Hearts and Bows

Happy Saturday everyone!  I hope you're all enjoying your weekend so far.

I have another product from Born Pretty Store to show you today.  If you haven't visited the site before, Born Pretty Store has loads of nail art supplies, which are very reasonably priced and, in my experience thus far, great quality.

So the product I have to show you today are these pearl nail art decorations.  They come in a nice little case (with less potential for mess than the ones with the top that turns).

There are six different shapes, including hearts, bows and good old round pearls.  These are quite large though, and they do all have flat backs (beware curvy girls!).

This is the first look I created, using the white heart decoration.  I just want to make it clear that the pearls on my ring and little fingers are not the pearls from this set, these are smaller ones from a previous wheel I purchased.

I had a good old Barry M fest, using Berry Ice Cream, Lemon Ice Cream, Blueberry Ice Cream, Peach Melba and Mint Green.  I added the stripes with a nail art pen and stuck on all my pearly bits with top coat.

As you can see, the heart is quite large and sticks up from my nail.  If you were wanting to wear it for a bit longer then sticking it on with nail glue would probably make it more secure (I can't use my nail glue because I used it once and now the lid's stuck...are they supposed to be single use or have I done something silly??).

 A slightly different look here.  Obviously not particularly practical due to the size of the bow, but I think this would be cute for a night out or something (just think how cute your nails would look holding a little clutch bag lol).  Oh and this is Barry M Black by the way.

Here's a side shot to give you an idea of how much they stick out.

So, unfortunately, another product that's too big and flat to be practical to use on your nails.  However, I do think you can make some cute looks with these just for one night or something, if you can put up with the stickyoutness for a few hours.  I should add that there are plenty of each shape as well - about 20 of each.

If you like the look of these, you can see them on the Born Pretty website here.  They retail for $4.52 (£2.95) and shipping is free wherever you are in the world.

Don't forget, if you do decide to purchase these, or anything else, you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off.  Happy shopping!

Flip Flop #14: French/Valentine's Day

Right so scrap all that rubbish about it being too late for Valentine's Day, I decided to combine both of the day 14 options and create a quick Valentine's French manicure!

My nails are a little short for french tips at the moment really, so I cheated and absorbed a little of my nail bed into my tip.  By a little...I mean most of the tip is nail bed.  I've only got about a mm of tip at the moment, and I still managed to break a corner off my middle finger!

So here you have my naked nails.  Well...I touched up my ring finger slightly because I've got this massive white spot where I must have bashed it a few weeks ago and it's still got about halfway to go before it grows out.  Boo.  The tips are Barry M Matt White, dotted with OPI Flick Chick Cherry.  Then I picked a few hearts out of KleanColor Twinkly Love.

Twinkly Love is a rather thick polish, and you can see that it's a bit gunky around the hearts here.  I probably could've done with dabbing some of the polish off after placing the hearts, or maybe just another coat of Seche Vite to smooth it all out.

What do you think?  It's weirding me out a bit having such white tips...they certainly don't look like that underneath the polish!

Hearticure

That's supposed to be like dotticure, but with hearts...but yeah, just sounds like something to sort out a heart condition. Oh well!

I was sent this fab little stamping plate from Born Pretty Store.  I chose it because I thought the little apple pattern was just adorable, and I prefer full nail stamps to little ones, but since Valentine's Day is fast approaching, I thought I'd share a heart manicure with you!

Some lovely designs on here that I can't wait to use :)  Hopefully I'll be able to get a few of them in to the Flip Flop Challenge, otherwise it'll be a little while before I can try out the other images!

The plate doesn't have a cardboard backing like the Konad ones do, but I didn't find the edges to be sharp (and I tried jabbing myself with them, just to ensure I'd checked it thoroughly for you!)

Sorry, the background on this picture is atrocious!

I used a base of Barry M Bright Pink and stamped using a Konad white stamping polish.  I topped this off with a matte top coat, and then picked out a few hearts to cover in Barry M Red Glitter.

The middle finger didn't transfer too well, but I assume this is down to the face that I drenched the plate in acetone to clean it, and didn't dry it off before putting more polish on...  I'm still learning!  All the others transferred fine :)  And you can see in the image below just how clean the lines were.

I honestly can't tell any difference between the quality of the stamped image from this plate compared to any of my Konad plates.

I can certainly notice a difference in price though!  This plate is only $1.99 (about £1 :o )!  Check it out here :)  Don't forget, there's free worldwide shipping, even if you only order one plate!

And if you do decide to place an order, for this or anything else, you can use the code LKL91 to get 10% off!  There's a huge selection of great nail art products at seriously good prices, so it's really worth a look.

New Technique: Sugar Spun Manicure

Ok, so this wasn't a total disaster!  Yay :)  I really did think it was going to be...especially when 10 minutes in my polish just wasn't doing the strandy thing.

