Do these shades really exist?

Currently watching: The Apprentice USA Season 1

After seeing a lot of bloggers posting swatches of blue polish, I've now decided I'd like to try creme blue. Pastel yellow is in my mind too. Yesterday I went to my local cosmetics shops in the hope of finding nice blue and yellow shades there but I didn't have any luck. My dad is currently on holiday in Spain and since I usually stock up on cheap nail polish when I'm across there I decided to ask him to go the shops I frequent and look out for the colours I wanted. I sent him a text asking him to look for creme blue and pastel yellow nail polish for me and a few hours later, enough time to have a look around the shops I suppose, I received a text: Do these shades really exist? Ah. Guess I'll just have to wait until I'm back in the UK to look for the branded nail polish I've read reviews of.

In the meantime, I ended up buying a neon pink shade for 3 zloty (65p).

I was so happy when I bought this because in my mind it was the exact shade of neon pink (it doesn't really look neon in the photos but I promise you it is) that I've been wanting for years. I applied two coats today (application was horrible, especially now that I've cut my nails and I'm still getting used to painting short nails) and was fairly happy with it. Until it dried. Once dry, it looks exactly like the other neon pink I bought a couple of weeks ago even though in the bottles, the two shades look completely different:

Bah. So disappointing.

To cheer myself I added some Essence Glitter Topper (which I love)

Have you been disappointed by any of your recent nail polish purchases?

Bye for now,

Laura

Chocolates, Cards and Nail Tools

Currently listening to: Details by Frou Frou
Song: Let Go

This morning I was up bright and early in order to start teaching at 7.30am. Today was my last class with my student, which is a bit of a shame as I really enjoyed our lessons, but my time in Poland is coming to an end. My student surprised me with a goodbye/thank you box of chocolates which I wasn't expecting at all but was only to happy to accept :-)

They were very tasty. I love Milka.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a site called postcrossing.com which allows people all over the world to send and receive postcards. I sent five cards to Canada, China, Estonia, Germany and the USA and I know that the ones I sent to Estonia and Germany have been received. This triggered my name to be "selected" from the "postcard lottery" and yesterday I found this card waiting for me in my mailbox:

It's a hand-drawn black and white flower card with yellow thread woven around the sides sent by a Canadian girl living in England. So nice. There should be another card winging its away around the world to me and once my three remaining cards reach Canada, China and the USA, I will be sent three more cards.

Now onto nail tools. A while ago I used a dotting tool for the first time and created a manicure where I used lilac as the base colour with white polka dots on top. I was asked about the dotting tool and said I'd put some pictures up of mine so here they are:

Bye for now,
Laura

Sweet Sugar Giveaway

Hi girls,

Just wanted to alert you to the fact that Sweet Sugar is having a giveaway to celebrate reaching 100 followers. She is giving you the chance to win lots of lovely nail polish, nail art decorations and more so click here to start reading her great blog and enter before 30th June.

How To Konad and NOTD

Hello ladies!

I have to apologise in advance for this post being so picture-heavy. Although I've only had my Konad stamping set for a little while and am still a beginner, recently I've been asked some questions about Konading so I decided to do a sort of tutorial here. If you already know how to Konad, or just aren't interested, feel free to skip ahead to my NOTD :-)

For those of you who are still with me, here's what I used today: nail polish, nail polish remover, cotton wool pad, Konad stamper, Konad scraper and Konad image plate m3.

I used a lilac polish (Polish brand: milo) as a base and Konad special white polish and a darker purple (brand: lovely) for stamping.

Step 1: Paint your nails with a clear base coat. Wait for them to dry.
Step 2: Paint your nails with your base colour. Wait for them to dry. Repeat as necessary.
Step 3: Apply your stamping colour (for beginners I really would recommend starting out with a Konad special polish) to your chosen image

Step 4: Use the scraper to scrape away and remove the excess polish from your image so that the polish "sinks" into the engraved image

Step 5: Press the stamper onto the image

Step 6: Remove stamper from the image plate so that the image transfers onto the stamper. Don't worry if there is excess polish on the stamper; this can be removed with cotton wool and nail polish remover.

