Friday's Foreign Travels (Wales)

Good morning girls,

I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. Today I'd like to introduce a new feature, Friday's Foreign Travels, where I'll be posting photographs from my recent travels. Maybe I'll show your home city, somewhere you've visited, or somewhere you'd like to visit, or perhaps you'll be inspired to make an improptu getaway this weekend. Whatever the case, I hope you like this new feature and I look forward to reading your feedback :-)

This week, I'd like to start by showcasing Wales, a country which I visited during the Easter break. My trip started in Cardiff and ended in Llandudno with many stops along the way. Here are a selection of snaps from this wonderful country:

Have you been to Wales before? If so, which part of the country did you visit? If not, is it somewhere you'd like to go?

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Talons (NOTD)

Currently reading: God Bless America by Piers Morgan

Good morning ladies!

Today I have a new manicure to show you but I must warn you, after the success of this week's Monday's Manicure, the follow up was only ever going to be one thing: a disappointment. Especially considering it has to be a work-appropriate manicure.

The show must go on though so today I present to you a Spanish polish I bought a number of years ago. The shade has no name but the brand is called Midie.
As you can see, it's a pearlised one, meaning all brush strokes are visible, as are any imperfections in your nails.

We all know I have plenty of them so I decided to use my Rimmel Matte Finish Topcoat to try and hide them

I liked this but was a bit bored of it after a day so decided to do some stamping over it, which I messed up, thus I decided the only option was to cover it all up with my Barry M Pink Iridescent glitter topcoat

The colour isn't captured well in these photos, as usual. The pink is a lot brighter and more Barbie-esque than it appears. I love it.

Do you like this manicure? Do you have any suggestions for future manicures?

Bye for now,
Laura

Tuesday's Treats (Clothes and Shoes)

Currently reading: God Bless America by Piers Morgan

Hello girls,

I hope this post finds you well and, if you're a reader in the UK, getting back into the swing of work after all these bank holidays.

Today I'd like to show you a new outfit which I recently bought from H&M:

I've had no luck finding the denim shorts I so wanted as I'm not prepared to spend more on a pair of shorts than I do on jeans so I decided to try a pair of casual navy shorts instead. I know I said I didn't like turn-ups but actually I don't mind them on these shorts.

This is the first plain white tshirt I've bought for a while so I'm hoping to get a lot of wear out of it. I think the bows around the neckline stop it from being too plain. The tshirt cost £6.99 and the shorts were £7.99 so it wasn't an expensive outfit and it goes perfectly with my new shoes from Clarks:

Normal slip on shoes don't work for me but I wanted a casual pair suitable for walking around in all day. These definitely fit the bill and also look great with a denim skirt.

Have you bought any new clothes or shoes lately? Which shops do you head to when you want to make an addition to your wardrobe?

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

NOTD (Nails Inc and Barry M)

Currently watching: EastEnders

Hi girls,

How are you today? Did you watch the Royal Wedding yesterday? I didn't plan to but I ended up watching it and I'm really glad I did. History in the making!

Today I'd like to show you my current manicure, which did not turn out the way I had planned. I wanted something bright and spring-like so chose Nails Inc Spitalfields as my base and used a purple for my stamping colour. My nails are too long for my BM full nail images though so my stamping efforts were a farce and in desperation I ended up covering up my efforts with Barry M Nail Effects:

I'm not sure how I feel about yellow nails but I can't help but draw comparisons with certain reptilian creatures whenever I look down at my nails...

Do you like this manicure? What do you think of yellow polish in general?

Bye for now,
Laura

Kreativ Blogger Award

Currently listening to: Damaged by Plummet

Hello girls,

The lovely Sophie recently gave me the Kreativ Blogger Award, thank you :-)

The rules are:
Write 10 facts about yourself
Pass the award to 10 bloggers and tell them about the award

1. I love reading trashy celebrity gossip magazines even though I know they're wrong and I don't know who half the *celebrities* are since I don't watch reality television
2. I had one Easter egg this year, a KitKat Chunky one which I found in my office's Easter egg hunt
3. The last film I saw at the cinema was Little White Lies
4. The last DVD I watched was My Sister's Keeper
5. I'm currently reading A Beautiful Mind, the story of Nobel Prize winner John Nash
6. I have never tasted coffee. The smell is enough to give me a headache
7. My current tv staples are EastEnders and Glee
8. My favourite trees are cherry blossoms and palm trees
9. I have a collection of over 100 nail polishes
10. My favourite flavour of ice cream is melon

I think everyone who has a blog deserves this award but since the rules state that I can only nominate 10 bloggers to receive this award, the girls I would like to pass this award to are:
Olivia
Marie
Tassa
Sara
Julie
Stacie
Amy
Nicola
Clever Rabbit
Thea

Enjoy the award girls :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Thursday's Tootsies

Currently listening to: Exit Wounds by The Script

Greetings girls!

How are you all today? Excited about tomorrow's Royal Wedding? I don't think I'll be tuning in to watch it but I'll be interested to see pictures of the couple and their celebrity guests and of course I'm certainly not complaining about having the day off work :-)

For today's post, I'd like to show you a pair of shoes I recently acquired . They aren't my usual style at all but I desperately needed shoes to wear to a ball and these were were the most suitable shoes I was able to find:

I bought them from New Look and found them appealing because they're high, but not too high, and open-toed

I also thought the zip at the heel was neat

Do you like these shoes? Are you a fan of *fashionable footwear* or do you prefer your shoes to be practical?

Bye for now,
Laura