Update

Hi girls!

Sorry I've been quiet this week! When I said I was going to be on holiday, what I should have said was that I'm on holiday in my family home where the computer is over 10 years old and therefore very sloooooooooow so when it takes me half an hour to check my email account, blogging just isn't a viable possibility :-(.

Rest assured, I have lots of manicures to show you and I need to thank several people for awards and tags they have passed on to me. I also need to catch up with all your blogs! I miss reading them and leaving you comments!

I will definitely be back on the blogging track early next week, if not sooner.

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD Plus Konad Storage

Currently listening to: Raise Your Glass by The Warblers

Good morning dear readers!

I couldn't resist adding some more stamping to yesterday's manicure so I chose a star image from BM21 and used my dark purple Miss Sporty polish.

Do you prefer this manicure with or without the stars?

The other thing I'd like to show you today is my way of storing all my image plates. When I first bought image plates, I used this purse from Accessorize to store them:

That was fine when I only had my two Konad plates and the first Bundle Monster set but as I recently got the new Bundle Monster set and a MASH set, it became increasingly annoying having to take every single plate out just to choose an image plus my purse was becoming alarmingly full.

In steps some environmentally friendly thinking :-) Reduce, reuse, recycle. I decided to reuse a biscuit packet for storage. It has two distinct sections when I can separate full nail images from small images and I can even fit my stamper and scraper in too.

It's a good solution for the time being but still not ideal. I'd love something where I could see each image plate individually displayed.

How do you store your image plates? Do you have any ideas about how I could store mine?

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD

Currently listening to: Halo by Beyonce

Good morning girls!

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments about my previous manicure :-) Today I have a new one to show you which is a less detailed manicure but still special due to the background colour being GOSH Holographic:

I love holographic polishes. I wish I had more than this one.

I stamped using H&M Fashionista and BM223.

It was dark when I took these photos so in order to show the true holographic-ness of this manicure, I had to resort to taking pictures in artificial light

Hope you like!

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: Jackie by Scott Walker

Good morning girls! Did you have a good weekend? I had to spend a lot of time studying but I also managed a trip to the cinema to see Bad Teacher. What a mistake that was; it's definitely one of the worst films I've seen in recent years.

I had to study because I'm in college this week and I have a mock exam this afternoon (which I think is very unfair considering the last classes we had were in December!) but...being at college means I don't have to worry about my manicures being suitable for the office plus I'm on holiday next week so expect lots of bright and colourful manicures in the next couple of weeks :-)

Let's start as we mean to go on then:

This wasn't exactly a fail but there are mistakes galore. However, I quite like it :-)

I used Eyeko Lilac Polish as my base and stamped using a white Boots polish and Mash m60 to create vertical and horizontal lines as a background. Stamping was not easy as the image was a lot shorter than my nails so I had to attempt some double stamping.

I didn't really mind about the initial stamping mistakes as I had planned to layer my stamping anyway.

The second layer of stamping was done using a floral image from Bundle Monster plate BM 224 and a dark Miss Sporty purple.

The purple is a lot more blue-toned than I expected so in reality it looks like I drew the flowers with a blue Biro pen. The smudging adds to that impression.

This is probably one of the better nails ;-)

What do you think of this manicure girls? And what do you have planned for the week?

Bye for now,
Laura

Saturday's Sunshine

Currently listening to: I'll Never Break Your Heart by The Backstreet Boys

Good morning girls! What's the weather like where you are today? There's sunshine galore where I am thanks to the Sunshine Award :-)

Huda over at Huda's Beauty Blog was kind enough to give me this award, thank you very much :-) If you haven't already checked out her blog, I suggest you do it now. It's a great read.
The rules of this award are:

*Thank the person who gave you this award
*Write a post about it
*Pass it on to 10 bloggers you think really deserve it and send them a message to let them know

The bloggers I would like to pass this award on to are:

*Lyndsay at Pixie Polish
*Laura at A Daisy Chain Dream
*Lady Pink at Red Hair and Black Nail Polish
*Cristina at Opinionated Little Finger
*Sarah Louise at Spellbinding Nails
*Nail Stories
*Amber at My Nail Graffiti
*Varnish Me Up
*Nails and Nonsense from a Brit
*Sara at Sara Loves Pretty Little Things

Enjoy the award :-)

Friday's Floral NOTD

Currently watching: The Apprentice

Greetings!

