Guest Post at The Crumpet

Pop on over here to see my contribution to the Crumpet's British Blogging Christmas :)

In Keeping With The Late Theme...

Hello lovelies :)

So 11th November was a little while ago, but today I have some poppy nails to show you.  These are water decals that I was sent from KKCenterHk.

I foolishly forgot to take a picture of the decals before I used them, so here's a picture from the website:

It's one of these full sheet ones that you just cut out the bit you want.  Shall I start with the negatives and end on a high...?  The sheet isn't big enough for all 10 nails.  I think you'd be lucky to get 7 nails maybe.  And I think I have fairly average width nails, not particularly wide.  Also they're very long - obviously that's a bonus if you have very long nails!  But it does mean if your nails are short or mid-length you're not going to fit the full design on.  That being said, I think the length of the design I managed to fit on my nails looked good :)

So here's the manicure I did!

 I used the decals over Barry M Matt White.  The decals were great to use, as always from KKCenterHK.  I used Barry M Red and Red Glitter for my accent nails, with a few splodges of glitter on the poppies as well.

You can see these decals here.  They cost $2.54 (about £1.55), and don't forget you can use the code polishedart for 10% off all orders.

I have something quite exciting coming up this week...  You may have seen the Crumpet's British Blogging Christmas, and I shall be making an appearance!  Keep your eyes peeled :)

Belated Breast Awareness

You'll notice a theme here in the titles of my posts...late, late, late.  But shouldn't we be aware of breast cancer all the time?  Yes indeedy, so why the heck not have breast cancer awareness nails in November?

I wanted to keep it quite simple, so I just went for Butter London Rosie Lee (which has come out a bit of a funny colour in this picture - definitely more of a light pink IRL) with a ribbon drawn on with my Barry M Nail Art Pen in White.

This is the first Butter London I've tried.  I was in town one weekend and saw that there was a new make up shop in the shopping centre.  They had loads of Butter London and Bad Apple (and I got excited when I saw lots of China Glazes but they were all crackles...boo), so I definitely paid over the odds for this, but I was so darn excited I just had to buy something.  And it is super pretty, so it's all good.  I do love full coverage glitters...sigh.

I hope you've all had a lovely start to the week!  I'm heading into London to do a bit of MRI tomorrow, which means an early start.  Bad times...  At least I don't have to brave the tube though!

Some Very Late Halloween Nails (Ish)

Hello my lovelies :)

Sorry for doing a bit of a disappearing act there!  A few weeks ago I was meant to do my Then & Now nails and then I got a phone call with bad news about the honeymoon (hopefully all ok now!) and then I felt too sorry for myself to do anything other than eat chocolate.  Then since my other half got home it's been pretty hectic.  My friend recently got engaged, so last weekend we went back home so I could go dress shopping with her.  In the same day I also went bridesmaids dress shopping for my wedding and went to try my dress on again, then we had people round for dinner in the evening.  Pretty exhausted by Sunday!  So we're just having a nice, chilled weekend this week.  Did a spot of online Christmas shopping yesterday (figure I just won't look at my bank account...) and think we'll smash it up on Star Wars Lego today.

But, since I've actually got a bit of free time, I thought I should give my blog some much needed attention!

I was supposed to be participating in a Halloween challenge, but that just didn't happen unfortunately, but I did produce one set of nails for it, that I just never got round to posting.  They're supposed to be candy corn nails (whatever that may be) but...er...more about that later.

The inspiration for these nails actually came from the polish, which has a little bit of a story to it.  I'm a member of the UK Indie News group on Facebook, and a few months ago who should pop up on there but an old friend from school!  Jess is the creator of FatPuss Polish (which you can find on etsy here), so obviously I had to buy some!

Here is FatPuss Ginger Tom over my candy corn nails, with the colours the wrong way around because I didn't google a picture.  Whoops!

For my stripes I used Barry M Matt White, Viva La Nails Garden of Colour 30 and Max Factor Bright Orange.  Application of Ginger Tom was great - honestly as good as a big brand.  I used two coats, and was really happy with the coverage and spread of glitter (no dabbing required!).

And look how flipping cute the labels are!

And just because I can...here's a picture of us on the school bus together!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

Then and Now #2: Mermaids

Hello lovelies :)

I hope you all had a good start to the week (ugh, Monday!).  There was not enough coffee in the world to make getting up this morning bearable lol.  I hate mornings...

Anyhoo, today I have for you my second Then & Now post!  This time I'm recreating this old manicure:

That was with my old camera...check out the quality lol.  This manicure was inspired by the polish itself - OPI Mermaid's Tears.  I spent flipping ages painting that little mermaid (and then wore it for like well over a week, obviously).  I believe it was doing this manicure that finally pushed me over the edge to buying some Sharpies!  You can see the original post here.

Not only have I acquired Sharpies since then, my mermaid has also lost some weight, and stopped being some a little hussy and is now wearing a shell bra.

I stuck with the OPI again, but this time added a gradient with Barry M Aqua Glitter, because mermaids need glitter obviously.

I used the DIY decal technique to make this little lady.  I painted top coat on to a sheet of plastic, then traced a picture of a mermaid with a Sharpie.  I then coloured her in fully with my white Barry M nail art pen so that I wouldn't need to use a million coats of all my colours, and then I went ahead and coloured her in!

I find this quite funny really.  I thought my first mermaid was really good, but looking at her now she looks so rubbish lol.  She doesn't even look like she's got top coat on, what was I thinking...?

Please pop over to the Facebook album HERE to like the manicure you'd like me to recreate next week!  It's currently a tie between quite a few, so it'd be good to have a clear winner :)  You can vote for as many as you like!

So what do you think - do you prefer the old or the new?