Saturday's Stamping: Tea Rose Stamping

Currently listening to: Speed the Fire by Bo Bruce

Hello lovely ladies,

On Thursday I showed you a rather simple manicure featuring a glitter accent nail.  As much as I liked the manicure, I found myself adding to it...

Earlier that week I'd tried to paint my nails with Eyeko Tea Rose, only to find the polish was too old and thick to apply well.  Instead of throwing it out I decided to see if it could still be used for stamping.

 This felt like the perfect manicure to test it out on so I stamped a criss-cross image from Born Pretty Store plate QA57.

 I felt like I needed something else to tie all the colours together so I then stamped a silver bow on each nail using Barry M Silver Foil and Born Pretty Store plate m59.  I do love my bows but I always find image placement tricky!

What do you think girls?  Which designs do you find difficult to stamp well?

Bye for now,

Laura

Saturday's Stamping: Stripes and Bows

Currently watching: Star Trek 

Hello ladies,

As much as I loved my elegant nude nails, I just had to add some nail art after wearing them plain for a couple of days.

 

 My first step was to paint vertical stripes down the length of each nail using a Technic white striper.

I then stamped a bow on my accent nail using MUA Shade 2 and Born Pretty Store plate m59.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Mid-week Manicure: Spring Pastels

Currently listening to: Sincera by Josh Groban

Good morning ladies,

Today I'd like to show you a pastel manicure I did at the weekend when the sun came out and spring finally arrived in the UK.

 

I started by painting each nail a different pastel shade.  From left to right we have Essence Absolutely Blue, Nails Inc Spitalfields, Barry M Prickly Pear, Essence Free Hugs and Nail Pop It's Mint.

 I particularly loved how well the pink, purple and yellow shades went together.

 I then stamped two accent nails using Born Pretty Store image plate m59.

What do you think girls?  Are you a fan of pastels for spring?

Bye for now,

Laura

Sunday's Stamping

Currently watching: Kung Fu Panda

Good morning lovely ladies,

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post!  I need spring to arrive and save my nails from these awful conditions...

Today I have a manicure featuring two polishes to show you, Essence I'm Bluetiful and ELF Pearl:

 

I love the Essence shade, with its scattering of silver glitter particles, but the ELF polish is one I rarely wear as I find application a nightmare.  Aside from being the type of polish that shows up every brush stroke, it takes forever to dry and the brush is difficult to use.

 On my accent nail I stamped a bow using I'm Bluetiful and Born Pretty Store image plate m59.

 I was inspired by my new purse:

What do you think girls?  Have you tried ELF polishes and had more success with them than me?

Bye for now,

Laura

Thursday's Talons: Tiffany's Mint Bow NOTD

Currently watching: Africa

Good morning girls,

I decided that since I really have no need to add to my polish collection colour-wise, it might be a good idea to add to it brand-wise.  Bearing this in mind, when I saw that Look Beauty was offering a 50% reduction on its make-up range I couldn't resist picking up a couple of nail polishes.

 

 

 The first one I tried was It's Mint, a great shade for spring.  Application was easy, the quality is great and I'm really happy with this polish, especially as I paid only £2.50.

 For my nail art I used my dotting tool to add It's Mint polka dots over Easy Paris shade 48 and my accent nail was stamped with Born Pretty Store plate m59.

What do you think girls?  Are there any brands you'd like to try this year?

Bye for now,

Laura

Saturday's Stamping: Kawaii NOTD

Currently watching: The Graham Norton Show

Good afternoon lovely ladies,

Today I have some nail art in a new style (for me) to show you:

 

To start with I painted my nails with a clear base coat then, once dry, placed stickers over the bottom section of my nails, which is what I always use when creating a half moon manicure.  I painted my nails using Essence Free Hugs (pink) and Easy Paris shade 48 (white).

 I then added polka dots using my dotting tool.

For the finishing touch I stamped a purple bow at the base of each nail using Barry M Blackberry and Born Pretty Store plate m59.

What do you think girls?  Have you tried this style of nail art before? 