I am so excited to show you today's manicure as I think it's my favourite out of all the manicures I've ever done! Enough words, here's the first picture:

Ah, I love it. The original base is from yesterday's post, Miss Sporty stamped with GOSH Holographic. Like most nail fans, if I like a manicure but don't particularly love it, I'll quickly add some modifications or change it. I couldn't leave this alone so I stamped with another full nail image from MASH m64 using Natural Collection Hibiscus.

I don't know why I like this so much, possibly just because I managed to double stamp two full nail images which I've never tried to do before.

This is not a subtle manicure, as evidenced by the fact that two men noticed my nails and admired them. I do believe that's the first time in 10 months a client has noticed my nails (I'm an accountant, my clients see my nails a lot).

Although present, the holographic polish isn't striking so I think using plain silver would work just as well. I also think trying this manicure in lilac and blue will work too. Can't wait to try.

What are your thoughts girls? Do you like this manicure as much as I do?

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Talons

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

Hello dear readers!

I hope you are all well and having a good week. Half-way there now...

Today I have a manicure based on Tuesday's, using Twinkle Shine by Miss Sporty and GOSH Holographic.

This polish is so pretty. Application wasn't great and I could still see nail line after three coats but I can forgive that because of the colour ;-)

Then I used BM 223 again, this time with GOSH Holographic.

Once again, I had problems stamping but hopefully you won't be able to tell and in person it looks good.

It almost makes me think I have pink holographic polish. Ha, if only.

Are you a fan of this manicure? Do you have any holographic polishes?

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently listening to: Final Distance by Utada Hikaru

Hi girls!

This is a bit late in the day but I thought I'd show you the manicure I wore today, even though it didn't turn out very well.

I used one coat of Eyeko Tea Rose Polish as my base and stamped using a pink Midi shimmer and BM plate 223.

I don't know what went wrong with this but basically I had difficulties with my stamping so the full image never came out properly. I only kept this manicure as it was too late to redo it last night and I thought the many imperfections were quite minor and would not be noticed by my colleagues. I was right. Plus, I liked the *lift* that the shimmer polish gave to Tea Rose. It's subtle but slightly different.

What do you think of the manicure? Have you had any stamping fails recently?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: Higher Window by Josh Groban

Good morning girls!

I hope you're all starting the week on a high :-) A pretty manicure always helps things get off to a good start to here's mine, using Kiko 254 as the base colour, Bourjois Bleu Asphalt as the stamping colour and image plate BM221.

One of my gripes with using Seche Vite is that it makes my glossy nails difficult to photograph ;-)

Do you like this manicure? I love the colour combination and the stamp; it's definitely one I'll be making a lot of use of in the future. It's just a shame it was difficult to photograph.

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Swatches

Currently watching: Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow

Hi girls!

How are you? What have you been doing this weekend? I'm spending this afternoon studying but I thought I'd take a break to finally show you swatches of my recently acquired polishes, including the batch of Kiko polishes I bought in Paris a few weeks ago.

First up is 346, which I featured in Monday's Manicure last week. It's not as dark as it appears in this photo of my colour wheel (next to Eyeko's Vintage Polish) but that's the best I could do unfortunately.

Then we have the three purple polishes: 338 (a blue and purple mix), 332 (a rich, Cadbury's chocolate kind of purple) and 255 (a dark purple packed with holographic glitter which I cannot wait to use)

Next up is 254, a dark pink with lots of shimmer.

You'll see this tomorrow in Monday's Manicure :-)

And finally, my first Bourjois polish! No, I didn't cave in to temptation and splurge, I actually won this bottle in Glamour magazine's May giveaway. The shade is called Bleu Asphalte and you will also see this tomorrow.

Although the colour blue is part of the name, as you can see, it's more of a dark grey shade and not something I previously had in my collection.

So there you have it, my lastest additions. What polishes have you been purchasing lately? Are there any you're after? I'm trying not to buy any more polishes as I really do have more than enough but...Miss Sporty's Zodiac is now on my wishlist :-)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD: Possibly A New Favourite

Currently watching: Mock the Week

Good morning girls!

Here's a manicure I did last night using Essence Jelly Baby in Very Berry and a silver shade by Miss Sporty.

I absolutely love this. The image is from MASH plate m78.

I read yesterday that in the UK, Miss Sporty polishes are considered one of the best brands for stamping with. After this manicure, I have to agree!

Do you like thie manicure? What are your favourite brands of polish to stamp with?

Bye for now,
Laura