Nail Crazies Unite - Fruits

This week's prompt was Fruits. I don't have many fruit images but as I was browsing through my plates I spotted Bundlemonster BM-702 - it has strawberries on and they are my favourite fruit.
I think it coincided rather nicely with a swatch of iZ Beauty of London Ready to Wear, a gorgeous dusky pink. I am not really a pink person, I use it in manis but there are very few pinks I would just wear - a dusky pink is the exception, I love a dusky pink!!!
This one applied beautifully and it was a shame to stamp on it so soon but I did think it was a lovely base for my strawberries. I stamped using A England Rose Bower, I love this slightly pinky red for stamping and I thought it was the perfect choice.
I was really pleased with how these turned out, even if I was brought up to believe you shouldn't wear pink and red together!

Bundle Monster BM-702 with A England Rose Bower

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Crazies Unite - Candy Cane

This week's prompt was Candy Cane.
I have some lovely plates with striped images that would be perfect for this and because I love stripes I was tempted to use them but I also have Messy Mansion Merry Christmas which has actual candy canes on, and they can really only be used in the Christmas period so I thought I'd better use them.
I am wearing a white gel base this week so I though I'd keep it simple, but I couldn't resist having red and green ones, and yes I know most candy canes are red and white.
I decided to be brave with some reverse stamping so I stamped with A England Saint George and Rose Bower and coloured the stripes with the same alternating colours.
They looked a bit bare either side of the main image so I added some Christmassy glitter with Magic Goose Reindeer Dance.

Messy Mansion Merry Christmas

 

An InLinkz Link-up

When Colours Collide - Red and Pastel Blue

Another quick catch up post - Barry M Coconut Infusion Laguna is a beautiful pastel blue, lovely finish and coverage.
I used A England Rose Bower with this for my Red and Pastel Blue #whencolourscollide mani.
I did 2 versions as I had decided the 2 middle fingers would be different and I didn't think they were different enough on version 1 - the 2nd version were my fave and made it into the collage.

Barry M Laguna

 

UberChic UberMini:Succulents with
A England Rose Bower and Barry M Laguna
Version 1

 

UberChic UberMini:Succulents with
A England Rose Bower and Barry M Laguna
Final version

 

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Love

This weeks prompt was Love so it's all pink, red, hearts and lacey stuff I'm afraid.
I used Messy Mansion Symetrika 03 and A England Rose Bower to stamp over a pink lacey mani I did earlier.
I was really pleased with how this turned out. I love Rose Bower for stamping and the new Messy Mansion plates are wonderful.
I didn't do an actual macro shot but I have blown up a pic so you can see how pretty this is!

Messy Mansion Symetrika 03 and A England Rose Bower

 

An InLinkz Link-up

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Aqua or Turquoise and Sponging (and then some stamping too)

This weeks colour prompt for 40 Great Nail Art Ideas was Aqua or Turquoise with a pattern prompt of sponging.
I started with a base of Nails Inc St James Square and when I showed my husband he said, ooh turquoise, so I got that bit right.
I chose to sponge with  Leighton Denny Jailbird, Kleancolor Metallic Aqua and HJ Manicure Blue Lagoon thinking they would go well with the base but unfortunately although I could see the differences the camera said, oh all blue then! You can see it if you look closely but perhaps I should have used less similar shades. The end result was pretty, if a little subtler than I intended.
Now, I often have 2 Friday challenges and I usually save one for Saturday. However, the prompts for #wnac2016 were a bit late being announced and as the first one was also sponging I decided I'd combine it with the 40GNAI. The theme for this months #wnac2016 is Love/Hate so I went with Love and added hearts with A England Rose Bower and Apipila Superplate B.

Nails Inc St James Square

 

Turquoise with sponging

 

Apipila Super Plate B and A England Rose Bower

 

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Vampy and Fave Song

Ooh I am catching up now, only a couple of days behind and one of these challenges was actually today!
The first challenge was Vampy for #30daysofcolourchallange, and although I know Vampy is normally dark red, I had a polish that I really wanted to use. This polish certainly should not have sat untried for so long, the very dark and beautiful A England Incense Burner. In the bottle it looks like a dark brownish shimmery polish, and perhaps not as wow as some other A England polishes but once on the nail it is gorgeous and out in the day light it really is WOW. It is a dark brown but with a gorgeous glowing shimmer to it and a deep plummy purple duochrome shift and I am pretty certain it counts as Vampy! It applied well, a bit streaky on the first coat but perfect on the second.
I think you can see a hint of the plummy tones on the photos but I have a new laptop and the colours are rubbish - it looked good on my phone so I think the pictures are pretty colour accurate.
I decided to add some red anyway, to be sure it was properly vampy and I wanted to use a new plate that I bought from Nail Artisan.  Alex has only recently started up but she is stocking a lovely range of stamping plates and polishes, so I think I am going to be a frequent customer. Anyway, last week she posted that she was now stocking Yours Cosmetics Sascha Gossen plates and of course I had to order them! They are really sweet little plates and for this mani I used  YS01, which is mostly a lace plate. I stamped the lacy image using A England Rose Bower. This stamped really nicely and the plate is perfect. Unfortunately no matter what I did I could not get the camera to see what I could see. Contrast with stamping is definitely something I need to practice more - with hindsight a more solid red rather than a holo would have been more sensible, but you'll have to take my word for it, it was pretty!
Finally, today's challenge for #clairestelle8sept was Fave Song. I don't really have a fave song but I certainly have a fave band, R.E.M. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011 has been in my car CD player since I bought it in 2011 and is rarely switched for anything else!
I have seen them play live twice and both times the lasting memory for me is when the crowd hold up their lighters in the darkness, such a powerful image and that is why I have flames on my nails today! I used Messy Mansion MM27 and SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops over the vampy nails and am pretty pleased with the way they turned out.

