The Bright Stripes

I share a love of black, white and red with The White Stripes but I didn't use those colours for this manicure!

I did this manicure yesterday morning on a day I took off work to spend time with my best friend Alice, it may have been sunny all week but we had indoor plans to go to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery which is conveniently located five minutes from my house!

For this manicure I freehanded stripes on a base of Nubar "Classic Camel" with Essie "Navigate Her" and "Armed and Ready" and Zoya "Ciara": 

In the sunshine!

At the gallery:

xoxo

Sparkling American Royalty

As Kennedys go, you have no crown,

 A "pale french beige" is your Zoya noun,

Hardly a nod to the Americans renowned,

But with this mani I announce you crowned.

With magic attraction sparkles I bestow,

atop a coat of Chloe to make you glow,

And with a little lilac foil I trimmed,

Now you're regal to the brim.

So here is today's manicure: Zoya "Kennedy" topped with Zoya "Chloe" flakie top coat and trimmed with Color Club "Foil Me Once" and OPI "Dutch Ya Just Love OPI" as a base for Color Club "Magic Attraction."

Kennedy is a gorgeous pink beige that looks lovely alone but I couldn't leave her that way so I topped with Chloe, which is a lovely way to wear her, but again I was longing for some sparkle so embellishment had to have it's day.

Check out the holo goodness of Magic Attraction:

xoxo

What's Up Doc?

....wrong rabbit!

I'm more of a bugs fan (one of my two favourite cartoon characters!) but for some reason Jessica Rabbit popped into my head last night / this morning and I had to do this manicure tonight.  

I was inspired by the valentine's manicures of others last month with their heart shaped half moon nails.  They do look rather like Jessica's dress so I set about creating Jessica on my nails using Essie "Brooch the Subject" and Essie "Size Matters."  I decided to have an accent nail of China Glaze "Ruby Slippers" as I've actually never worn it even though it was my first ever CG purchase and started this whole renewed polish craze to the power of 10!  At the last minute, I decided to put a bit of Brooch on top of Ruby Slippers to signify Jessica's thigh high slit in her dress.

My photos don't do Size Matters or Ruby Slippers any justice as they're much more red and bright in real life.  Red is ONE of my favourite colours but I rarely wear it on my nails, more likely to be in my clothes and shoes, and I am loving this manicure!

Update: a sunny day in the Burgh today so out came my camera!

xoxo

Fashion! Turn to the right, oooooh fashion!

 

Talk to me, dance with me David! (Yes, since I saw the films The Hunger and Labyrinth, I have harboured a passion for Bowie's unconventional looks and I'd certainly give him the time of day!)  

However, today's song may be Bowie's "fashion" but my nails are not Bowie inspired (yet! Ziggy Stardust nails would look good!), they are instead inspired by Alexander McQueen.  I don't read magazines but whilst babysitting there was one to hand so I took a look and saw some photos of his recent collection.  I was drawn to one particular colour combination at first but so many of the pictures were inspiring that I foresee a few McQueen inspired manicures to come.  Today's manicure is a black and white stamping one featuring Orly "Liquid Vinyl" and BM 214 in a design that may not be too unique but looks divine, classic and evokes the pictures of McQueen's collection that follow:

For one day I sported this quick manicure featuring A England " and Color Club "Platinum Record" on the tips but my discoloured nails showed through so it came off and I didn't make much effort with the photo taking as the discolouration showed up in almost every picture.  I love it though so it will make a repeat appearance I am sure:

xoxo

A Shade of Brown Upon Some Blue....

Subtle was not the intention here,

The intention was to be quite clear,

In a shade of brown upon some blue,

by Nubar was not my dream come true,

The brown was made by OPI,

Jacques isn't for stamping I do decry,

It certainly picked up well enough,

So that retort is my disappointed guff,

It does stamp very well, thank you Jacques,

So my words I do take back,

My stamping skills I do not rate,

For the print itself is not centred straight,

But the unintentional end result,

Is one in which I will now exult!

