Challenge 26 - Think Pink!

Hi!

Oooh, I'm back sooner than I thought I would be. I managed to catch a couple more hours of sleep, so felt all refreshed. My boyfriend was asleep on the sofa, so figured I'd just play around with my nails.

Today it's all about 'Think Pink' I decided quite quickly I would do something like my blog background. I should learn that my thinking never does any good. I despise striping tape. A lot of girls use it in their manicures, but I have zero patience. It's so fiddly, I'm not ashamed to admit I threw the bloody reel a few times. Stupid thing.

Still, I had my mind set on it, & I didn't have any other ideas for the challenge so I went with it. To be fair, it doesn't look too much like the background, but you get the idea.

(Look how freaking fiddly it is!!!!)

Ignoring the horrible striping tape, it was pretty easy. Normal gradient, then gradient again but swapping the colours. Take tape off & Boom!

Whilst we're on a pink theme, Look what I have!

As I mentioned before, I watch a Kitten Cam. (I love it, but I always feel when I admit it, I should be dodging Crazy Cat lady jibes!) A fellow viewer has been creating mini felt kittens of the litters, then auctioning them to raise money for Purrfect Pals, the cat Shelter a certain Foster Dad works for. The lovely viewer then surprised a couple of us with out own mini kitties! My red hair turned an awesome candy floss pink, so yay for pink haired kitty. I had a huge grin when I saw the photo of this, & an even bigger grin when she said she would send it to me. It's absolutely amazing! Check out her page HERE, she is so talented. You will be able to see all her creations. 

I shall now go think up ideas for the next challenge. I don't think I'm going to look forward to it! 

Huuuge Love to you!

Edit: I just found this. YES!

Rio Lace Nails Review

Hi, Girls!

Just a quick little post. I know I featured the Rio Lace Nails in my Black & White challenge, but I wanted to play again!

As you can see it comes in a cute little case, which I love, purely because I am NO good at keeping things tidy & together. Whilst it does come with the red polish, you can use your own, & we did.

For the base colour, we used OPI - If You Moust You Moust. I have become a HUGE fan of OPIs. & Fragrance Direct have a large selection for the bargain price of £3.99! Yay for Birthday pennies.

As you can see, this was before the clean up. The lovely Megan let me play with her nails. We did this before football, so it was a bit of a rush. This only took two coats. We could have gotten away with one coat, but it does smell quite nice.

The instructions say to leave the base coat to dry for 30 minutes. When this is done, you put a layer of adhesive on each of the nails, as I'll explain, we ended up doing on the accent nails. The adhesive smells JUST like the glue you used to use at primary school. I could easy take up a glue sniffing habit! You leave the adhesive for ten minutes,

Next was putting the foil on. We did have trouble with this. It says cut out enough for all the fingers, so we cut the foil in to ten little squares, as we were going to do every finger. Bad idea. Seriously, unless there is an easy way to tell which way down the foil has to go, you can easily bugger it up (which we did) You put it on the wrong way, when you take it off, you get no design, & you lift up have the base coat too!

We decided to just do the accent nails, & cut off as we needed it. You place it on the nail with the adhesive on, then it needs pressing down. They supply you with the same cuticle pusher you get in the Rio UV Gel Extensions kit, but honestly, I like causing Megan pain, so I just you my hands to push it down & make sure it's all smooth,

Then, you carefully peel it off, leaving behind pretties!

With a bit more practice I will definitely do all the fingers, & I do have some ideas of some colour combinations.

I will also sort out getting batteries for my camera so I can take some better quality photos, these were done with Megs iPhone, so not the best, but you get the idea.

I do have some exciting news. For the next challenge, I have a guest post! Is that cheating? I don't know  & I don't care. She is a fantastic nail artist, I can't wait for you to see her design.

Love you all!

Challenge 16 - Inspired by a colour

Two posts in a row! I will catch up!

This is a manicure from a few weeks ago.

