Friday's Fingers: Mayfair Christmas

Currently listening to: Streetcorner Symphony by Rob Thomas

Hello ladies,

Today's manicure was inspired by one I saw on Instagram by @pukupuku15.

I started with a base of Nails Inc Mayfair.

 Starting with my thumb nails, on each alternate nail I added a green and red glequin from Born Pretty Store.  That looked really good on its own so it may be a future manicure.

 The next step was to freehand Boots 17 Knockout Red on my index finger and Ciate for ASOS Lily on my ring finer.  I then added a strip of silver glitter with Essence More Than Glitter.

 The final step was to add two white pearls on the red and green sections.  If I did this manicure again I might skip this step but I was really happy with how this turned out, especially as it's so different to my usual style.

What do you think girls?  Who would you recommend following on Instagram?

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers: Floral NOTD

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

Hello lovely ladies,

I joined Instagram a while ago (you can follow me @LH24Laura) and one of the things I love doing is looking at pictures of nail art.  I was inspired to try a design created by @jesilva2012 which I loved as soon as I saw it however, it turned out to be slightly too ambitious for me.  Here are the results:

 I painted my accent nail with Ciate for Asos in Blake and used my dotting tool and Easy Paris shade 48 to create white flowers.

 For the other nails I used a sponge to add the strips of pink and white before adding a row of flowers with a dotting tool.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Monday's Manicure: Barbie Goes Dotty NOTD

Currently watching: Strictly Come Dancing

Good morning lovely ladies,

Today I have a manicure in a style that is new to me.  To start with, I used Asos Paint by Ciate in Blake as my base.

 

This isn't a polish I wear often but I love how girly it is.  I added a stripe of silver glitter using Essence More Than Silver to enhance the Barbie look ;-)

 

 I then added black dots to the tips using MUA Shade 2 and a dotting tool.

 And to finish it off, I added small white dots using Barry M Matt White and a dotting tool.

What do you think girls?  Like I said, it's a new look for me but I really liked it.

Bye for now,

Laura

Saturday's Star Stamping

Currently reading: The Hunger Games

Good morning girls!

I had a bad week nail-wise, hence the lack of posts, but towards the end of the week I finally did a manicure that I liked enough to show you! Here are the polishes I used:

Yes Love 477, Natural Collection Hibiscus, MUA 20, MUA 15, Asos Blake

I decide to do a pink skittle look although unfortunately the differences in the pink polishes weren't very distinct.

On the bright side, because it was a subtle manicure it was appropriate for work ;-)

The Yes Love polish (used on my thumb) is from the collection my uncle brought back from Spain. I really like this polish, especially as it's a jelly.

I then stamped stars on my nails yesterday (dress down day at work) using Barry M Silver Foil and Bundle Monster plate BM05. I need to use this plate more often!

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,
Laura

Sunday's Stamping

Currently watching: Kidulthood

Good morning girls! I hope you're all having a fantastic weekend. I am now back from my holiday in the Lake District and therefore back in the blogosphere. Last week's posts were all scheduled therefore I didn't reply to your comments when you left them but they have now all been read and replied to. Thanks, as always, for your feedback :-)

Today I'd like to show you a manicure I did using a silver Miss Sporty shade as my base with pink (Blake by Ciate for Asos) and purple (Kiko) butterflies stamped over it.

I love this manicure, I really do. And it stayed in great condition for six days!

The original plan was to have two purple nails on the outside, followed by two pink then use blue on my middle finger but I'm glad I decided to alternate between only pink and purple.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD

Currently listening to: The Script

Good morning!

I think we've all seen recently how bad my freehand nail art is so I went back to stamping :-)

I chosen Eyeko Vintage as my base and then used a blue shimmer (Powder Blue) from Collection 2000 to stamp a full nail image from BM203.

I knew it wouldn't show up well but I wanted something to lift the green as I feel this shade can sometimes look a bit plastic-like.

I then used Asos Lily to stamp floral images from Mash m20

It looked quite nice in reality but it's hard to photograph the detail well. I hope you can at least get an idea of how this manicure looks.

What are your thoughts on this manicure?

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently listening to: Dead Man Walking by The Script

Good morning girls! How are you? Did you have a good weekend? I saw Tree of Life, a film I'd been excited about seeing for months. What a disappointment that turned out to be. Have you seen it? I didn't understand it at all and really didn't enjoy it. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a film at the cinema.