Bye for now,

Laura

Tuesday's Talons: Swirly Bow NOTD

Currently listening to: Dear Darlin' by Olly Murs 

Good morning lovely ladies,

This morning I'd like to show you a manicure inspired by Julie over at Tales of Knit and Nails

When I saw her version of this, I thought it was so pretty and elegant.  Despite it not being a design that I would have come up with myself, I thought I had similar enough colours and the right image plates to try it myself.

My accent nail was painted with MUA shade 2 and stamped using Barry M Silver Foil and Born Pretty Store plate m59.  My other nails were painted with Easy Paris shae 90 and stamped using MUA shade 2 and Bundle Monster plate BM 314.  I loved how this turned out and found it really rewarding to be able to copy a design I admired.  Thank you for inspiring me Julie :-)

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Thursday's Talons: Mystic Bows NOTD

Currently listening to: The Sun by Maroon 5

Hello ladies,

Today's post will be short and sweet as this manicure is so simple it needs few words.

 

My base coat is Mystic Mauve by Models Own, one of my favourite polishes.

 I then stamped a bow on each nail using Born Pretty Store plate m59 and Dior Graphic Berry.  This polish stamps so well, it's brilliant.

 Et voila, nothing more to add!

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers

Currently listening to: Sunday Morning by Maroon 5
Good morning lovely ladies!

Today I'd like to show you a manicure featuring these two polishes:

Nails Inc Victoria and Barry M Gold Foil

 

I used two coats of Victoria to start with.  I really like this colour but trying to place the second coat of polish exactly over the first coat is too difficult for me.  One coat of this polish produces a blood red colour while two coats produces a much darker, almost brown shade.  My lack of polishing skills means I end up with red patches of polish towards my cuticles where I haven't been able to apply a second coat.

 I then stamped using Gold Foil and Born Pretty Store image plate m79, one of my favourites as I'm sure you know.

To finish, I then stamped a bow on my accent nails using BPS image plate m59.

What do you think girls?  Do you ever have trouble making the colour on your nails even?

Bye for now,

Laura

Girlie NOTD

Currently reading: A Spy's Life by Henry Porter

Good morning girls!

Today I'd like to show you a manicure I recently did featuring two of my favourite stamps:

For the white pattern I used BPS M79 and for the bows I used BPS m59.

My base colour is Kiko 338, my white is Konad Special Polish in White and my pink is Konad Special Polish in Pink.  

 This is the second time I've done this manicure (although with different colours) and I just love how easy it is to create because I never have any difficulties using the full size image.  My only problem comes when I try to place the bow exactly in the centre ;-)

I also wish that the bows were a stronger colour but I'm still really happy with how this turned out.

 

What do you think girls?  What are your favourite stamping images?

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Talons

Currently listening to: She Makes Me Wanna by JLS

Hello ladies,

Remember I recently said that although I have a folder of manicures I've seen on your blogs which I love and would like to attempt to recreate, I very rarely actually try to do them? Well today I tried:

The inspiration for this manicure came from Cutesville and you can see her original manicure here. Thanks for inspiring me :-)

I chose a different accent finger and my dots are unintentionally bigger but overall I was pleased with how this turned out. I used Barry M Matte White and MUA Shade 2 for this manicure as well as my dotting tool and Born Pretty Store image plate m59.

What do you think? Do you try to recreate manicures that you love too?

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD ft Striping Tape

Currently listening to: Higher Window by Josh Groban

Hello girls!

Today I'd like to show you yet another bow manicure but this time with an added extra: striping tape.

I wore this manicure for two days and kept it simple for the first day: two coats of Pink Spice by Accessorize with my accent finger stamped using m59 and Barry M Gold Nail Effects:

Excuse the background in the photos; I had to take these in my car.

On the second day I decided to add gold striping tape along the tips of my nails:

I think the effect is quite striking and I'll definitely need to keep this design in mind for future Christmas-themed manicures!

Although the tape is sticky on the reverse, I found it best to place it on top of a topcoat as otherwise I found the sides of the tape came loose from my nail very quickly.

Have you used striping tape before? Do you like this manicure?

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