A England Incense Burner

 

A England Rose Bower and Sasca Gossen YS01

 

 

SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops
and Messy Mansion MM27

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Wiki'd Nails - Horror Icon

This is the last week of the Wiki'd Nails Challenge - I feel quite relieved because it has felt a real struggle to do these. However, looking at the album of Wiki'd pics on my facebook page I am actually quite impressed with what I have achieved, especially considering I almost gave up on this before I even started.
Sometimes we do need to be pushed a bit, but maybe not during financial year end!
Anyway, this week's Wiki'd Nails Challenge was Horror Icon so I have stamped the ghoulish looking face from Hehe 040 using A England Rose Bower over Nails Inc Lily.
They were a bit camera shy, so I added a coat of Barry M Matte top coat - much easier to photograph and wow! what a top coat, it is actually properly matte. I am really pleased with it!
I am quite happy with these ghoulish little chaps - when I got Hehe 040 I couldn't see me using this particular image although I love all the fake water marbling images, such a brilliant little plate!

Hehe 040 and A England Rose Bower

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Wiki'd Nails Challenge - Tattoo

The gang behind the A2Z challenges decided we needed something even more challenging and came up with Wiki'd Nails.
They spent some time hitting the random button on Wikipedia and came up with a set of 10 new challenges, the first of which is Tattoo.
Now I know the intention was for us to be seriously challenged and produce something staggeringly creative but I have been hankering after doing a henna tattoo style mani since I first got Moyou London Explorer 22, so when I saw the word tattoo, I decided that's what I was going to do.
As it turned out, I got the polishes ready and then my Uberchic Beauty plates arrived. UC 3-01 and UC 3-03 both have what I think of as henna tattoo style images so I had to use one of them. I went for UC 3-03.
I started with a base of Leighton Denny Healthy Glow, a lovely slightly pinky nude and then I stamped using Avon Deluxe Chocolate. This has a slight shimmer to it and may not have been the best polish to use but colour-wise I think it was perfect.
I was pretty pleased with these although my camera doesn't seem to think they are so good!
I did go on to use UC 3-01 and A England Rose Bower for a second layer of stamping and back to UC 3-03 and A England Saint George for a third layer - it all ended up being a bit Christmassy but pretty :)

UberChic Beauty UC3-03 and Avon deluxe Chocolate
over Leighton Denny Healthy Glow

 

A England Rose Bower and UberChic Beauty UC 3-01

A England Saint George and UberChic Beauty UC 3-03

An InLinkz Link-up

Galaxy nails - Picture Polish Bohemian, A England Rose Bower and Her Rose Adagio and a little bit of stamping

Today I have at long last tried galaxy nails! The simple truth is that although I have seen and loved lots of galaxy nails, I doubted my ability to paint any stars and had the nastiest feeling that I could do a really nice background and then make a real mess at the final step.
UberChic Beauty to the rescue! As I was carefully inspecting the images on my UberChic plates, I spotted an image on UC 2-03 which looked perfect! lots of little stars randomly scattered in the sky.
Picture Polish Bohemian is my main polish for this mani - I first saw some swatches a couple of weeks ago and I had 2 conflicting thoughts - pinky/red/bronze - absolutely not my colours - but for some reason I wanted it anyway! I think it was the idea of a multi-chrome type polish in a range of colours unlike any I had seen before.
I finally gave in to that inner voice that told me I needed this polish and when it arrived I swatched it thinking I'd hate it but I didn't. I also swatched it over black, as I would with any duo or multi-chrome, and decided maybe that's where I'd start as I was really in the mood for dark vampy nails.
I painted my nails with a base of China Glaze Liquid Leather, and then in order to avoid any streakines I sponged a light coat of Bohemian over the top. It looked so pretty that I just top-coated it and wore it like that for a day but as I looked at it it struck me that would make a lovely base for galaxy nails, and there was that UberChic plate just waiting to be stamped!
So, today, I used a small sponge and added some A England Rose Bower and Her Rose Adagio. Then I stamped the stars with my Essence Stampy 001.
If you look closely at the plate you'd see there are more stars than on my nails but I made a point of scraping quite thoroughly and as a result I didn't pick up as many of the tinier stars. I thought with all the colours and the holo, it may be a bit much. I also took a clean up brush and carefully brushed a few more out before topcoating.
I am completely in love with the finished look and I will certainly be trying these again!

Galaxy nails

 

 

 

Picture Polish Bohemian sponged over black

Valentines Day #VdayNailsCollab

This is a bit of a special post. I joined in a collaboration run by @dendivablog. It could be any nail art but had to include red, obviously, for Valentines Day.
I decided I would use my 2 favourite nail art techniques, stamping and saran wrap. I think saran wrap bases are great for stamping over.
I started with a base of A England Lancelot which is a black red, and then I did the saran wrap thing with Barry M White. My main intention was to lighten the black a little, so that red stamping would show up clearly but not look too gothic, not sure that worked entirely but I do love the black and white marbled base that I created, so much so that I wore it for half a day on its own (picture at the end)
I then stamped the heart shaped roses from MoYou London Pro XL 10 with A England Rose Bower.
I adore the finished look, it's so pretty and romantic .I think the shimmery red roses look great against the marbled background.
The finished collage looks great, can you spot mine? Looks like I might be the only one with a black base!

#VDayNailsCollab

 

 

 

Black and white saran wrap mani