I Will Go To The Ball!

Hello lovelies!

So...June was a bit of a no-go on the blog.  Sorry!  It ended up being a pretty hectic month for us and I just didn't get a chance to blog (and the broken laptop definitely didn't help matters).

At the beginning of the month, we went down to St Ives for a few days to meet up with my fiance's family.  We had some sunshine and everything (unfortunately I got sunburnt whilst wearing turned up jeans...not a good look).  The next weekend we went camping with a few people from work.  Then the next week we went down to Swansea, where we booked our wedding (eeeeeee!) and had an engagement party.  My mum got us this amazing cake!

How cute is that??

My fiance's family surprised him and came down for the party, so we spend the next day showing them my parents' local beach, and went for tea at the hotel we're getting married at.  Then the NEXT day we flew to Portugal!  So it's been a rather busy six weeks.

My fiance's left again today for work, so I'm determined to get more organised with this blog again!  I have a few things lined up, so watch this space :)  One of those things is that I'd like to feature some nail art inspired by your suggestions, so if you have some, please leave a comment!  Alternatively, you can pop over to my Facebook page and leave a wall post there.  I'll also be bringing back my New Technique posts, so while you're over on my Facebook page, don't forget to vote on that!  I'll also be attempting to finish the Untried Polish Challenge, and posting a few more tutorials (again, if there's anything specific you'd like to see, leave a comment!).

So, for the time being, I shall leave you with this.  I work in an Oncology Centre, and this year is its 20th anniversary.  To celebrate, we had a ball :)  It was a lovely night, helped along by the free wine of course, and who doesn't love an opportunity to dress up?  I foolishly forgot to take a picture of my dress, but here are the nails that I did to match it:

I used Barry M Black and Matt White, and Barry's nail art pens for the details, and then added some old glequins I found in a drawer.  You'll just have to take my word for it that they matched my dress perfectly :p

Ooh, I forgot to mention, I fixed my laptop!  Yay!  Although it's currently so hot that it actually smells like it's melting or something...can't be good.  For the life of me, I cannot get my photo editing software, my card reader or my scanner to work, but it's certainly better than it was (i.e. not dead).

Don't forget to leave your suggestions for nail art or tutorials!

W7 Salt n Pepper and Christmas Challenge!

Happy Monday!  If Monday's can be happy...  Mine certainly wasn't this morning.  I think the guy at the little coffee place at the train station must have snuck me decaf, because I was in a horrible mood until I had a nice strong coffee at lunchtime.  Probably shouldn't be so dependent on coffee...oh well.  Could be worse :D

Anyhoo, today I have another untried to show you!  I will point out at this point that my attempt to use all my untrieds by the end of November has definitely failed.  I think there might even be more than there were at the beginning...

So here's today's manicure.

This is Barry M Black and W7 Salt n Pepper.  Love these W7 polishes!  Then I added some flower stickers to the black nails.  This was not my original plan...  I found two little white rose water decals that were so perfect for this!  So I put one down on my nail, wet the back of it like the instructions said, took the paper away and...I was left with the plain back of the decal.  Turns out you're supposed to wet it, then slide it off the paper and on to your nail.  Whoops!  Ah well, I'm happy with how these turned out anyway!

Have you tried any of these sprinkle type polishes, in any brand?

Also, just a quick reminder that the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge will be starting in a week!  There are five challenge manicures, one for each Monday in December, plus an extra one for Christmas Eve.

There's still plenty of time to sign up if you want to join us!  You just need to send me an email at polishedart@hotmail.co.uk or leave me your email address in the comments :)  If you've already let me know you'd like to participate, I'll be sending an email out later this week with (hopefully) all the information you'll need.  If you've got any questions at the moment though, please just ask in the comments!

Typically, I've got ideas for all the manicures apart from the first one!  I need to get my thinking cap on...