So in case you missed my subtle hints, the shade of brown is OPI "You Don't Know Jacques" and my lesser promotion of the blue will have left you in the dark so now is the time to declare it as Nubar "Mod Agua."  

I haven't worn Jacques before so I wasn't aware of it's thin formula.  Hence my surprise at the stamping being so subtle.  I did think about changing the stamping colour to my new China Glaze "Foie Gras" or "Midtown Magic" but I wasn't sure of the colours so I just stuck with Jacques and repeated the stamp on all my digits.  I had originally intended to do a brown and blue skittles look with some pinstripes and polka on other fingers but it wasn't meant to be!  

The Nubar is a lovely colour of aqua blue that I am glad I own.  The other option for my blue was "Electric Beat" but I shall save that for another day!

So this is Mod Agua with Jacues stamping using BM 206 and a french using Jacques:

This started out life without the french, don't my nails look long! I wish my nail beds were long so I didn't HAVE to grow my free edge long to have more of a canvas and to have nicer nails.

I had barely finished my manicure last night when my guests arrived; one of my new colleauges and her husband, to join my husband and I for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant called Chop Chop that I adore and my new friend had wanted to try for ages.  They have an amazing unlimited banquet (not usually my dining option of choice but not a self serve one so acceptable!) and the most delicious dumplings and were apparently in some Gordon Ramsay show about Britain's best local restaurants and declared his favourite as well as winning other awards.  Needless to say I have one of their dining cards where you get discounts and vouchers on birthdays and anniversaries.

My new friend and I think we were separated at birth due to our similarities despite our 14 year age gap.  Truth be told, we have as many dissimilarities as well: what person doesn't like coriander lol!!!! But the freaky coincidence is that we have the same engagement ring which led to seeking other similarities.  When she arrived I had promised her a manicure as well so the polishing began anew.  She is a polish lover already but I have introduced her to seche vite and the nail art/polish obsessive world which I am not sure her husband is thankful for!  For her manicure, I wanted to try some more stamping with my favourite stamp from Konad M71 and I added a french in my Essie "Size Matters":

This weekend also had some adventures in babysitting and a manicure is always required, especially when it is used by mothers to bribe and is requested by the three year old about a hundred and one times!  I normally do polka dots on her but I wanted to see if any stamps would look good on such tiny nails with so I used some of the smallest flowers on Konad M57 and 53 on top of my Essie "Size Matters" to create this:

xoxo

Handbags and (No) Gladrags...

Well, today's manicure is inspired by my new handbag that only my sweat bought me from Dorothy Perkins but Rod's wee ditty seemed apt for today's post.  Especially as I've decided that as poetry is my shtick in other walks of life and as I've used songs in previous posts, that my blog schtick should be music and/or poetry so a song about handbags was appropriate!  There is the stereophonice cover as well but they're Welsh and Rod is Scottish like me so he was the obvious choice even though I'm not exactly a fan!

The handbag:

Onto the manicure: two coats of Zoya "Purity", acrylic navy stripes freehanded and a half moon in OPI "Wooden Shoe Like to Know" and my accent nail rhombus is in Orly "Luxe."

Something odd happened during my manicure today and I'm not sure why.  I topped with Seche Vite and went to try to stamp and my "Luxe" stamp didn't show up well so I quickly removed it with a cotton bud of acetone and topped up with seche vite again. A minute later I tried to stamp in another gold polish and the polish came away from my nail like melted marshmallow!!

Any ideas what went wrong?? Other nails are fine. Thumb had a dent in it so I could see how deep the painting was and it looked a few mm.

I removed it all and started again with only one coat of purity this time and by time I had decided not to stamp at all so I just put on seche vite but when I touch tested it, my stripe moved! I have now repainted the stripe and seche vite has dried it hard but I'm left wondering why it happened.....

It's now feeling hard and smooth after another coat of seche vite but when I took the photos above in the fading sunlight, I didn't show my thumb prominently due to the dented look of it.

xoxo