Bundle Monster - Holiday Collection Stamping Plates

I ordered the new Bundle Monster set from Amazon the other day and they arrived this morning.  The Holiday Collection is a set of plates based round lots of different, well, holidays.  So there are plates for Christmas, New Year, Halloween, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Birthdays and a whole host of other themed images.

 

 

They arrive in a little box, like the other sets, and are covered with a blue film which needs removing before you can stamp with them, as you can see from the image below there's a pretty wide range of images over the 25 plates in this collection.

 

Here are some of my favourites.  I LOVE the zombie arms from plate H08 (I can see a Halloween manicure on the horizon very soon...)

 

And these autumnal leaves on plates H11.

 

The bunting image on H19 is so cute, I'm not entirely sure what I would do with it but I love it!

 

The present image at the bottom of H21 should come in handy too, I can already think of an excellent festive manicure I could use this one for.

 

Possibly my favourite of the whole bunch is the science related stamp on plate H23, I can't wait to use it!

 

I'm so excited to try out some of these image plates, I'm hoping they will stamp as well as the previous collections do for me, look out for some holiday themed manicures coming this way very soon!



Holiday Nails

I was quite short of time before I flew out to Spain so I didn't get the chance to do anything fancy and holiday themed with my nails, like I did last time, instead I just decided to go with something bright and summery that seemed holiday-ish to me, my choice was a very bright neon yellow polish I bought on a previous trip to Spain.

 

 

I started off with two coats of Sinful Snow White as a base and then added the yellow over the top, these pictures are 2 coats of yellow.

 

It's a cheapy brand (bottle picture and details HERE) that I got in one of the China Bazaar shops in Spain so I'm pretty impressed with how bright it turned out and how well it applied.  In fact it was what made me pick up some more neons when I was out there this time, you can see them HERE.

 

It looks very messy around my cuticles in the macro shots here but I don't think it looked quite so messy in person, in fact it got me quite a few compliments, and got me spotted by a blog reader in the airport too which is definitely a first. :))

 

I really liked how this bright neon looked in the sunshine and it started a bit of a trend off for the week I was away, stay tuned to see more neon holiday polishes coming up soon.

Holiday Time - Again!

I'm off out to Spain again, to stay with my parents, a final quick dose of sunshine before the summer finishes up.  I have posts scheduled to keep you all occupied but since I won't have the time to be posting every day replies to comments might become a bit more sporadic over the next week or so. 

 

 

However, I'll be back soon with holiday nails and any interesting beauty bargains I come across while I'm away, I have a little Kiko trip planned so I am sure there will be something to show off from that.

 

See you soon! xx

Holiday Manicure - Swimsuits!

A bit of a belated posting (I was planning on posting rather more than I did while away but the sunshine and lounging opportunities got the better of me) but this is the manicure I wore for going on holiday last week, I decided to use the same rainbow stamping technique as I had for this manicure but this time give the stamped images a bit of a holiday feel.  Here's how they turned out.

 

I used plates from the Cheeky Summer collection and chose a swimsuit and bikini design.

The stamping is done with the same selection of Barry M Gellys as before.  I don't think the rainbow effect showed up quite as well as the previous attempt as the pattern on this stamping image was a bit more spaced out which meant you didn't see the colour merges quite as well.

 

I also decided to add some sun glasses as an accent on one hand.

 

Not too bad for a heading off on holiday manicure, I thought!

Holiday!

I fly out to Spain today to visit my parents for 10 days which means that I might not be able to blog every day as I have been doing.  I have a few posts scheduled and might even post while I am away if I have the time but there won't be a post every day as there has been.  I'd like to have had the time to schedule posts but unfortunately life got in the way a bit!

 

Hopefully while I am away I will pick up a few bits and peices to blog about, there will definitely be a wee trip to Kiko to complete my Sugar Mat collection and to check out the newest releases, like the Sun Pearl Nail Lacquer.

 

 

So look out for some quick updates while I am away and then some new goodies when I get back, hopefully the weather in the UK will be kind to you all while I'm off sunning myself. :)

 

Holiday Nails.

This is a bit of late, catch up post as it should really have been posted just as I jetted off to Spain but it wasn't.

In my head, before I went away, I had all kinds of grand ideas about doing a really fancy, themed manicure for heading off on holiday.  As it turned out this was not to be, partly because my Cheeky plates didn't turn up in time but mostly because I ended up, as usual, running about mad in the lead up to my break and didn't have the time.

So, here is my nod at holiday nails, far less grand and far more garish than I had imagined but quite summery all the same.

I started with a base coat of Kiko yellow cream and added a coat of Sally Hansen Hue to give it some sparkle.

Then I used Barry M Denim to stamp over the top. The majority of the images are fom Dashica plates with the flip flops coming from the most recent Bundle Monster collection.

Holiday Make Up Bag

I always find it interesting to see what beauty products and make up people take on holiday with them, I have a terrible habit of packing waaaay too much make up when I travel and then never using most of it, so this year I decided to try and pack minimally make up wise and see how I got on (yes, this is minimal).

 

Here's what I took:

 

 

Urban Decay Naked Palette

5 Assorted eye brushes

Kiko Eyebrow Pencil

Elf Eyebrow Gel

Too Face Shadow Insurance

Maybelline Mascara

No7 Cream Blush

W7 Candy Floss Blush

2 L'Oreal Rouge Caresse - Dating Coral & Sweet Berry

Revlon Lip Butter - Sweet Tart

No7 Poppy King Lip Crayon - Skipping

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain - Honey & Rendezvous

Miss Sporty Dr Balm Lip Balm - Gossip Kiss

UD Grindhouse Sharpener

Maybelline BB Cream

Powder & Blusher Brush

Cotton Buds

Hair Clips

Eyelash Curlers

UD 24/7 Liners - Stray Dog, Demolition, Uzi & Perversion

NYC Face Powder

 

Despite this being hugely pared down from what I normally take I still didn't use all of it!  I could definitely have gotten away with fewer lip products and fewer eye liners too.  I never wear much make up on holiday and when I do it's always fairly light and basic yet I can't seem to convince myself it's ok to leave the country without a load of stuff!

 

Do you have the same problem?  Is it possible to pack a capsule wardrobe for your face?  What do you take when you go away?

 

How to make coming home a little more bearable...

Hello!  I'm back from holiday and ready to get back into the swing of blogging properly again, I was terrible remiss while I was away for a number of reasons, the main one being I found it far to hard to tear myself away from the lovely weather and good company to spend my time indoors blogging. :)  Hopefully things will be back on track now though!

Somewhat unintentionally I managed to arrive home to not one but three parcels waiting for me which definitely softened the blow of returning to cold and damp Glasgow from sunny, warm Spain.

 

Inside were items which will no doubt make up a good portion of my blog posts over the coming week or so, along with a few goodies I picked up on my Spanish travels. 

 

So, over the next few posts you can look forward to some glow in the dark nail polish, more Kiko goodies, a few Body Shop bargains, a Cheeky delivery, a brand new face product and hopefully, with all these new goodies, a few decent manicures!