But anyway, here's the finished manicure!  Quite a cute manicure for Valentine's Day maybe?

I used Barry M Matt White, did my strandy business with OPI Flick Chick Cherry, and then added the heart with Barry M Bright Pink.

I did my ring finger first (I figured if it was horribly difficult I could just leave it at a ring finger accent), and you can see I hadn't quite waited long enough.  When I started it was just about making strands long enough to cover half the width of my nail, if I was super quick.  When I moved on to the next nail I was getting really long, fine strands.  Like thinner than hair.  This is what you want!  I just whizzed it back and fore across my nails :)  It honestly took about 20 minutes to get to that consistency though.  I don't know if that would've been affected by the fact that it's an old polish and full of all those nasty chemicals they don't use any more.

My thumb does not feature in this photo because...er...it didn't quite work out.  This is what happens if you leave the polish too long.

It looks like I had a horrible accident whilst chopping the vegetables for tea.

Anyhoo, you can now head over to my Facebook page to vote for which new technique you'd like me to have a go at next week!

If you have any suggestions for techniques, please leave me a comment and I'll add it to my list :)

Have you had a go at the sugar spun technique?  Or are you like me and shy away from trying new (and messy) things?

Love Hearts

Morning all!  I hope you're all enjoying the festive season, and haven't over indulged too much!  I think if I see another glass of wine my liver might try to make a break for it...  Today's my last day in Swansea with my family, before I head up to Liverpool to spend New Year's with my boyfriend and his family.  My brother and sister-in-law (plus dogs) are coming over for a second Christmas dinner and eggnog later, so that should be good fun :)  And my sister-in-law isn't driving for a change, which means I can get her drunk :D

But anyway, you read my blog for the nails, so here you go!  These have been sitting in my 'To be posted' folder for months - I did them for the evening reception of my cousins wedding back in September, and for some reason just haven't got round to posting them.

I used George Gnome and OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons as my base colours, then added a coat of BeautyUK Gold Digger and Kleancolor Twinkly Love on the nude nails.  I did have to fish about a bit for the hearts, and place them where I wanted them, but I don't mind when they're this cute...

What do you think of an accent nail arrangement like this?  I'm normally a ring finger accent kind of girl, but I do enjoy the occasional foray into something different.  What's your accent nail preference?

Caviar Manicure

Hello ladies :)

It's december, yay!  I'm going to head into town in a little bit (again) to do some more Christmas shopping, and hopefully get my tree up later!  Yay!  And...er...I'll do my coursework at some point...maybe...

Anyway, today I have my first go of a caviar mani to show you.  I picked these beads up Superdrug for £2.99 - you can probably get some cheaper ones on ebay or something, but there are also certainly some more expensive ones around.

These beads are by MUA.  There are five different colours in the range, and what I really like about them is that each set isn't just one colour of microbeads, but a mixture.  I think this makes them look a bit more interesting on the nail.  Here's the look I came up with.

This is W7 Blue Dazzle and Nails Inc Elizabeth Street (the one that was free with Glamour), with the accent nail in MUA Constellation Pisces.

It's a little hard to see in the photo, because they're so shiny, but these beads are mostly blue, with some pink and silver mixed in there aswell.  I have to say I was really impressed with them.  They're a lot smaller than I thought, so they don't stick out too much from the nail - very wearable.  And they lasted so well!  I did put one layer of topcoat over them, because I'm sure they'd have just all fallen off in bed otherwise, but you really couldn't tell there was topcoat on them - it didn't ruin the look at all.  I'm terrible at fiddling with my nails when there are bumpy things on them (rhinstones never stand a chance), but I fiddled and I fiddled, and they just didn't budge.  Although when I took them off...lets just say I need to vacuum.

Have you tried caviar beads before?  Do you like the idea of mixed colours like this, or do you prefer the plain colours?

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:

My Favourite Things: Hearts and/or Love

So I've shelled out the ridiculous prices once again for a meagre amount of internet usage. Sorry I haven't been replying to any comments over the last few days, it's just a pain with having such limited internet access. Hopefully on Saturday I'm going to find my way into town and locate somewhere that can sell me a dongle.

Anyway, on to more important matters! It's day 8 in the My Favourite Things challenge hosted by Kelly at Ooh La La Polish! The theme is hearts and/or love. This is also one of my attempting-to-wear-nail-polish-to-work-without-getting-told-off manicures. Expect to see more of these...

I used OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons and Barry M Matt White.  I think my heart drawing technique needs a bit of work...but I did do these at like 7am...

Only two more manicures left now!  Next up is flowers on Tuesday and then my favourite mani on Thursday.  I shall have to have a nose through everyone's manis so far and decide what I want to do for that one...

Also, what do you all think of the bigger photo size and the border I've added?  Yay or nay?  It'd be great to get your opinions in the comments.