I originally took a break from blogging as I broke my wrist & I was quite poorly. I would have been back sooner, but on the 14th May, I lost my Nan.

My Nan was one of the most important people in my life, & I'm still struggling to come to terms with the loss.

For her funeral, the dress code was bright & ridiculous.

My Nan was a big fan of colourful knee high socks. I'm sure people who saw the funeral goers had to take a double look.

Because of this, I wanted bright nails. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with them. I did them the night before the funeral, & I just wasn't getting any inspiration, so I went with something very simple.

This was before the clean up, & taken on my phone, so again poor quality, but I didn't expect to blog about them, but it was definitely inspired by bright & cheerful colours.

RIP Nanny. I love you, & I miss you. 

Kiss Me On The Tulips!

Hi, Girls!

Todays OPI swatch is Kiss Me On The Tulips. Now, this is my kind of shade. It's bright, fun & a little bit sexy.

These photos were taken Sunday evening, so as it got colder, it seemed to affect the smoothness of the polish on the nail. That's my excuse anyway. I know my hands were shaking. We have no heating, so brrr.
Still, it's a charming shade. Whilst I love the colour, I'd already done two plain manicures, so I wanted to add a little something else. I'd found this Maybelline polish in the 99p shop a while back, so used that on my accent nail, it has teeny tiny bits of glitter in, which you can only see when you move your nail. This still cheers me up. Both Polishes have such a shiny finish, that the photos don't do them justice, You can even see my reflection in a couple of the pics. It's not a flaw in the nail, it's ME!

As expected for 99p, the Maybelline isn't the best to apply. It's very thick & clumpy, you either have to much on the brush, or not enough. I do adore the colour though.

The OPI, like the previous swatches went on lovely. This was only two coats, which meant it took a matter of minutes, which is fantastic to know!

Another Swatch tomorrow, so look out for that.

2True Shade no 10 Swatch

Hi Girls.

Because I have a feeling the new job may destroy my nails, I'm being good & sorting out all the weeks blog posts. So you should get a new post each day.

Even though I've already posted my challenge nails today, I couldn't wait to share this with you. After the fantastic results I got from yesterdays 2True, I hunted through my stash to see if I had any other polishes I hadn't played with. There are quite a few, but I found another 2True a friend had gotten me.

Again, I'm really impressed with this polish. It does take a few coats, but not even that puts me off. It's very slightly holographic, however the photos do not really show this, despite me taking a photo in front of the window.
Again, this polish is £1.99 in Superdrug, & at the moment, they're doing THREE FOR A FIVER! So look down the back of the sofa for spare change, & go buy yourself some NOW! Well, tomorrow, shops are obviously closed today. Bad Times!

I'm currently in the middle of swatching OPI's The Top Ten. I don't own more expensive polishes, but a lovely lady bought me this set, & so far, I'm completely in love.

I know when I first started blogging, I said that I didn't like plain manicures, so I'm really contradicting myself during the next week, as some will be plain, but these polishes are so beautiful they don't need anything fancy to make them stand out.

Check out the first swatch tomorrow.

Cheeky Stamping Plates Review

Hi Girls!

One of the things I received off the wish list was a set of Cheeky Stamping Plates. I've used Konad plates before, but they all had tiny images on. There are 26 plates in a small box, which is pretty cute, & were each protected by cellophane. There were quite a few full nail designs, which I couldn't wait to get stuck into.

I have to confess straight away, I'm not great at stamping. By the time I'd gotten to my middle finger, I'd got the hand of it. My thumb & forefinger leave little to be desired, but I stress this is not the product at fault, S'all me! Thankfully, I'm not reviewing myself.

 As you can see, I did start with a different design to begin with, & didn't do it right, instead of starting again, I wanted to see what it looked like with the squiggles on top. I got my answer, it doesn't look great.

 Yes, I am messy.

There is more than enough design for the nail. I'm just still learning how to get the hang of it. So if you're a stamper beginner, then you can see how easy it is to do. I little bit of patience 7 practice & I think this could be beautiful.

