Tuesday's Thanks (I Love Your Blog Award)

Hi girls!

Today I'd like to thank the lovely Lydz over at Sekhmet's Purple Castle for giving me the I Love Your Blog award. This girl's nail art is fabulous so if you don't follow her already, please pop over and say hi now :-)

The rules of the award are:
Add the logo of the award to your blog
Add a link to the person who awarded you
Nominate at least 7 other blogs
Add links to those blogs on your blog
Leave message for your nominees on their blogs

So, without further ado, I would like to nominate the following blogs for this award:

Pretty Digits
Sara Loves Pretty Little Things
Nailxchange
Red Hair and Black Nail Polish
heartNAT
Cutesville
It's All About the Accent

Well done girls! Please visit these blogs if you don't already follow them, they're great and written by lovely ladies.

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure(s)

Currently watching: One Tree Hill

Good morning ladies!

Did you all have a good weekend? What did you do?

Late last week I received an image plate from Born Pretty Store which I'd been excitedly waiting for so I thought I'd try it out this weekend:

This is the first manicure I used my new image plate (m59) for. I used a white polish as my base and then stamped a houndstooth print using Konad Special Polish in pink and MASH plate m63.

I then stamped a black bow to finish the manicure.

It turned out pretty well I thought except for a few issues. If you didn't know this already, let me tell you that stamping on top of a topcoat is a nightmare. The polish won't stick to your topcoat. And if you don't use a topcoat to seal your stamping, it will gradually peel off.

Aside from those issues, I loved this manicure and would happily create it again. What do you think of it?

I then decided to try another bow manicure, loosely based on a few I'd seen using China Glaze For Audrey. I don't have that polish but I thought Eyeko's Vintage Polish would be a good substitute. Wrong!

The green polish didn't show up at all over E.L.F's Desert Haze so I ended up using Barry M's Pure Turquoise which wasn't great either.

Since the bows were so faint, I decided to lift the manicure by dotting white polka dots in the empty space.

I must say I was disappointed by this manicure and quickly removed it after taking these photos as I just couldn't imagine wearing it to work. I'll show you what I'm really wearing on my nails today soon!

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Talons

Currently watching: Birdsong

Good morning girls! How are you all today? Not long until the weekend now, yay :-)

Today I'd like to show you a manicure I created after being inspired by The Polished Perfectionist and Nail Stories:

My base was a white polish by Natural Collection. The first coat was very streaky but its appearance improved with the second coat.

I then painted three roses on my two accent nails using acrylic paint and a nail brush. This was my first time free-handing roses. What do you think of them?

To finish I then free-handed the tips of my remaining nails with All About Nails Honey Pink.

I think it's the first time I've ever done a manicure like this and I have to say I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I hope you like it as much as I do :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently listening to: Rude Boy by Rihanna

Hello dear readers,

Today's post is short on pictures as I wasn't too happy with my manicure. I thought you might like to see it anyway though:

The plan was to do a pink gradient using three polishes: No7 Practically Pefect, Boots 17 Simply Perfect and All About Nails Honey Pink and a sponge. Practically Perfect is a new polish I bought last week using my No7 £5 voucher. I will do a post on it another time. All I'm going to say for now is that it is a lot less opaque than I expected. Perfect for French manicures but not what I had in mind. Anyway. The gradient turned out all right but it was too plain for my liking...

...so I stamped over it using E.L.F Pearl and Red Angel plate RA112. I didn't like the results because overall this manicure was just too pale for my skin tone. I removed it after about half an hour.

Has anybody else had any nail fails recently?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: A Different Beat by Boyzone

Good morning ladies,

Did you have a nice weekend? What are your plans for this week? My plan is to blog a lot to make up for last week's silence ;-)

Today I'd like to show you a half-moon manicure I attempted using yesterday's Saffron polish as my base:

This is the second time I've tried this style of manicure and although it's not perfect, it's a lot better than my first attempt.

I started with my pink Saffron base then when it was completely dry, I placed reinforcer stickers on the bottom third of each nail and painted the remaining nail with H&M's Fashionista.

As soon as I'd finished painting a nail, I removed the sticker and after repeating that nine times, I was left with this:

What do you think?

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Swatch ft Saffron London

Currently reading: The Help

Good afternoon ladies! How are you all? I can't believe I haven't posted for a week! This lack of sunlight during the winter is really bad news for my blog.

Anyway, here I am, with swatches of one of my new Saffron London polishes:

These polishes don't have names, just numbers. This is number 62.

Application was easy. I applied two coats and a topcoat.

If you read my Revlon post then you will know that I consider this colour to be fuchsia and it was what inspired me to buy Facets of Fuchsia.

Considering I bought this online without ever having heard of the brand, I'm impressed by this polish. What do you think of this shade?

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Swatch ft My First Revlon

Currently listening to: Need You Now by Lady Antebellum

Good morning ladies!

Today I'd like to show you swatches of my first ever Revlon polish, Facets of Fuchsia:

Ooh isn't it lovely?

