October Challenges - Harvest and Thanksgiving

I have combined two prompts as there seemed to be such an overlap - when I looked for images of Canadian Thanksgiving I figured that if Thanksgiving was for a successful harvest then I could combine the two.
I started with a nice harvesty colour, Nails Inc Hamstead Gardens, which I think I love as long as I am wearing the right colours and my hands are warm!
Then I added some wheaty stamping with SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops & Born Pretty BP-L 003.
Then more wheat, or barley or some such harvestable crop with Born Pretty BP-19 and Esmaltes da Kelly Bee and Frogger, smooshed together on the stamping plate.
I am British so the concept of Thanksgiving is a bit of an unknown and until my husband put me right I didn't realise Canadian Thanksgiving was earlier than the American one! Now I know.
Anyway, it seemed a maple leaf was a must and maybe a pumpkin so I used Colour Alike Red Wine and Born Pretty BP-19 and Colour Alike Scary Pumpkin & Cici&sisi 10 to add some maple leaves and pumpkins to the harvest.

Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens

SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops &
Born Pretty BP-L 003

Born Pretty BP-19 and Esmaltes da Kelly Bee and Frogger

Colour Alike Red Wine and BP 19 and
Colour Alike Scary Pumpkin & Cici&sisi 10

 

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

October Challenges - Gold and Holo Splatter

I combined the first two challenges of October.
The first challenge was Gold for #30daysofcolourchallenge. I used Avon Frosted Peach and Born Pretty BP-19 to stamp leaves over an Autumnal base.
The second challenge (which I did first!) was Splatter using holo polishes for #wnac2015.
I used A England Fotheringhay Castle and SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops over Colors by Llarowe Mocha Grande. I did the splatters on my Uber mat so there was a lot less mess!
Once I had finished my splatters I stamped some leaves using Colors by Llarowe Love Actually and Born Pretty BP-19. The contrast wasn't great for photos but they looked pretty in real life and this was the Autumnal base I added the gold stamping to.

Avon Frosted Peach and Born Pretty BP-19

 

 

 

 

Colors by Llarowe Love Actually and BP-19

Splatter -  SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops
 and A England Fotheringhay Castle

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Blue and Flowers

I am way behind on my posts again, but here is another combined challenge - Blue for #30daysofcolorchallenge and Flowers for #clairestelle8sept
The blue I chose was A England Proserpine which I actually think this is quite tealy but it is a teal blue, I wanted to wear it and I didn't really have many untried blues.
This is a gorgeous colour - I always thought A England Saint George  was my favourite A England but this is a close competitor. Proserpine is bluer than Saint George but just as dark and gorgeous.
As with all A Englands application was a dream, with perfect coverage. I have used 2 coats but having already stamped with this a few times, I think you might get away with one. This polish does stamp beautifully!
This time however I stamped over it with SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops and Messy Mansion MM20. I love this stamping plate, and I think the combination of the gold stamping and the blue flowers is just stunning. I took a lot of photos!!!
It was my mum and dad's 50th wedding anniversary and I chose these 2 colours partly to match my outfit, so obviously I had to take a few matchy shots too!
Finally, the next day I wanted to test one of my new Vivid Lacquer plates, VL037, so a quick shot of some more flowers with Hit the Bottle Snowed Under.

A England Prosperpine

SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops
 and Messy Mansion MM20

Vivid Lacquer VL037 and Hit the Bottle Snowed Under

An InLinkz Link-up

May Challenges - Flakies and Gold/Dotticure

Here we go with the first May Challenge.
I have started with Flakies for #clairestelle8may. I used one coat of the gorgeous Girly Bits Take My Money Please over China Glaze Liquid Leather. This is a beautiful flakie with flakes going from gold through to green and even blue at extreme angles. The flakes are so vibrant, truly stunning.
Of course I had to try it matte although I am really not that impressed with my OPI matte top coat, it doesn't really seem quite matte enough but the flakies look fab anyway!!
The #30daysofcolourchallenge was Gold/Dotticure so I added gold roses using SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops, definitely my favourite gold polish! I used UberChic Beauty UC 1-02.
I really like the combination of the gold holo and the flakies although it was quite tricky to capture on camera.
I resisted the dotticure part for a day while I decided whether it would really work on this mani but in the end I decided it was worth a try. My hands ache too much if I try to do a proper dotticure but I am perfectly happy to stamp the dots so I used UberChic Beauty UC 1-03 and Hit the Bottle Copper Haired Girl. I wasn't sure about the end result but once I had topcoated I decided I liked it enough to take some pictures and now I really like it. It's probably a bit autumnal with the copper, gold and green but I don't mind :)

