May Challenges - Spring Flowers

Still trying to decide whether to keep my blog going but in the meantime blogs posts will be a mix of short and long...
Spring Flowers for #clairestelle8may - I used Fab Ur Nails FUN14 and Barry M Black Pistachio over Barry M Cream Soda and then coloured the tulips with Barry M Purple Pop - Tulips are my most favourite spring flower and I love black tulips!
I was thinking of using more than one colour but since black tulips are my fave I decided just to stay with the purple. I love this new Barry M Lolly Gloss. I am glad I bought all 4 but I expect the purple will be used most! The depth of colour is great - nothing worse than a tint that is so pale it may as well not be there!
I was pleased with how these turned out and glad that I used green to stamp over the soft cream soda shade, rather than pure black and white.
Finally I added a matte top coat - unsure which I love most!

Fab Ur Nails FUN14

 

 

February Challenges - Colours that I Love and some Hearts

Yesterday's prompt for #clairestelle8feb was Colours that I Love. My favourite colour for nails has been blue for as long as I can remember closely followed by green and then purple.
So I went for a blue base and then stamped with green and purple.
I started with Leighton Denny In The Navy - I love this blue so much! A really stunning creme shade, just very slightly dusky and very wearable (says me who loves to wear blue!)
Then I stamped with Esmaltes da Kelly Helix and Pet'la Plate Spinning. The EDK holos stamp beautifully but to do Helix justice I should have chosen a more solid pattern. The camera couldn't pick up the fine pattern that well, but I loved it, and from a distance my nails looked tealy green and holo, no complaints there.
Then I added Hit the Bottle Purple Reign with another image from the same plate. Again, not the clearest pictures although to the naked eye they did look fab, honest!!
The prompt for #ggfnachallenge was hearts so I used Fab Ur Nails FUN14 and SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice Cubes over the blue green and purple.
Blurple Ice Cubes always stamps beautifully and is usually quite good to catch on camera, and then lucky for me, the sun came out!

Leighton Denny In the Navy

 

Esmaltes da Kelly Helix and Pet'la Plat Spinning

 

Hit the Bottle Purple Reign and Pet'la Plat Spinning 

Fab Ur Nails FUN14 and
SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice Cubes

 

December Challenges - A beautiful purple, Festive Sweaters and some poinsettias

A three stage mani for you today...
Firstly, a gorgeous purple holo - 'Ard As Nails Oakey. This polish applied beautifully with excellent coverage. The holo is very pretty and I love this bluey purple shade. I don't think my photos really do this justice so this polish will probably stay out to be used again soon.
The prompt for #clairestelle8dec was Festive Sweater so I used UberChic Christmas 01 with Hit the Bottle Absinthe Minded and Hit The Bottle Snowed Under. In my mind it would be easy to to stamp green and white neatly! The end result looks OK but the colour split is a bit more wobbly than I planned.
After a day I felt this Christmassy need to add poinsettias to my mani! I used Fab Ur Nails FUN 14 and Esmaltes Da Kelly Joana and then dotted Virtuous Polish Glory for the centre of the flowers - pretty colourful!!
The final pic is also starring the gorgeous gloves my lovely friend Beverley sent me.

'Ard As Nails Oakey

 

 

