Gymnastics World Cup 2013

I posted about my Gymnastics World Cup Nails last year after I went to watch in 2012 and this year, back at the start of December, I went back with the same friend to show our support again.  The design I used was similar but not quite the same, patriotic nails seemed the way to go.

 

 

The red and blue nails are both from the Kiko Sugar Mat Gift Set I got at the start of December, the gold is a No7 glitter called Sun Rays which there isn't very much about online although you can buy it on the Boots website, it gorgeous so grab a bottle if you see it.  The two white nails are Barry M polish and then water decals which I got ages ago from eBay

 

Here they are with the gymnasts in the background, and if you squint you can make out Beth Tweedle on the right hand side wearing her smart dress and Ugg boots while presenting for TV.

 

 

Merry Christmas!

First, an admission, these probably won't be my actual Christmas nails.  I'm hoping to have time to change them once more on Christmas Eve but with time so short at this time of year I decided to cheat and schedule this post in advance (writing it on Christmas Eve morning), so these are actually the nails I have on pre-Christmas.

 

They are quite fitting for Christmas nails though, what says Christmas more than Rudolph, Santa and a penguin dancing around a Christmas tree?

 

 

The base is Kiko 442 Techno Black, a gorgeous black base filled full of tiny holographic glitter particles, it's hard to capture the sparkle in photos but in real life they are super sparkly.

 

Then over the top a selection of smiley Christmas figure stickers to add an extra festive touch, I can't help but sing Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree when I look at these, those guys are definitely at a party having a good old dance to themselves.

 

All that's left to say is MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I hope you're all having a good one, I'll be back to update about my Christmas haul and nails over the festive season, as well as a few non-Christmas related posts which I've schedule to appear while I'm off having fun.

 

Christmas Nail Fail

On two counts, firstly I obviously didn't manage to post every second day since saying I would and secondly now that I am posting it's to show you some rather poor stamping, double Christmas Nail Fail, oh dear.  In my defence I have been SO busy organising for the big day.

 

I decided I wanted plain white nails with a little shimmer so I used Barry M white and then a top coat of Kiko 205 from their French Manicure range which is a milky sheer polish with very fine gold glitter through it, ideal for a sparkly shimmery base.

 

On top of that I decided to stamp some holly, which is where things started to go wrong...

 

 

I used Barry M Watermelon and Blood Orange for the stamping, I filled the outline in with a nail art brush.  My first annoyance is the placement of the holly, it just didn't look right.  The second annoyance is the smeared colour, caused by me stamping once then trying to wipe it off so I could have another go - not my finest moment.

 

I like the idea of these nails but in reality they just didn't turn out how I had hoped, if I hadn't been so busy I would have tried again but time is short at the moment so I left them and now I'm showing them to you lot, rather than skip another blog post!

 

Christmas Puddings!

 

Another Christmas themed manicure this week, this time some Christmas pudding nails.  I've seen loads of these online so I really wanted to have a go myself.

 

I used Kiko 374, a deep sparkly brown, as the base and then my usual stamping white, a nail art pen, and Bundle Monster plate BM-301 to create the icing portion of the pudding.  I think the stamp is supposed to be a sort of sponged gradient effect but I think it works rather well as icing sugar.

 

I added the finishing touch of some holly with China Glaze Running in Circles for the leaves and Kiko 238 for the berries.  They're not quite as neat as I'd like but I think the overall effect is not too bad, especially from a bit further away which is how you tend to see them in real life.

Grungy Gradient

I decided that for Halloween I wanted to stamp over a gradient, so these next two posts are really two halves of the same manicure.

 

First up I chose some grungy Halloween-esque colours to stamp with, for some reason I decided to go with green and purple, maybe not the first colours that spring to mind for Halloween but quite successful I think...  They are Kiko 331, 333 and Models Own Grace Green.

 

 

I like how they all merged together and the effect that they gave.  I liked it so much that I wore my nails for a day just like this before I stamped over them.

 

It's definitely made me determined to try out other gradients with more unusual colours as I really liked the way this one turned out.

 

Check back tomorrow to see how I added an extra Halloween twist on the gradient which made me love it even more...

 

 



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!



Birthday Safari

It was my birthday yesterday so over the weekend as a birthday treat we visited Blairdrummond Safari Park, obviously I couldn't let the day go by without a theme manicure.  I was short of time so I went with a super speedy stamp of some Zebra print.

The stamping didn't go perfectly unfortunately so they are a little blurred in places.

Obviously I had to hunt out my inspiration once we got there.  Here are the nails...

Here are the Zebras...