Girly Bits Take My Money Please

Girly Bits Take My Money Please - matte 

SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops 
and UberChic Beauty UC 1-02

Hit the Bottle Copper Haired Girl 
and UberChic Beauty UC 1-03

An InLinkz Link-up

A2Z Series - V is for Valuable

This weeks letter is V for Valuable and this one really did have me stumped, I could not think of what to do. In the end I went along the lines of antique things, and desperate for another chance to use my Messy Mansion MM43 plate I have stamped clockworky cogs and things over the brown Dark Metal Lacquer base that I'd used for today's colour challenge.
I stamped with SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops - this polish stamps so well even on an intricate pattern like those on MM43. In the sunshine these 2 holo's work so well together and I am really pleased with the way they look.
Less pleased with the photos, not as crisp as I'd like and I've noticed the watermark software shrinks the file size dramatically so I think I am losing clarity there.
Anyway, whingeing aside, these look pretty valuable to me.

A2Z Series - V is for Valuable
Messy Mansion MM43

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

April Challenges - Yellow and Black & White

Today I am have done the #30daysofcolourchallnge which was yellow, and Claire's April challenge which was Black & White.
For yellow, I did not have a lot to chose from and only one untried, SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops. It is not completely untried as I stamped with it when I did my Solar Eclipse nails and it stamped really nicely.
Unsurprisingly, since I knew it stamped, this gave really good coverage and I almost stopped at one coat, but I went for two just be sure. This is a very pretty colour, very holo and not very yellow! I am not 100% sure about it against my skin tone, but I think it will combine nicely with other polishes.
Although I've swatched this as yellow, and it has Lemon in its name, I think I'll record this as neutral (especially as I don't like yellow and I do like this!)
The #clairestelle8april challenge was black and white but I decided to use the Gilded Lemon Drops as the base for this.
I used Essence Stampy 001 and Vivid Lacquer VL 036 for the first layer of stamping and then Essence Stampy 002 and the same plate for the 2nd layer. The images are the same but one is the reverse of the other and a different scale.
I am really pleased with the final mani - maybe it needed a little bit more black and white and it's a lot paler than I would normally wear but it's pretty.

SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops
#30daysofcolourchallenge

 

Black and White #clairestelle8april
Essence 001 & 002 and Vivid Lacquer VL 036

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! The Solar Eclipse - 20th March 2015

Well we don't get these very often so a few friends and I decided it would be nice to do a mani in honour of the Solar Eclipse.
The last one was August 1999 - I remember standing outside the bus station in Harrow trying to see it, it was only partial but it was still quite exciting!
I know there will be clever people who do fantastic manis for this but I decided to go for something quite simple.
I painted my nails black with China Glaze Liquid Leather, a lovely glossy black I have only just started using as my 2 go-to blacks have both run out!
Then I used one of the polishes I won in a Rainbow Connection give-away, SV by Sparkly Vernis - Gilded Lemon Drops. This is a very pretty lemony gold holo and I discovered whilst swatching it that it stamps really nicely over dark colours.
I used UberChic Beauty UC2-03 and stamped stars on all my nails except for the ring finger. I stamped a wonderful sun like image from the same plate on my ring finger. Then, I used a hole punch to make a hole in some paper, painted some black polish on to a stamping plate and used the punched paper as a mask to pick up the black circle which I carefully stamped over the sun.
I am quite pleased with these, I don't really do accent nail manis but this is a special occasion and I thought a sun on each finger might be a bit weird!

Solar Eclipse - March 2015