Anyway, this week sees me back at college which means bright manicures :-) For today's manicure I used Barry M Pure Turquoise as the base, Asos by Ciate in Lauren for stamping and Barry M Nail Effects.

This wasn't how this manicure was supposed to turn out. Firstly, I used Pure Turquoise and stamped pink roses on alternate nails. That looked awful so I covered it up with Nail Effects and stamped the unspoiled nails with BM203.

I hadn't used that image before but I'll certainly be using it a lot from now on.

However, for some reason I wasn't happy with the overall look so my next step was...

Covering up the stamping with Barry M Nail Effects in pink

It's only the second time I've used the pink crackling polish but I love it, especially with the blue showing underneath.

But I still wasn't happy with this manicure as Pure Turquoise took on a green tone underneath the black cracks and stayed brighter under the pink polish. I like to match. So...

I wondered what would happen if I layered the pink crackle polish over the black stuff. Results:

It's not bad, probably my favourite outcome out of today's numerous variations, and yet I don't love it so expect to see something different tomorrow ;-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently watching: Entre Les Murs

Bonjour les filles :-)

How are you? Did you have a nice weekend? Have you recovered from the shock of last week's disappearing posts and comments?

I am in Paris on business for the next two weeks but I'm still planning on posting and visiting your blogs as best I can. I tried to take a lot of photos before I left so I have at least a few posts planned ;-)

First up is Monday's Manicure:

My base was E.L.F Pearl and then I used various colours and butterfly stamping images from my Konad, Bundle Monster and MASH plates.

The idea was to use pastels but they didn't all show up well so in the end I ended up trying to cover up my pale pastel attempts with bolder shades.

I really liked the results :-)

What do you think of this manicure?

A selection of the polishes used for stamping...

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

Good morning,

Just a quick post from me today. I don't particularly like this manicure or think it's anything special but I wanted to show you it because I finished painting my nails towards 9pm, I was in bed by 10pm and when I woke up, look, no smudges or duvet lines :-)

Glad I finally bought Seche Vite

My base colour is Accessorize Magical Mocha and my stamping colour is Asos Paint by Ciate in Blake

Have a nice day :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Monday's Manicure

Currently watching: Piers Morgan's Life Stories: Susan Boyle

Good morning ladies,

Did you have a nice weekend? What did you do? Yesterday was my day for Spring Cleaning but before I started, I couldn't resist changing my manicure and was inspired to try some different techniques. They didn't entirely work as planned but I'm pleased with the result:

Lots of bloggers have been posting pictures of beautiful blue shades recently so I thought I'd make a contribution and chose Barry M Pure Turquoise as my base.

My next step was to use a fan brush for the first time and sweep GOSH Holographic from the sides of my nails to the centre followed by the same process with Barry M Blue Moon. Fanning with GOSH Holographic was quite successful and I like being able to see subtle flashes of that polish but my Blue Moon application just ended up looking like solid grey patches so that was a bit of a mistake.

I then decided to double stamp, which I don't think I've done before. I started off by stamping a full floral nail image from BM10 in white.

To finish off I stamped two butterflies using M36 in ASOS Paint by Ciate in Lauren.

Do you like this manicure? I don't think the pictures capture it very well as it's hard to see the holographic flashes but the general representation is fair. I suppose it looks similar to sponging, yet another technique I've still to try.

Bye for now,
Laura

Stars NOTD

Currently watching: Strictly Come Dancing

Good afternoon!

I passed the two exams I sat on Monday so once again thank you for your messages wishing me good luck :-) Now I'm back in college for a week to prepare for my final two exams before Christmas and while I'm not particularly excited by the prospect of being back in the classroom, I am excited by the prospect of wearing casual clothes this week as that means no more neutral, work-appropriate nails :-)

For today's manicure, I asked my boyfriend to choose my colours. He selected a grey background and blue for stamping.

I thought any of these blues would work on top of grey but the Asos Paint by Ciate (shade: Lauren) was chosen for me and I think it turned out nicely:

It's not a combination I would have selected myself but as I'm happy with the results I'm pleased that I tried someone else's idea.

Do you like it?

Bye for now,
Laura