November Challenges - A birthday collage

Lovely Mary @dreamymm invited me to join a group creating a birthday collage for another wonderful IG friend @sharnailstar. We all had to recreate one of Sharon's manis.
Looking through Sharon's IG page it was a difficult choice as Sharon does such lovely manis but this green one really stuck in my mind, and I bought Esmaltes da Kelly Frogger and Bruce after seeing this particular mani. I also used the same plates as Sharon Uber Chic UC 2-03 and 4-01 but despite having a millon greens I couldn't match the base, mine is a lot darker - Barry M Black Pistachio.
I am still loving the Barry M Black Gellies, just the cherry one to try now. Despite being too dark for the recreation I did, Pistachio is a lovely colour.

Barry M Black Pistachio

 

Uber Chic 2-03 and 4-01

 

Sharon's original mani

The birthday collage - pulled together by dreamyMM

October Challenges - Galaxy nails

Today's prompt was Galaxy for #wnac2015
Last week my lovely friend Anna posted up the most fantastic mani where she sponged a selection of magnetic polishes, top coated them all and used a magnet with a stunning result, My first thoughts were, what a great idea as a base for Galaxy nails so that's what I tried.
I think maybe I didn't add enough polish, or maybe my magnets were too precise, either way it didn't turn out quite the way I planned but pretty enough I think.
I started with a base of a blue/black holo Desk Clear polish from Above the Curve and sponged Avon Blue Attraction, Avon Spellbound Green, and Avon Fuchsia Force onto my nails. The red is particularly lovely as it has holo glitter in it. I top coated and tried with the magnet - some worked, a bit too well so the pattern was too defined and some not all, so some practice needed here I think.
Then I stamped with Hit the Bottle Snowed Under and Uber Chic UC 2-03.
Despite my limited success in copying Anna, I am still really pleased with these.

Galaxy nails

 

 

 

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

 

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