Laced Up Love

Even though I don't like the gimmick that is also known as Valentine's Day; if you love me, tell me and show me every day not just one when someone has told you to! and luckily my husband does just that :), feel free to vomit in your handbags!, I have been taken with a heart nail design that copy that copycat did last week (hearts and roses.)

I also used acrylic paints for the first time and I blame it on the evening lighting but I thought this was black when it is actually navy.  So "Laced Up Love" is China Glaze "Laced Up", another untried, with navy polka dot love hearts outlined in white.

Here it is with and without flash:

Much love,

xxx


Time for an update on Monday as I wanted to embellish the hearts with a lace trim last night but the OH thought the clean lines looked better so I left it.  Took my Orly striper and seche vite with me to work while I considered defacing/embellishing though! I tried a looped edge for a lace effect but it wasn't delicate enough so thanks to Orly's water based striper, I washed it off and made them patchwork hearts instead:

xxx

Eenie, Meenie, Minie Mo....

....too many colours for my fingers and toes!

With twenty-eight bottles bought this year,

(some might call this an addiction dear),

What can a girl do to help her decide?

Which she loves and which she can't abide?

I guess that's why it's come to this,

Swatching them all with a twist,

Well not all, I didn't use my toes,

But here's what I did, anything goes!

So....... although I do know what I am going to paint my nails tomorrow, I have bought the aforementioned twenty-eight bottles of polish so far this year (I know!) and with many untried bottles from last year as well, I decided I might as well be lazy and paint over my current manicure (black lace) with some of them to try out the colours. 

Not exactly conventional for a blogger as most would swatch and show the colours to their full potential to fellow polish lovers.  But I'm not normal (wohoo!) and I don't class myself as a normal nail polish blogger either.  I never intended to swatch polishes for the perusal of others as plenty of others do it so much better (scrangie, vampy varnish, the polishaholic to name but a few) so my mission statement was to paint my nails every week, try out nail art ideas created by others or myself and show them here in case anyone was interested in taking a look.

So here is what I have been up to today:

Ignoring the shoddy painting, I tried out 16 polishes which are from left to right:

• Revlon "Royal" with Barry M "Gold Sparkle" crackle
• OPI "You Don't Know Jacques!" with China Glaze "Midtown Magic"
• Essie "Size Matters" with Nubar "Star Sparkles"
• Essie "Navigate Her" with Essie "Bobbing for Baubles"
• Nubar "Mod Aqua" with Essie "Go Overboard"
• Milani "Purple Gleam"
• Nubar "Hyacinth Sparkles"
• Nubar "Elegant Indigo"
• Nubar "Night Sparkles"
• Essie "Armed and Ready" with Color Club "Gingerbread"

That's all folks! Tomorrow I am going to be testing out a manicure on my cousin for her wedding (codename Peacock) and painting my own nails.

xxx

Black Lace

Polishing late at night for no reason other than it's a weekend and because I can :)  We're watching "The Wrestler" while I finish catching my blog up to the present day.


Today I have tried out a polish from the new Zoya Feel collection, "Avery".  I bought the whole Feel collection after seeing them on a few notable bloggers swatch posts (thanks Scrangie, Vampy Varnish and The Polishaholic) and liking most of the colours.  However I think Avery is a tad too yellow for my liking and I should have used my Nubar "Classic Camel" as a nude base instead.  Next time!


I saw this design on a blog but it turned out to be a nail sticker which I thought I could recreate freehand.  I've not recreated it faithfully but the general idea was a circular diagonal french with dotty trim that looked like it was lace.  I hope you like it!

xxx


Update: daylight viewing:

xxx

My V Gap Manicure

I got four A England polishes delivered two weeks ago and wore one of them last week in a v gap manicure which I think was a design originally created by a nail artist called Sophie Robson.  It's difficult to say who originated a design sometimes but it's nice to give credit when you can.


The dark green goodness of "Saint George" couldn't be resisted for long so my v gap manicure was made with "Princess Sabra" and "Saint George":

The sparkly holo effect wasn't always visible but when it did come out to play it was a beautiful sight to behold:

Even after four days, the polish lasted very well:

xxx

My Manicures: January 2012

New year, new job and new blog!  Almost up to date with the present!