UberChic Christmas 01 with
 HTB Absinthe Minded and Snowed Under

Fab Ur Nails FUN14 and EDK Joana

June Challenges - A Glitter Crelly, Silhouettes, and some butterflies

I have a bit of a combined post today - 2 challenges and a final step just because I felt like it!
The challenge for #clairestelle8june was a glitter crelly. I don't have  a lot of these to choose from apart from my precious Cadillacquers and a few UK Indies but I did buy a Dollish last year that I hadn't tried so I thought I'd give that a go.
In the bottle and on swatches I'd seen, Murky Dismal looks very pretty, black and white square glitter in a minty base. On my nail, black and white square glitter in a virtually clear base...mmm not good - 2 coats, not much better so I used undies. Nails Inc Holland Park Gardens was the closest match so I did one coat of that and one coat of Murky Dismal. I am not quite sure where it got its name from because it's anything but murky or dismal, I think it's really pretty once I got it to look how it does in the bottle.
Anyway, I decided it would be a nice base for the #30daysofcolourchallenge, except that I forgot the full challenge - honestly I did! The challenge was Shimmer / Silhouettes - I am not too keen on shimmery polishes which may be why I completely forgot that when I did this mani (doh!) so I am afraid you've just got Silhouettes. I went for butterflies using A England Camelot and Fab Ur Nails FUN 14.
Finally, I was looking at the butterflies thinking it needed something more, and I decided to add large white butterflies, using UberChic Beauty UC 1-02 stamped with Essence Stampy 001.
I really like stamping with black and white and I am so pleased with how this turned out despite the fact that the stamping isn't perfect and nearly every butterfly has a bit missing. Typically the butterflies on the other hand do look better! I am loving the macro lens but it is not at all forgiving!!

Dollish Murky Dismal

A England Camelot and
Fab Ur Nails FUN14

UberChic Beauty UC 1-02 with Essence Stampy 001

 

An InLinkz Link-up

May Collaboration - Florals and foliage

I took part in a collaboration with some fellow nail addicts given the prompt "florals and foliage"
I decided to do mine over the pink and lace mani I did last week. In theory the pink and lace would make a lovely base for the floral and foliage stamping. However, as I had left that matte, and still wanted to keep the whole mani matte, it make things a whole lot harder. Normally I top coat between every layer of stamping which gives me the option of taking off unsuccessful attempts - this time I ended up having to fully redo a couple of nails but I got there in the end.
I started with the foliage, stamping A England Saint George with an ivy leaf pattern from Fab Ur Nails FUN15.
Then I added the flowers using Virtuous Polish Humility, a stunning deep violet shade and a lovely flower image from FUN14.
And yes I do seem to have combined green and purple again, but I tried red and it looked too Christmassy!
You can see the other manis on instagram #whencolourscollide.

A England Saint George and FUN15

Virtuous Polish Humility and FUN14 

 

the Florals and Foliage collaboration

Stamping! FUN14 and a voyage of discovery with leadlighting

I keep seeing leadlight manis and although I have used some leadlight plates, and tried some of the techniques I haven't really done a proper leadlight mani.
I thought I would try the tulip image on the Fab Ur Nails FUN14 plate. I was all set to paint my nails white, stamp in black and then colour the image, but for some reason I decided to switch plans and start with a black base. I figured if  stamped in white I could still use leadlighting techniques to colour the outlines.
I started with a base of Nails Inc Kate Spade New York Noir, and stamped the image using Essence Stampy 001. I think they look quite sweet but a bit abstract, and I was hoping that by adding some colour the image would look better, ie. green stalks, red flowers.
I decided to try the two Sally Hansen Triple Shines that I managed to find in Poundland, but they were just too sheer. They would probably have been fine if I had stamped black on white and had a larger image to colour.
I was about to give up and resort to Sharpies but I thought maybe I should try some other options. I tried mixing ordinary polish with top coat on a plastic mat but they were too sticky and dried too quickly and then I had the bright idea of adding the ordinary polishes to the Triple Shines. I added a drop of Nails Inc Kate Spade Big Apple Red to Sally Hansen Jell-ous, and a drop of Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street to Sally Hansen Sea-Through and mixed them on the plastic mat. Relative success at last but boy it takes an age to colour in using the dotting tool! and even longer on the other hand as my left hand is really shaky as soon as it is required to do anything detailed. I rather hoped the untidy colouring would look cool, like a water colour but not so sure now. I also think I may have added too much colour.
Anyway, here is the end result, not a major success, but another learning experience - I am determined to master this!
The pictures aren't great either as it was dark by the time I'd finished!

Fab Ur Nails FUN14

 

Fab Ur Nails FUN14 and some leadlighting