Step 7: (sorry no picture here as I needed both hands) press the stamper onto your nail and roll it so that the image transfers onto your nail. Allow time to dry.

Step 8: Using cotton wool and nail polish remover, remove the polish from the image plate and stamper (if there's any left there) and repeat previous steps until nails are decorated as desired.

The key is to work quickly so that the polish doesn't have time to dry into the engraved image on the image plate. If the polish dries, it won't transfer onto the stamper. This is why I recommend starting out with Konad special polish; these polishes are designed specifically for this purpose and are thicker meaning they take longer to dry.
Another important thing to remember is that you need to remove the polish from the image plate after every single use so that the polish has enough depth to sink into.
Oh and don't worry about making mistakes- imperfections can make designs more interesting and unique!

I think I've covered everything and I hope that was helpful. Here are the results of my Konading session today:

After stamping all my nails once with a white flower, I then added a purple flower

What do you think? My photos don't capture the flowers well but I have to say, I love this manicure. I think tomorrow, or this evening after work, I might add more flowers to each nail but for now I'm happy with just two :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Summer Clothes

Currently watching: Garden State

Hello,

On Saturday morning I hit the shops and came back with a few purchases. First up is this pair of sandals from, of all places, Carrefour supermarket. They have a toepost, which I like as that will help them stay on my feet, and they're not very high but still higher than my flat flipflops.

They felt a bit nautical to me and I thought they'd go really well with my blue/grey and white striped H&M skirt.

Next up are a pair of purple striped shorts from C&A. Next week we're planning on going on a road trip across Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia so I need lightweight clothes which will be appropriate for travelling (by bus, train and car) and for walking in the countryside (the aim of this trip is to see small traditional villages, lakes and mountains so we won't really be in cities). I'll be wearing my trainers for the majority of the trip and I don't really like wearing my bulky trainers with the skirts I have here so I thought shorts would be better.
I was really happy because I managed to find two vest tops in Cubus that were the right shades of purple to match my shorts.

I don't think the shorts photographed well but they're really nice in reality. I'm not sure I'd wear them in the city (either here in Poland or back in the UK) for a day of shopping or going to the cinema though. I only really wear shorts when I'm at home in the garden or abroad on a proper summer holiday. Are you comfortable wearing shorts in the city?

Bye for now,
Laura

Eyelashes and Nails

Currently watching: Priceless

Good evening,

I can now happily report that the Internet is back up and running in the flat! The three days offline felt sooooooo long. I'm glad to be back :-)

Now for the post I wanted to do on Friday. I recently mentioned that I had some new make-up purchases to discuss. First up is Editt Cosmetics' 3D Superblack Mascara. This cost 5 zloty (£1.10) so I wasn't expecting much from it although sometimes cheap products can be surprisingly effective. Basically I wanted a new mascara as I've had my current one for ages but I didn't want to spend a lot on a good brand (international brands are priced higher here in Poland than in the UK so if I'm going to buy branded goods, I would prefer to wait until I'm back home at the end of the month).

I love the design of this mascara because to me it looks sleek and elegant.

I tried to take pictures of my eyelashes without mascara but none of the photos came out well so I'm just going to show you what my eyelashes looked like once I'd applied this masacara.

What do you think? I would like fuller eyelashes but overall I was happy and received compliments when I wore this to go out on Friday and Saturday.

Now for the nails. I used silver nail polish for the base and Konaded over them using the stars from m3 in a blue shade. Initially I hated this because I messed up the placing of the stamp on quite a few nails. However, my nails were admired and eventually this manicure grew on me. I really like silver nail polish (usually I wear it with a glitter top coat) and I think the blue goes well with it. Next time I'll just have to be more careful when stamping.

Bye for now,
Laura

Absence

Hi,

Our Internet connection has been down since yesterday morning so I haven't been able to write even though I already had some posts planned. Grr. I'm currently at David's university in the "web bar" to get free wifi but unfortunatly the connection is really slow and since I'm not using my own computer I can't even show the pictures I uploaded onto my computer. Sigh.

Hope you're all having a good weekend and fingers crossed my Internet connection will up and running soo.

Bye for now,

Laura