On new year's day my mother-in-law came over to watch some NFL with my husband (at least being an NFL widow is only on Sundays as my husband isn't a huge fan of real football) and I painted her nails as I am often prone to doing to test out ideas, this time it was a Missoni inspired design in Zoya "Neeka".....

I started my new job with my new year black and gold dotty manicure and my handiwork had not passed without comment (the attention seeker in me was happy at that haha) but two days in and it was time for a change so I took out my Zoya "Kelly" and created a check manicure with some black, white and silver stripers:

Feeding my new addiction, I have bought many polishes (more on my collection some other time) and needless to say that without changing my manicure every day, I have not worn most of them (yet!) so I decided I should stop using that old black Color Club in all my nail art and dig out an untried.  It was the turn of Zoya "Jem" which I was less likely to wear as it isn't my favourite creme finish.  I spiced up my Jem with some dots in Orly "Luxe", a foil finish gold, here it is with and without flash:

Without flash is a truer colour.


Nautical nails are more often seen in the summer but I'm not one for being normal (how boring would that be?!?!) so I took out my China Glaze "First Mate" which is the perfect nautical navy and teamed it with some Zoya "Sooki" for a french manicure with a twist or two; double stripe french, striped accent and Louboutin style "sole" painting:

Next up on my design hit list were some chevrons.  I tried some out using tape a la nailside style and tip but some I did freehand.  These were in Orly "Luxe" and OPI "Russian Navy Matte" over which I put seche vite as the OPI was a bit lumpy and then I mattified the whole manicure with Essie "Matte About You":

I liked the matte look but in the end after a few days I splashed on some seche and tried out my Butter London "Tart With a Heart":

To close out January, it was time for some more little girl manicures at my best friend's when I wallpapered her daughter's new bedroom, her bedroom is lilac and pink but her nails where done in Orly "Sweet Peacock" and Zoya "Avery":

She's always the perfect customer, must have been the fact I started her young!

That's me wrapped up with my round ups! Henceforth I shall post when I paint mine or someone else's nails so much less often.


xxx

My Manicures: December 2011

I had fun this past December with some lovely manicures.  I'd seen lots of festive ideas around to recreate on my own fingers as well as some fairly ordinary designs.


The China Glaze Eye Candy collection was packed full of amazing glitters in Marilyn Monroe inspired names of which I appropriated two for myself: "Some Like it Haute" and "Material Girl".  I used "Some Like it Haute" in this one, my trusty Color Club "Where's the Soiree?" and my new french manicure colour "Innocence" by China Glaze.  I won't be using Innocence again (on me anyway) as it looked too pink against my skin tone in the daylight although it looked okay when I first put it on in artificial light.

  
A week later I was feeling a tad more festive so I decided to try something kitsch with OPI "I'm Not Really a Waitress" and..... Santa Claus!

I was rather enjoying having Santa on my nails (despite the kitsch factor) so I embellished it with a snowflake rather than doing my next plan of snowflakes on all my nails:

It was also time for some babysitting for my best friend, at my place this time so that they could pack to move house, so after some good behaviour a little girl was rewarded with some Xmas nails of her own in Zoya "Holly" and the same OPI I was wearing:

I absolutely adore this song by Sam Sparro (whatever happened to him??) and no wonder, black and gold go together like ramalamalama kadinga kading shoo bop!  Now get that song out of your head and listen to this:

I used "Where's the Soiree?" and China Glaze "Hi Tek" for my black and gold combo. Unfortunately, I fear I have ruined the aforementioned "Hi Tek" due to keeping the bottle half open while dipping a brush in rather than taking a blob out :(  It was a rare find so I'll be sorry if it doesn't recover.

