Friday's Foreign Travels (Blackpool)

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

Good morning girls! Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I haven't done any nice manicures but hopefully next week I should have time to make my nails all pretty again.

Since today is Friday, that means I'm once again giving you a glimpse of another place, this time it's Blackpool in England, home to the seaside, Pleasure Beach amusement park and fish and chips.

Blackpool Tower, a mini Eiffel Tower ;-)

Rollercoaster rides at the amusement park

Have you been to Blackpool? Are you a fan of amusement parks?

Bye for now,
Laura

Saturday's Stamping

Currently listening to: White Shadows by Coldplay

Hello dear readers,

I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend. As you know, I'm away in York but I've scheduled this post (hopefully) so that you can see the manicure I'm currently sporting.

On the back of last week's French manicure success, I decided to try another one.
As before, I painted my white tips (with a slightly steadier hand this time) then applied a coat of Eyeko Petite Polish over each nail.

I then stamped a floral pattern from MASH plate m25 using Kiko 254. Some of the stamping wasn't as crisp as I would have liked and ended up slightly watery but overall I was pleased with this manicure despite the usual issues over stamp placement.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,
Laura

Friday's Foreign Travels (York, England)

Currently listening to: Unpretty by Glee

Good morning girls! How are you today? Do you have that Friday feeling??? I certainly do as I'm on holiday today :-) I'm going to York for a long weekend with my mum so although it will be a fairly relaxed weekend I'm sure it will be lots of fun too.

A while back I decided to do a weekly travel post, showing pictures of places I've visited in recent years, hearing about whether you too have visited these places and where you would like to go. Not a lot came of that idea, until now. Since I'm spending the weekend in York, I thought my first post could be on York as I visited this city in April and have lots of photos taken in the sunshine...

The shape of these houses from this angle caught my eye

Clifford's Tower, part of York Castle

The Shambles- a medieval street housing lots of boutiques and tearooms. Perfect for a spot of afternoon shopping followed by aternoon tea.

York Minster

Perfect weather for a stroll along the medieval ruins of the town wall

At the end of the day it was great to relax in the park

Have you been to York? Is it somewhere you'd like to visit?

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Talons

Currently reading: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Good morning girls! A short and sweet post from me today to show you the manicure I wore last Friday :

There's not much to say here apart from to tell you that my base was the beautiful Milani holographic Hi-Res and I stamped using a Konad butterfly image with a black polish.

Due to poor lighting conditions, you cannot see the holographic beauty of this polish but in reality it is a rainbow of colours and thus quite possibly my favourite purple polish :-)

What do you think girls? What's your favourite purple?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently watching: Have I Got News For You

Good morning!

As I hinted yesterday, today's manicure is some stamping over my new All About Me Pink Honey base.

It also features another new polish I recently added to my collection, MUA Shade 20.

I stamped using a full nail floral image from Bundle Monster plate 201.

Stamping was slightly problematic due to the fact the polish is the same colour as my stamper so trying to line it up with my nail was rather tricky!

What do you think girls? Have you stamped using this image before?

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Swatch

Currently watching: Strictly Come Dancing

Good afternooon ladies,

How are you? Are you having a nice weekend?

Today while out at the supermarket I picked up this little bottle of polish:

I bought it at Tesco for 99p. The bottle holds 7ml of polish so quantity/price wise it's comparable to Superdrug's MUA brand which sell 6.2ml for £1 although personally I think the All About Nails bottle looks nicer.

This shade is called Honey Pink and in the photos you can see what it looks like with three coats.

It is a soft pink pastel creme and although I don't think it's an exact dupe, it is pretty similar to Barry M Pink Ice Cream.

Suitable for work or play and a great base for stamping, as you will see tomorrow ;-) Have you tried this brand before girls? If so, what did you think of it?

Bye for now,
Laura

Saturday's Success

Good morning girls!

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post, I will reply to them shortly :-) For now I just want to share some good news with you. Remember during the summer I took a break from blogging so I could concentrate on studying for my exams? Well I received my exam results yesterday and I am delighted to say that I passed my three exams! Hooray!

Have a fabulous day girls, the sun is shining on us all :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Talons (A First For Me!)

Currently watching: Strictly: It Takes Two

Good morning girls! Today I'm very excited to show you my manicure as I do believe it's a first for me:

I used a white polish for my tips and then applied a coat of Eyeko Petite Polish for my French manicure. I rarely do French manicures as I find it difficult to freehand the tips and I always find they chip quickly or end up with holes in them for some reason. There are quite a few holes and smudges in the tips of this manicure but I don't think they're *too* obvious...

I then decided to stamp using a purple Miss Sporty polish and MASH plate m25. I originally intended to use only the butterfly image but I was nervous about messing up the stamp placement so I decided to use the floral image on alternate nails as I felt there was more freedom for placement error with this image.

Overall I was very happy with this manicure and it's definitely a style which I will wear again. I loved typing at work yesterday and catching flashes of my white tips. It's a very clean manicure I think.

What do you think of this type of manicure girls? Is it something you'd try yourself?

Bye for now,
Laura

Wednesday's Wishlist (calling all butterfly fans!)

Currently listening to: Fix You by Coldplay

Good morning girls!

I'm currently making a scrapbook and whilst looking online for images of butterflies to draw on the pages, I stumbled across this image:

Isn't it beautiful?! It's designed by Grainne Morton and comes with a rather hefty price tag so
I don't think this will be decorating my wrist any time soon but I was just really taken by all the colours and the design.

Is this something you would wear?

What animals do you like on your jewellery?

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently watching: Strictly: It Takes Two

Good evening girls! I hope your week has started well :-) This morning I decided to update my manicure from Sunday by adding animal stripes. I didn't have enough time for stamping so I thought I'd be brave and freehand some stripes using black polish and a striping brush.

I don't think it's too bad for my first attempt but there's a lot of room for improvement

(The glitter you can see on my pinky nail is Kleancolor Holo Pink. I added this on Monday but only to the only nail out of curiousity)

Unfortunately we're now getting to the time of year when I leave home in the dark and come back in the dark meaning taking clear photos during the day is becoming increasingly difficult.

Do you like this manicure girls? Any tips on how I could improve my animal stripes?

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Swatch

Currently watching: Strictly Come Dancing

Good morning ladies! Are you having a good weekend? I went shopping yesterday (I'll show you what I got later this week) and one of my purchases was Pink Spice from the Accessorize nail polish collection.

I saw a lot of swatches of this polish when the Accessorize make-up range was first launch as it was believed to be a dupe of a MAC polish (Bad Fairy maybe) but it never really captured my attention until last week when I saw it on Sara's blog. It really looked stunning on her so on it went to my wishlist.

Accessorize cosmetics appeal to me because of their design- I love butterflies :-) This one was in a little box with lots of lovely butterflies so it would make a nice gift as well although personally I don't see the need for the extra packaging, it's just a waste.

I'm really happy I finally bought this polish; application was easy, I only needed two coats and ooh the sparkle is pretty.

It's also the kind of polish that has numerous tones throughout it depending on the light. Flashes of orange, yellow and even green are highly present.

What do you think of this polish ladies? Are you a fan of the Accessorize range?

Bye for now,
Laura