Thanks To You All

Hello dear readers! There are now 200 of you lovely followers; thank you so much for reading my blog, supporting me and always leaving me such kind and positive comments! Blogging has become such a big part of my life now it's hard to remember what life was like before I joined this community.

As most of you will be aware, I have exams coming up at the start of September. I thought I would be able to continue my nail art and blogging in my free time but unfortunately this has proven not to be the case so I thought I'd let you know that I probably won't be updating for a few weeks. I do, however, plan to catch up with all of your blogs at weekends. I don't want to get left behind after all!

I hope you enjoy the remainder of your summer and I look forward to returning here with new posts in September :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Stamping

Currently listening to: Hey Soul Sister by The Warblers (cannot get enough of this song!)

Good morning girls!

Remember a couple of days ago I showed you my new purple holographic Milani polish? Well I thought that was my new favourite polish. That was until I tried the pink version, Digital!

I LOVE this polish! It is my favourite polish ever.

Once again, it was impossible to capture the holographic-ness of it under sunshine due to recent bad weather but this polish looks really pretty under natural light too.

It is work-appropriate so I wore it to work on Friday and then proceeded to spend an hour in the bathroom as I had a nose bleed (did I say recently that Vaseline had put an end to my nose bleeds? Yeh, well it is worse than useless when I have a cold!) which allowed me to pretty much spend an hour admiring my nails in the mirror. I'm not joking.

I've tried to show the polish's rainbow qualities under artificial light but this picture is almost an embarrassment. It is stunning in real life.

Yesterday I then decided to stamp an image I hadn't used before from Bundle Monster plate 203 using Queenie by No7. I think the colours and pattern go quite well together!

What are your thoughts on this manicure girls? Do you like it?

Bye for now,
Laura

Butterfly Award

Currently reading: ICAEW Taxation Study Manual

Hi girls!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend. I'm stuck in the house studying but I thought I'd take a break as it's high time I thanked Kristyn over at Paint That Nail for giving me the Butterfly Award! Thank you so much :-) Kristyn has a great blog which I always enjoy looking at so if you don't follow her already, I suggest you head over there now :-)

There are a few rules which go along with this award but I'm going to be bad and not abide by them due to time constraints!

I really enjoy reading all the blogs on my blog roll so if you're reading this and see your blog on my blog roll, consider yourself tagged with this award :-) You definitely all deserve it. And if you'd like to follow the rules properly, you can find them here

Bye for now,
Laura

Milani NOTD

Currently listening to: Hey Soul Sister by The Warblers

Good morning girls!

Gosh this week has really dragged by for me, I'm so glad we've finally reached Friday. Roll on 3pm when I finish early today :-)

I mentioned recently that I'd ordered some polish from the USA, including a couple of bottles by Milani. I can't tell you how excited I was to finally get my hands on some coloured holographics!

Here we have the lilac Hi-Res, which I absolutely adore.

It has rained almost every day here for the last two weeks so trying to photograph this holographic beauty under sunlight just wasn't going to happen.

That's okay though because I love it under natural light, under grey skies, and under artifical light too.

Application was a dream, especially for those of us whose only past experience of holographic polishes has been GOSH Holographic.

I then stamped a floral design from the new Bundle Monster plates using my ever faithful Miss Sporty purple polish. It looks quite similar to a manicure I did not so long ago so really these last two pictures are for my newer readers who may not have seen that.

Do you own any holographic polishes? Which ones are your favourites?

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Tea

Currently listening to: Secrets by One Republic

Hello girls!

I hope you are all well and had a good start to your week :-)

Today I'd like to share one of the dishes on my menu for tea this week. As my boyfriend is away this week, I'm cooking for one and eating whatever I like :-) For tonight's tea, I've chosen a chicken stir fry.

The first thing I did was cut two chicken breasts into small pieces and put them in a frying pan with a dash of oil.

While the chicken was cooking, I chopped up two carrots, one courgette, a few mushrooms, two peppers and an onion then added them to the pan.

I then added a vegetable stock cube and stirred while everything cooked to perfection :-)

The result: a healthy and delicious meal for my tea with enough left over for tomorrow's lunch.

Are you a fan of this dish? What are you having for tea tonight?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: Damaged by Plummet

Good morning girls!

Ready for another week of sumer holiday/working fun? This is my last full week of work before I go on study leave. I also have an early finish on Friday (3pm) to look forward to. Saying that, I just know this week is going to go by soooooo slowly.

Anyway, I had to run an errand yesterday and while I was out I popped into Superdrug to buy Lilac Sorbet from the Accessorize make-up range.

I expected it to be £4 but it came up as only £2 when I paid for it so that made my day :-)

It's a really pretty shade which was easy to apply although I would describe the colour as pink rather than lilac.

I'm not stamping today as I think my manager is coming to see me today so I'm playing it safe with this work-appropriate shade all by itself although I do have some great colours lined up to stamp over it in the future :-)

Are you a fan of the Accessorize make-up range? What products would you recommend?

