Thursday's Talons: A Purplicious Blackberry Secret

Currently watching: Monsieur Lazhar

Good morning girls,

Today I'd like to show you a manicure featuring a design you may be familiar with.  It's also my second purple manicure in a row so I hope you'll forgive me on both counts.

My base is Essence A Lovely Secret topped with Essence It's Purplicious.

 I then stamped a series of stars using Barry M Blackberry and Bundle Monster plate BM04.

It's definitely old news now but I still love stamping over glitter :-)

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers: Crystal Stars

Currently reading: The Third Time He Left Me by Sarah Harris

Hello dear readers,

Isn't it always the way that the manicures you are most excited about are the ones that do not photograph well?  This is the type of manicure I have today.

 

 The source of my trouble is No7 Crystal Lilac, a sheer yet buildable pink duochrome.  I don't wear it often but whenever it's on my nails I absolutely love it and the variety of tones hidden in that polish.

 In real life, Crystal Lilac was darker on my nails than it appears here but not as dark a shade of purple as the bottle shows.

After adding a coat of Barry M Diamond Glitter, I decided the perfect finishing touch would be silver stars.

 The stars were stamped using Barry M Silver Foil and Bundle Monster plate BM20.  I love this design and I can't wait to try it again in a whole host of colours.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers: Lilac Stars

Currently listening to: Happy in my Heartache by Josh Groban

Good morning dear readers,

I don't know if you're aware that purple is my favourite colour so although I've already shown you a purple manicure this week, I have another one to show you today.  Hope you don't mind.

 

 

I picked Eyeko Lilac Polish for this manicure, which I haven't used for a while.  I was given this polish as a gift almost three years ago when Eyeko polishes used to be £3.50.  I checked on their website and was surprised to see that the brand doesn't appear to sell nail polish anymore.

 To add some sparkle, I painted vertical stripes along each nail using the Essence silver striper.  I wish I had this in more colours.

 I then randomly stamped stars using Easy Paris shade 48 and Bundle Monster plate BM05.

What do you think girls?  Do you still have Eyeko polishes in your collection?

Bye for now,

Laura

Monday's Manicure: Starry NOTD

Currently listening to: Misty Mountains

Good morning lovely ladies,

Here's another new brand I'm trying this month, 2true:

 

 

 This brand is sold in Superdrug and retails for £1.99 although often there's an offer on which enables you to buy three products for £4.99.  I tried this brand in shade 48 (no name, annoying) which is a pale blue packed with silver shimmer.

 I added some Saffron shade 5, a blue, purple and silver glitter and then stamped some white stars using Easy Paris shade 48 and Cheeky plate ch26.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Tuesday's Talons: Party Princess Sees Stars NOTD

Currently listening to: Hunter by Dido

Hello ladies,

I have another glitter manicure to show you today, as if yesterday's wasn't enough ;-)

 

This one features two coats of Essence Party Princess, which I applied over a coat of Essence Sweet As Candy, a pale pink jelly.

Party Princess is also a jelly so next time I think I will wear it over a darker pink as I don't like being able to see my tips like you can here.

I then stamped stars on each nail using Dior Graphic Berry and Bundle Monster plate BM 05.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Saturday's Stars NOTD

Currently watching: Crazy Stupid Love 

Good morning girls!  Thank you for all your positive feedback on the design I featured in my previous post :-)  Today I have a design to show you featuring another one of my new Lm polishes, this time a darker and brighter shade, merely numbered 106:

 

These photos show two coats of LM 106 although, as we all know, purples are notoriously difficult to capture accurately on camera so what you're seeing here is not a true representation of the real shade.

 My next step was to use purple striping tape to section off the top of my nails and then I stamped a star on each nail using Bundle Monster BM05 and MUA shade 2.

Unfortunately I stamped my nails before they were fully dry so I ended up smudging the polish and had to rescue the manicure with a layer of Essence Night in Vegas.  I actually preferred the manicure without the flakie top coat; the striping tape was much more vibrant before.

What do you think girls?  Is the flakie top coat too much?

Bye for now,

Laura

Monday's Manicure (My Bundle Monster Entry)

Currently watching: The Voice

Good morning girls!  I don't think anyone likes Monday mornings but let's try to start the week off with a bang:

 

 

I started this manicure with two coats of a lilac polish by the Polish brand MV.

 

I then layered a coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire on top.  You can't really see the flashes of red that Fantasy Fire produced here but under artificial light they were really strong.

I then stamped using Miss Sporty 313 and Bundle Monster plate BM223.

To finish, I then stamped the star design using Barry M Gold Foil and Bundle Monster plate BM21.

I really liked this manicure and actually entered it into Bundle Monster's nail art contest to win a set of their new image plates.  Fingers crossed ;-)

What do you think of this manicure girls?  Have you entered Bundle Monster's competition?

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

Thursday's Talons

Currently listening to: A Team by Ed Sheeran

Good morning ladies,

How's your week been so far? Looking forward to the weekend rolling around? Today I'd like to show you a manicure I did last weekend featuring GOSH Holographic:

There was no sun to bring out the holographic-ness of this polish when I took these photos but even indoors you can see it's a pretty special polish :-)

Application is awful but let's not talk about that today as I'm sure I've covered it before ;-)

I then decided to add some fun nail jewels, which is why this had to be a weekend manicure. As much as I love nail jewels, they are not practical for everyday wear at all and it upsets me to look down at my nails and discover yet another jewel has become loose and vanished.

They're great for a short while though :-)

Are you a fan of nail jewels?

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

Tuesday's Talons

Currently watching: Glee

Good evening girls,

Here's a manicure I did recently using a mattified La Femme Beauty shade of pink as my base colour and a darker pink by Midie as my stamping colour.

I don't usually mix designs but this time I chose two different star images and while I don't love the outcome, I really like the two shades of pink together.

What do you think?

Bye for now,
Laura