I'd even go as far to say I much prefer these plates to my Konad ones. I find it much easier to transfer the design from the plate to the stamper.

If you have a tenner to spare, I would definitely recommend getting this set. I wish my set had who send them to me from my wish list, as I'd love to say Thankyou.

Sunday Morning Laziness.

When I say Sunday morning, I mean ridiculously early Sunday morning. It's chilly, so I came out to the living room, Boyfriend put on Doctor Who & I played with my nails.

As I've said before, I really want to perfect the Gradient technique, so what better time than the very early hours of the morning.

I'm very bad at choosing colours which work well together. I've looked at other blogs & so many colour seem to work, but when I try it, it never goes to plan. Still, My Mother taught me never to give up, so on I plod.

This time I went with an unbranded Pink, Rimmels Grey Matter, & an unbranded Black. I didn't know if they would work, but I don't think it went too bad considering.

I was given the advice to make my photos bigger, which I think looks amazing, sadly it shows even more I need to work on my cleaning up. I'm also looking at making a lightbox after another suggestion given to me.You guys have honestly been amazing. 

I still need a lot of work, but I'm quite proud of these. I don't think the colours look too bad. Where I used a White base colour, it almost looks like I used four colours.  My actually technique is a bit crap. I dislike how you can see the sponge-y marks still, but I'm guessing over time I will figure it out, (Unless some lovely people can give me some tips?)

I definitely need to sort out my extensions. They need infilling, plus the ones that have lasted the longest are the ones I did first. You can tell this in the photo above where I still hadn't figured it all out, & the extension is actually too big for that specific nail. Oops!

Of course, I was on a roll, so I thought What the Hell, Let's play with my stamper too. I've only used it a couple of times, as to be honest, I'm not great at it. I can't get the placement right, which is quite annoying, especially seeing other girls using it with amazing results.Again, practice, practice, practice:

I think I may have ruined he manicure doing this, but it was still fun to play. I'm in a total nail playing mood, which is bad for 0400hrs. Must go to bed, not clean off & star more playing! Naughty Kay!

Catch you laters,

X

Painting the town Pink & Black.

I've had itchy fingers! I've really wanted to do a blog post that wasn't entirely to do with the year challenge.

So what does any self respecting twenty five year old girl do on a Friday evening? She puts on her jim jams & paints her nails of course.

To tell the truth, I actually started last night, but nothing was going right. I'd figured out a design whilst washing up, I even drew it on a piece of paper, but would it go right? Bollocks would it. I had a little play around this afternoon, & still nothing was working. I googled, I nearly growled at friends putting up photos of their newly painted nails, wondering why I couldn't figure anything out. This of course led to a grown woman having a bit of a tantrum of sulking.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I have a sulk, I do everything a bit half arsed. A friend has left all her nail polishes at mine, as I do her nails for her anyway, so I was just playing around with her Christmas ones, and I discovered the most beautiful pink. I now know how Columbus must have felt.

I'm a big fan of pink & black, and since getting into nail art, I find a plain manicure a bit boring, so there will always be two colours.
Ten minutes later, I ended up with this:

Granted it's not great,  like I said, it only took me ten minutes. Isn't it the most beautiful shade of pink you've ever seen? 

If I had pennies, I know the perfect outfit I would wear with these nails, were I to go out. However, I shall not solely depend on cleavage power to ensure I'd actually get a drink.

These will of course be coming off this weekend, & I shall be posting my nail challenge! Exciting. I've already done one, as I had two different ideas. The one I'm going to attempt tomorrow, will most likely end with me in tears, as I've lost the photo I had, so will be trying to do it from memory. Trust me when I tell you I couldn't work out how it was done when I had the bloody pic in front of me, let alone from memory.

I promise, that regardless how big a cock up I make, I'll post a pic. I always feel a little downhearted at seeing perfect nail blogs. I'm still learning, & want to know that even amazing artists go wrong a few times. 

Catch you at the weekend.x