Not a bad likeness. :D

When I got home my very own 'big cat' let me use his colour coordinated paw for a posing prop.

Another 4th of July theme manicure.

I was quite pleased with last years 4th of July manicure so I decided to give it another go this year, however I wanted to try and create a flag design on each nail rather than spread it across my hand like I'd done previously, and so this version was born...

 

This years attempt was a little bit more complicated than the simple stamping I did last year. 

 

First off I started with a white base then I used sellotape to mark off a portion of my nails which I stamped with Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Blood Orange to create the stripes, after that had dried I applied the tape again, this time covering the stripes and leaving the white area clear to paint with Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Blue Grape, on top of that I stamped white stars.  Then I removed the tape and added a topcoat to smooth out the joins.  Both of the plates I used for the stars and stripes are from the latest Cheeky collection of plates.

 

Aside from the small issue I had on my pinkie (we'll gloss over the lines not matching up, shall we?) I think these turned out pretty well, it's definitely obvious what they are meant to be and I've had lots of compliments already which is always nice.

 

 

 

Do you have any 4th related nail plans?

Happy Easter!

My Easter manicure didn't really work out how it was supposed to, not least because it was very rushed and I couldn't find any of the other stamping plates I was sure I owned which had an Easter theme.  Anyway, here's my (rather rubbish) attempt.

I used Sinful Easy Going and Social Ladder for the base and a mash up of Barry M Gelly Hi-shines for the stamping (you can see them here and here)

I used plate HB38 for the egg and bunny designs.

I can't say I am overly impressed with this manicure, it isn't what I had in mind when I decided to theme for Easter.  I might have another crack at it tomorrow and see if I can do any better.

On a sort of related note, do you have any Easter themed nail stamping plates?  Where did you get them or what set are they part of, I am sure I had some somewhere but I couldn't find them when hunting last night and I need to be better prepared next year. ;)

A final Christmas themed manicure.

A final festive themed manicure, this time using a variety of my new GALS Princess and Fairy stamping plates, more on them in the new year!  Now on to the manicure, a quick word of warning though, these were taken after a long day of working in the kitchen so they are not in perfect condition, apologies!

You can see how nicely the new plates stamp, more nice on them very soon!

Gymnastics World Cup

With it being the Christmas holidays I don't have quite so much free time to post on the blog at the moment, too many mince pies to eat and fizzy beverages to drink, so I thought I would throw in a couple of catch up posts that I have written recently but not posted due to my month of festive manicures in the run up to Christmas.

My friend and I recently went to the Gymnastics World Cup event which was held at the new Emirates Arena in Glasgow.  It was a great day and obviously I had to do a nice Team GB themed manicure to help spur the athletes on.  Here's what I came up with.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, it's a fairly simple manicure; plain white polish with Barry M Jewel Britannia on thumb, pinkie and index finger and then some cute Union Jack heart shaped water decals on my middle and ring fingers.

Here they are in all their glory in the arena:

I love how these turned out, they were very simple but also very effective, not quite so effective that GB actually won but still. ;)

Christmas Jumpers!

Hello lovelies, hope you all had a fantastic Christmas yesterday.

This manicure didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped, they were supposed to be like lots of other lovely Christmas jumper manicures I'd seen but they look more like festive coloured random stamping I think, I'd like to try them again at some point to see if I could get them to look more like the jumpers.

Here's what I used; Kiko 391, Orly Here comes Trouble, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blood Orange and a white nail are pen for the stamping.

I cleverly forgot to take note of which stamping plates I used but I'll try and remember to add the details once I've checked my stash or if you'd like to know ask in the comments to jog my memory.

So, not exactly Christmas jumpers but nice and sparkly and festive none the less!

Merry Christmas!

Good morning and Merry Christmas!  I hope you all got lots of lovely gifts and are currently enjoying lots food, fun and festivities with your nearest and dearest.

Today's post features another festive manicure and more snowflakes.  I used one of my Christmas presents that my parent's brought me from Spain, a new glitter from Kiko number 407 (there will be a post about the new limited edition glitters shortly) and stamped some snowflakes over it using BM-323 which has a lovely snowflake design on it.

Now on to the photos, I love the way this turned out so there are a few... well, more than a few. ;)

I was really pleased with how this looked, especially considering how quick it was to do.  The Kiko polish only took two coats to get it thoroughly opaque and then a quick stamp over the top.

And a quick messy shot before the stamping to give you a better idea of the colour of the base.

Enough pictures, time for everyone to go back to their mince pies and presents, hope you're all having a lovely Christmas. xx