I know a lot of you already have this polish but I'd be swithering over buying it for months. It was only when I tried my new Saffron London polish and decided that the colour of that wasn't pink or magenta but fuchsia that I realised Facets Of Fuchsia would be the perfect polish to layer over it and I really rather desperately wanted to own it.

However, due to circumstances outwith my control (work), the first chance I had to wear this polish was this weekend, layered over my lilac magnetized polish that I showed you yesterday. It wasn't the combination I had in mind but I think it works really well.

What do you think? Do you own this, or any of the other Revlon glitters?

Bye for now,
Laura

Saturday's Swatch

Currently listening to: She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5

Hello ladies!

Has your weekend started well? The weather has turned cold here so I woke up to a crisp but sunny morning and went for my first 5k run. I walked a lot of it but at least it's a start.

Anyway, you've come here to see today's swatch, haven't you? Here it is, Boots 17 Magnetized Polish in Lilac:

This is the second time I've worn magnetized polish and application was so much easier than the last time. The photos don't really do the polish justice but I managed to get two/three well-defined waves on each nail by hovering the magnetic over the wet nail polish for a few seconds. Simple.

I wore this polish to work yesterday and received lots of compliments. It's a nice colour and non-bloggers still find magnetized polish a novelty ;-)

The only negative thing I have to say about this polish is that after less than a day it was already showing signs of tip wear.

What do you think of this polish girls?

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Thanks (Cute Blog Award)

Currently listening to: Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5

Good morning girls,

I know I promised you pictures of the new polish I'm sporting but I just haven't been able to take any photos so that's going to have to wait until the weekend (by which time I will have course changed my manicure). In the meantime, I'd like to thank Ashesela over at Art Evolve for awarding me the Cute Blog Award:

Thank you Ashesela! I know a lot of you follow her already but if you don't, please head over to her blog and say hello :-)

For this award you:
Link back to the person who awarded you
Answer the award questions
Share something about yourself that you haven't told anyone on your blog yet
Award as many blogs as you think are worthy of the award and notify them

The Award Questions:
What is your go to make up product?
Primer. My skin can be quite dry so primer helps my make up to glide on.

What was your favourite fashion trend of 2011?
I really liked all the glitter polishes we saw from Revlon and Essence.

What is your favourite dessert?
Probably sticky toffee pudding although I am also partial to Mars Bar cakes, carrot cake and caramel shortbread :-)

What is your favourite colour?
Purple

What is your middle name?
Claire

What was the last song you listened to?
Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5. I love whistling along to it.

Cats or dogs?
Neither, I'm not an animal person.

As for something you don't know about me, I plan to take up running this year and my first run is hopefully going to take place this Saturday :-)

I think everybody on my blogroll deserves this award! However, Ashesela already gave this award to a lot of the bloggers she follows and since we follow the same bloggers, I'm sure most of you already have this award! If you don't, please consider yourself tagged :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Treats

Currently watching: Dancing On Ice

Hello lovely ladies!

Today I thought I'd show you some of the new nail polishes I've been treating myself too recently. First up is this glitter topper by Color Combos which was actually given to me by a friend:

This polish is full of specks of glitter as well as silver moons and stars. Perfect for a starry night-themed manicure :-)

I then decided to purchase a few polishes from eBay. These are by the brand Saffron London, which I hadn't heard of before, but at £6 for four polishes, I'm happy to give them a try.

Have you heard of either of these brands? I'm wearing one of my new polishes today and can't wait to show you it once I get some good light for photos!

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Stamping

Currently watching: Under the Tuscan Sun

Good afternoon girls!

Sorry I haven't blogged all week but here I am :-) The red polish I used in my previous manicure lasted relatively chip-free for well over a week so I was pleased with that but it's nice to have a change after having worn the same colour for so long.

Today I'd like to show you my stamping efforts from this morning:

I chose Honey Pink by All About Nails as my base.

I then decided to do an accent nail and stamped using Konad Special White and Red Angel plate RA101. You'll notice only one hand has an accent nail. This is because I forgot to do that other one.

For the rest of the stamping, I used Red Angel plate 114 for a full nail heart image. I like the image but unfortunately only the first nail stamped well, the rest smudged a bit.

What do you think of this manicure girls? I liked the idea but I'm not so keen on the reality so I think as soon as I've finished typing this I'm going to remove it!

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: Awake by Josh Groban

Hello girls!

Here it is, my first post of 2012, so let me wish you a very happy and prosperous new year!

A couple of you commented that you liked my previous manicure and thought my dad had good taste as he was the one who chose my base colour. While I did like the polish he chose, I didn't like the staining I was left with once I'd removed the polish. Blues are always troublesome for me to remove, especially as they sink in to any peels I may have in my nails. This was the case this time so I decided to file my nails right down and start another growth programme.

Here's my first manicure of the year using a red polish by the Polish brand Lovely.

I've had this polish for about four years and rarely use it but I think it looks good when my nails are this length.

As you can see, there are hundreds of flecks of glitter that sparkle in the light and prevent this polish from being dull.

And on the plus side, it's work-appropriate which is exactly what I need since I'll be back at work tomorrow. Is it too early for the January blues?

Bye for now,
Laura