how well I've done.

But anyway, this month I've remembered!  The theme, appropriately for the festive season, is Get Your Bling On!  And what better than a multicoloured glitter bomb!

This Barry M Amethyst Glitter.  I can't tell you what colours are in there because it's too shiny to be able to tell.  The overall look is quite blue though .  I used 4 coats (I think??) here with no underwear.

And just because blurry pictures of glitter are always fun:

This is my right hand by the way, so sorry for the slightly awkward hand position.  I struggled.

Then I added a star pattern over the top in Barry M Vivid Purple, using the same method I used for my Over The Taupe Stars.  It got a little chunky at this stage, so sorry it's a bit of a mess.

Don't forget to check out all the other bling-tastic nails today!

31 Day Challenge - Day 18: Half Moon

Good morning lovely people :)  Sorry this post is late (again).  We moved into our new flat this week, and I've had my first piece of coursework for my masters, and various other excuses...  I actually did this manicure on Sunday, I just didn't get round to taking a photo until yesterday.

So anyhoo, day 18 of the 31 day challenge is to create a half moon manicure.  I gave it a good go, but as you'll be aware if you've followed my blog for any length of time, I am rubbish at anything resembling a tape manicure.  I did consider freehanding the half moons on, but I thought I should at least have a go at using stickers.

My colour choice was basically inspired by what polish I had that's a really good one coater.  And in my hungover state I decided orange and silver would be a perfect combination.  So here you have it, my retro-futuristic half moon manicure:

I used Max Factor Bright Orange, Stargazer 232 and then added some little dots on with OPI Roadhouse Blues.

I don't particularly like it to be honest, but I've had looaads of comments about them.  Funny how you can do a manicure you adore and no one notices, and then when you don't like one everyone's saying how much they like it!

Have a look at all the other (probably better executed) half moon manicures produced by the ladies yesterday:

Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner

Kat at Hooked On Polish

Diana at Nails By Diana

Aly at Wonderland Beauty

Meredith at Perfectly Polished

Nicole at The Color Republic

Kate at The Painted Pony Nails

Cee at Absolutely Cee

Nail Narcotics

Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed

Shelby at Shelby's Swatches

Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 

Mixed Mama

Joanna at Sweet Polish of Mine

Patty Greenberg

Liz and Lisa at Lozlosa 

Mari at Nailista 

Greta at How Was Your Day?

Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 

Gini at Sassy Paints 

Chameleon Stampede 

Pam at Nail-E-Glance 

Me, Myself and Polish

Teal Tuesdays: Mani Swap

Good morning everyone!  Today I have another Teal Tuesdays post for you :)  You may have noticed I've skipped a few weeks recently, and this'll probably be the last one I do at least for a little while.  I started doing so many challenges I don't have time to do any other random manis I get ideas for!

This week's Teal Tuesday challenge is a mani swap.  All the bloggers in the group were paired up and we all have to recreate one of our partners manis (in teal of course).  I was paired up with Missy from Gnarly Gnails.  After nosing through loads of her old posts, I settled on this Valentine's day manicure to recreate.

It's not quite the original, but here's my attempt:

I used OPI Mermaid's Tears for the base, then taped off the tips and used Barry M Matt White and Teal.  The hearts were done using Stargazer 232.

As you can see, my nails are really short at the moment, so I didn't have the room to copy Missy's manicure exactly, which is why my hearts are done differently.

Take a look at all the other teal recreations:

31 Day Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

It's the weekend, yay!  I'm back in Swansea this weekend for my cousin's wedding.  I'm writing this on Thursday night, so I'll let you know how my attempts at travelling around London to get here went!

Today's challenge theme is stripes.  I decided to recreate an old manicure that I did, hopefully with improved skill and technique...  I went with a nautical theme.

I used a base of Barry M Matt White, and then used OPI Chick Flick Cherry and China Glaze Man Hunt.  I used striping tape for my lines - I'm getting a little better at all this taping business, but as you can see, I've still got a ways to go!

Here's the old manicure that I based this design on.  This is from...erm...sometime between October and February...

What do you reckon?  Do you prefer the old or the new one?

31 Day Challenge - Day 6: Violet

Here's post number 2 of 3! It's day 6 in the 31 day challenge and the theme is violet! For this mani I attempted to use tape again. It was more successful than previous attempts, although still not perfect.

I used some craft scissors to cut tape with a squiggly edge, and then I added the dots using a dotting tool.  The polishes are Jessica Ruffled Bottoms and Stargazer 232.

And here's what coming up  (if you don't know it by heart by now).

Have a ganders at all the other violet nails today:

Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner

Kat at Hooked On Polish

Diana at Nails By Diana

Aly at Wonderland Beauty

Meredith at Perfectly Polished

Nicole at The Color Republic

Kate at The Painted Pony Nails

Cee at Absolutely Cee

Nail Narcotics

Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed

Shelby at Shelby's Swatches

Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 

Mixed Mama

Joanna at Sweet Polish of Mine

Patty Greenberg

Liz and Lisa at Lozlosa 

Mari at Nailista 

Greta at How Was Your Day?

Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 

Gini at Sassy Paints 

Chameleon Stampede 

Pam at Nail-E-Glance 

Me, Myself and Polish

Teal Tuesdays: Teal Triplets

Today is Tuesday, and therefore teal!

This week's theme is triplets - we did a poll to see which teal polishes everyone has, and then selected the top three, and we all had to use one of those to do our manicures this week :)

 Of the three polishes, the one that I have is Zoya Zuza.  I was feeling summery, as it was actually sunny for once when I did these, so I wanted to combine Zuza with some bright colours.

I used striping tape to do this manicure.  The underneath colours are both Max Factor - Cactus Green and Bright Orange. I added a layer of Seche Vite and a little fimo orange (just because I bought them months ago and hadn't used them...).  I like how this turned out, but putting all the striping tape on takes so long!

Have a ganders at all the other Teal Tuesday participants:

Gnarly Gnails

Nails Beautiqued

Geeky Owl

Mandy's Polish

Fancy Phalanges

Colorsplash Nails

Simple-and-Beautiful

Persistently Glittery

No Holos!

Cherries Sweets

The Frenzied Polisher

Caitlin's Creative Corner

Lacquered Libra

Nail Polish Lane

Once Upon a Polish

Subtlety is Overrated
Elyssian Beauty

Colour Block

I have just bought so many nail polishes...the internet makes it far too easy.  I've ordered the rest of the W7 dupes of the Nails Inc sprinkles, as well a few (ahem) Barry M polishes, including the rather fabulous Jewel Britannia, which I only discovered existed today.  Although, I think I exercised fantastic self control, personally.  Only two of the polishes purchased were OPIs, and there were far more than that in my basket to begin with...

Speaking of OPI, I have a problem.  I am in love with the colour of Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, but I don't want shimmer, I just want the purple with a creme finish.  Does anyone know of a polish like this??  Here's a picture of it for reference:

http://www.fashionpolish.com

Anyhoo, enough lusting, here's some nail art.

This is a tape manicure that I did a little while ago.  I'm  not very good at taping...hence the addition of the black lines between the segments!  (How messy do they look compared to the swatch above!)

I used Max Factor Disco Pink and Bright Orange, 17 Seabreeze and a black Sharpie.  And I think my ring finger has a coat of Seche Vite...

I was planning on doing a few manicures tonight, and then discovered I only have three cotton pads left, so, alas, twas not to be.  I am currently wearing China Glaze Harvest Moon though, so I'm going to go attack that with some gold polish and a striper brush.