Top 10 Products for Christmas

Evening all :)

You may have seen a little while ago that some of the British Blogger ladies posted their Top 10 Polishes.  I decided not to join in, because how could I possibly choose??  When I read everyone else's posts though I was sorry I'd missed out on the fun, so when Rachael from Rachos Nail Love suggested we do a Christmas Top 10, I was in!

So, in no particular order, my top 10 nail goodies for the Christmas season...

1.  Full Coverage Glitter Polish

 And lots of it.  I completely adore creme finish nail art over a glitter base.  As you can see from the fill lines on these, I've had quite a bit of use out of them!  The China Glazes are all from last year's Holiday Joy Collection - now THAT is how you do a Christmas collection.

2. Nail Art Pens

Essential for all that Christmas nail art!  Unless, you know, you're skilled enough to paint things with a brush...  Barry M's are my favourite (I actually don't even know how I did any nail art before these wonderful things were created), but there are plenty available a lot cheaper on ebay :)

3. Holographic Polish

Now, I don't want to hear any of that rubbish about holo polishes being for Summer.  No, we don't see any sunlight in December, but artificial lighting will do the job.  This is Layla Gold Idol.  Gold + holo = Christmassy wonderfulness!

4. Loose Glitter

 All the glitter!  Find any glitter you can and put it on your nails!  Some of my favourite Christmas nails that I've ever done were just glitter.  It was before I started my blog; I just bought a pack of craft glitter from Wilkinsons and used it on wet polish to cover my  nails.  Looked amaaaazing!  Just be prepared to wear it for the whole Christmas period...removing it almost broke me as a person...

5. Red and Green Polish

Goes without saying you need red and green!  Can't go far wrong with Barry M (again).

6. Foils

These are great for glam, shiny nails in a hurry.  You could even just randomly dab on a few bits to liven up an old manicure if you don't have time to redo your nails completely.

7. Snow!

Well, technically flocking powder.  But if it looks like snow and it tastes like snow...  Perfect for adding a little fluffiness to Santa's beard, or sprinkling on a snowy manicure.  Ooh and with black as well you could do little fluffy penguins!

8. Tutorials

There are SO MANY Christmas tutorials out there, and some of them are just so adorable.  It's a great time for trying out some new nail art - they're usually easier than you think! (Shameless plug: you can see my Christmas tutorials here).

9. Tacky Stickers

I'm all for the classy nails normally (ahem), but frankly you need a bit of over the top tackiness at Christmas.  Christmas stickers are a really easy and quick way of spicing up a plain manicure as well.  I should add though, these stickers were from Poundland and were particularly awful (see here) and I am not in any way, shape or form suggesting you buy them.

10. More Glitter

This time in the form of toppers.  Put them over everything (even glitter) and spaaaarkle!

Don't forget to take a look at all the other Top 10 posts!

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!