Bye for now,
Laura

Klean Color NOTD

Currently listening to: Impossible by Shontelle

Hi girls,

Anybody else in the UK cold today? It looks and feels like autumn.

I'd like to start by thanking you all for your lovely comments regarding my *pretty things* post. It's always nice to know you enjoy reading my non-nails related posts too.

Today we're back to nails though as I'd like to show you one of my new Klean Color polishes.

I recently placed an order with an American website for three Klean Color polishes and two Milani ones (pink and purple holographics! Yay!). Although the prices are low (Klean Colors are $1.75 on this site), postage to the UK was $9. In total I spent £15 which gives an average price of £3 per nail polish, which I was perfectly happy with.

The first polish I decided to try was Klean Color Holo Chrome, which I'd seen swatched on a few blogs. It's a royal blue packed full of holographic glitter and is so pretty to look at. Of course the sun wasn't out while I was taking pictures so I can't show the real holographic quality of the glitter.

This last picture was taken under artifical light. If you ignore my yellow fingers, this is an accurate portrayal of the blue shade of the polish.

Do you like this shade? Have you tried Klean Color polishes before? Do you ever import your polishes from abroad?

Bye for now,
Laura

Pretty Things

Currently listening to: Marchin' On by One Republic

Hello dear readers,

Are you enjoying the start of the weekend? My boyfriend is away on holiday and I'm in the run-up to exams so my weekend is one of silence, locked in the house studying.

Since I'm spending so much time on my own at home, it helps having nice things to look at :-) Here are some of my recent acquisitions of pretty things:

wooden flowers

heart mug from Amy :-)

Eiffel Tower mug from Paris which came in the tin displayed below. You may recognise it from my previous post; this tin houses my nail brushes

jewellery stands

butterfly stand for gold jewellery
heart stand for the earrings I wear the most and silver necklaces

After my Wednesday's Wishlist post where I stated I'd love fluffy towels, I couldn't resist picking up this wax melt. Not only did the name make me smile, I love the smell too. I also got another one called Fruit Salad. Delicious.

Have you purchased any items to brighten up your home recently?

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Tag

Currently listening to: The Script

Hi girls,

I hope you are all well and enjoying the week.

Today I'm doing a Cosmetics Storage tag from Theodora at Red Hair and Black Nail Polish where I show you how I store my cosmetics. Thanks for tagging me :-)

I store all my cosmetics except my nail polish in the bathroom. Along the side of the bath I have these:

(face wash, cleanser, toner, make-up remover, moisturiser, bubble bath)

On the floor I have a container for my ELF eyeshadow palette, hairspray, mousse, Bio-Oil etc and two cases containg:

Items of make-up often worn during the week

And items of make-up worn for special occasions/at the weekend

I store the items of make-up I use everyday in the bathroom cabinet
(GOSH Primer, 17 Even Tone stick, Rimmel foundation, Rimmel concealer)

My nail polish collection, stamping kit and nail art tools are stored in my study

That's it, folks. I hope you enjoyed seeing how I store my cosmetics. If you'd like to show me and the rest of your readers how you store yours, please do the tag and let me know :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently watching: Dawson's Creek

Good morning girls!

Yesterday I called in sick to work as I was choked up with a cold. I'm not better but nobody's going to do my work for me so I can't take today off too. Anyway, yesterday I painted my nails and watched 12 episodes of Dawson's Creek. A lot of tears were shed I tell you.

Here's the manicure I came up with:

I used a pink La Femme Beauty shade with a matte topcoat then stamped using BM-214 and Eyeko Tea Rose Polish

This is the first time I've used this design and I really like it although of course I had some problems with double stamping. This wasn't due to the length of my nails however, more to do with always misplacing the stamp and missing the edges of my nails. I must say I was also impressed with the stamping quality of Eyeko Tea Rose.

I'm really looking forward to using this design in the future :-)

What do you think girls? Thumbs up or not your thing?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently reading: I Remember You by Harriet Evans

Hello dear readers,

How are you today? Did you have a good weekend?

Here's the polish I've chosen for today's base, Bourjois in Bleu Asphalte which I won in May:

This is the first and only Bourjois polish I've tried and I was really pleased with the application. This is two coats:

The only drawback was the tip shrinkage I got after using Seche Vite. I am so fed up of that topcoat now, can't wait to move on to another brand.

Now I don't know why I chose this colour because it's not exactly work-appropriate. Yes, my college days are over for the moment and I'm back at work :-(

However, once choosing this inappropriate colour, I got carried away and did some inappropriate stamping using China Glaze Peace on Earth (an olive green) and Mash plate m73.

What do you think? I like the colours together and I like the pattern but I'm not sure either colour suits me.

All feedback is appreciated :-)

Bye for now,
Laura