Black and gold had a short shelf life however as I had a friend over for dinner and polish and when I painted a glitter trimmed OPI "Wokka Wokka", I was extremely envious and had to recreate the same in black on myself!  For the glitters I used three: China Glaze's "Nova" and "Millennium" and Funky Fingers "Sand and Stilletos" to create a multidimensional shimmer:

  
A few days later and I had brought out my new Orly artist white water based striper to draw a snowflake (hence the slight tip wear):

Amidst my glitter craze, it was time for a night in Fundee with my cousin for her birthday which always falls on the weekend of a work Xmas night out (incidentally also an early leaving night for yours truly this year) so of course my cousin and her friend got the glitter treatment although I didn't take a photo of my cousin's manicure:

I'm so glad I learned the easy way (I use that word loosely though) to get glitter off my nails.  The first time I wore glitter, I swear that my thumb was about to fall off it was so worn out! But the foil method of allowing remover to soak onto your nail while the foil wrapped on each finger prevents the remover from evaporating works a treat.


For Xmas week, what else was there to wear on my fingers but.....Xmas presents!! I used China Glaze "Emerald Sparkle", Zoya "Demi", CC "Where's the Soiree?" with Northern Lights holographic top coat, CG "Ruby Pumps" and CG "Little Drummer Boy."

I ended the year with my favourite dots for new year and my new job in Color Club "Where's the Soiree?", CG "HI Tek" and OPI "Designer de Better" which of course is that much loved black and gold:

And that was my 2011 folks! 


xxx

My Manicures: November 2011

Good evening this fine Friday on a chilly evening in the burgh.  I have been out with a colleague from my old work and painted her nails before we went out.  It was only a short sojourn so here I am ready to continue with posting my manicures from November last year.  Almost up to date and then I can post what I have been wearing this week and change my manicure tomorrow and post that next week.  I'm enjoying this blogging business! Even if only two people are following me!

In November, it is another good month of the year for me as it is my wedding anniversary and my best friend's birthday and this year she turned 30 so she had a big party and I made her a cake.  Only my second attempt at fondant icing but it turned out really well with a lot of help from my husband and involved us being on our feet for 5 hours cutting out circles and brushing on edible glitter icing!

My first attempt was actually in July when some of us girls made a cake for a colleague in the shape of an Irn Bru can (a Scottish soft drink for those not in the know) and a drink she is addicted to!  A friend on our team had seen a professional cake but it cost over £100 so I suggested we attempt to make it ourselves.  Here is what the can should look like and our version of it, she takes part in  the moonwalk for breast cancer so the figurine I found in the cake decorating shop was extremely apt and she loved the cake:

Irn Bru also made this hilarious advert which amused many of us one year and even spawned a "raoul" ringtone:

Anyway, that's enough about cakes and back to manicures!


This is my first November manicure in OPI "La Pasitively Hot Matte" with lightning bolts (a la nailside) in OPI wokka wokka which barely lasted a day before I covered the whole mani in wokka wokka, only for that to last a day before I drew on a corset accent nail (I guess it was a fickle week!):

I moved onto my new Zoyas next for a "Faye" and "Demi" french and striped look:

It is well known that I have a passion for polka dots and although I don't like kitsch manicures much for myself to wear, I decided that ladybirds (yes, that is what we in Britain call them) were calling my name because they are in my favourite colours and fulfil my dotty dreams:

I used Zoya "Sooki" and Color Club "Where's the Soiree?" for this with Sally Hansen "Sterling" for the eyes.  I loved this so much I kept it on for two weeks!


My next manicure was for the night of the thirtieth birthday party and I decided to try pinstripes to go with my blue dress.  I used a new blue glitter striper which I am never using again after it would not dry and left glitter particles in my seche vite! Grrr!  I was not amused!  The mani also became ragged on the edges after a shower so I only wore this for the night:

My next manicure took longer to perfect but I was much happier with and I wore it a while.  It is China Glaze "Grape Pop" with various shades of purple and mauve used to create a diamond pattern on my ring finger and outlined with a white striper:

I also did a quick and sort of messy manicure on my half sister when she came over for a night of pizza and chat.  I used Color Club "Worth the Risque" and China Glaze "Nova":

And thus November was concluded!  See you next time for my December manicures which will be very festive, without fail!


xxx