Smitten Polish Seasonal Lattes

Today's polish is a real stunner. Smitten released this beauty in early autumn as part of their Fall 2014 collection, I saw swatches, fell in love and as soon as I saw it in Rainbow Connection I snapped it up.
I wasn't quite sure what to wear today, so I selected a few possibles and asked my son to choose - he went straight for this one. As you can see, my nails are shorter - we have small people visiting this Christmas and I'd hate to scratch them, and I do like to cut them back every now and then anyway. I think the colour my son chose looks great on shorter nails.
Seasonal Lattes is the most beautiful medium brown holo and it is just holo perfection. I only have one other brown holo, Colors by Llarowe Burnt Sugar, but that is a completely different tone. I have other brownish holos but nothing like these 2 - plenty of room in my collection for both!!
This applied so easily, perfect coverage in 2 coats and the holo is just wow! I often end up taking hundreds of frustratingly unholo pictures but I think my indoor and outside sunshine pics have both captured the holo pretty well.
This is such a lovely tone of brown, as you can see it looks equally wonderful in the sunshine and in the much cooler LED light of my desk lamp. In extremely poor light they just look chocolatey, I can live with that!!

Smitten Polish Seasonal Lattes

 

 

 

 

 

 

A2Z Series - H is for Holographic

It is Thursday again and time for the next instalment of the A2Z series - H is for Holographic.
I had it all planned...I'd done a gradient before with 2 creme shades but I thought this was a great opportunity to try a holo gradient. I chose my 2 most holo polishes, Above the Curve Ultra Holo Blue and Ultra Holo Purple. I think it worked well, but it was a bit on the subtle side.
I had a plan of what I wanted to do with this mani next so thought I'd give that a try and if it worked, I'd go with that, otherwise it would just be the gradient.
I painted half of each nail diagonally with Above the Curve Crunchy Leaves from this year's Best Things About Fall Collection, took a few more pics in case stage 3 went wrong and then got stamping :)
As you may know knitting was my main hobby, although it now has to share with nail painting. I don't normally do intarsia, or fair isle as I really struggle with the tension but that doesn't stop me loving the patterns. I have a waistcoat made to a Kaffe Fassett pattern, with a saw-tooth design and it is that jacket that has inspired today's nails. Of course I had to stamp with my newest favourite plate Messy Mansion 40!! I stamped with A England Lancelot, as I felt black/red would go well with the Crunchy Leaves, and black would be too.. black!
Crunchy Leaves is a stunning wine coloured holo which I think went well with my gradient, and the wholo holo look gives a texture which I think is perfect to stamp a knitting pattern onto, so here we have holographic knitty nails  :)
I have included a couple of pics to show what I did along the way, but I am really pleased with the outcome.

A2Z Series - H is for holographic
Holographic knitty nails

the Ultra Holo gradient

gradient with diagonal split

Look HERE to see what everyone else got up to.

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Emily de Molly plate 03 and stained glass nails

Well, I have been stamping again, with another plate that I was really excited about when I first saw it. A couple of months back Rainbow Connection started stocking Emily de Molly plates, so off I went to do a bit of research. I saw plate 03 and knew it was one I had to have.
I trained as an architect and 2 of my favourite architects are Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Interestingly both those architects were working at similar times and both did a lot of interior design as well as buildings. When I saw this plate it immediately brought to mind their work with which I am quite familiar.
I have seen this plate being used for Mondrian style mani's too, but it was FLW and CRM I thought of first, so today's nails are inspired by the stained glass designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.
I chose a neutral base, Nails Inc Fulham Palace Road and stamped the image using A England Camelot. I top-coated them and then selected four Sharpie colours that seemed in keeping with the colors Wright used. This is the first time I have used my Sharpies for nail art and they are far easier to control than paint brushes. I just dotted carefully to fill in the areas I wanted to colour and managed to do both hands.
I did have a bit of a problem stamping such a strong geometric pattern as my nails are pretty curved, and they have got quite long so the image is just a bit short on the thumbs but overall I am really pleased with how these turned out.
A lovely friend said they reminded her of Tiffany lamps, I am cool with that!

Stained glass nails with EDM 03

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Mentality polishes and Messy Mansion plates

It was a bit like Christmas last week - first the postman delivered my long awaited Messy Mansion plates, and then half an hour later the courier delivered my Black Friday order from Sally Magpies, some Mentality stamping quality polishes. New plates and new polishes... well they had to be tested, didn't they.
I was wearing A England Crown of Thistles and Messy Mansion 16 does actually have a thistle on it but it also has an ornate swirly pattern that looks like it could be made up of thistles too, so I opted to try that image with the Mentality Blue Opaque. The polish and plate stamped beautifully although I did have to clean the plate between every use, (I know you are supposed to anyway!) but the polish I guess is a little thicker than I am used to so I had to be really good! The contrast wasn't the best, holo isn't always the best base to stamp over but the blue and purple went well together, and although you can't clearly see the stamping in the pictures, it was quite clear to the naked eye. I liked the look that the 2 colours gave together anyway, even without the definition.
It struck me though, that the blue purple combo would look good under another stamp. One of the other plates I bought was Messy Mansion 40. I bought this plate after seeing it used by vernimage on Instagram. Stood in the middle of the park, watching my son play football (but really checking my IG feed), I squealed when I saw it, I have to have that plate!! The plate has knitting images on it - it must have been made for me :)
So, using the Mentality White Opaque, I stamped the larger chunky knitting pattern over my previous mani, the blue and purple peeping though like a chunky marl.
I love this plate!! my mind is overflowing with knitting mani's I want to try!!!
The white stamped well, although it does look a bit silver to me now, and again, the plate needed cleaning between every stamp.
I'll just add a couple of pics of each mani but I am really pleased with my new plates and polishes.

Mentality Blue Opaque with Messy Mansion 16

 

Mentality White Opaque with Messy Mansion 40

A England Crown of Thistles

Today's polish is the extremely beautiful purple holo from A England's new Elizabeth and Mary Collection. This is Crown of Thistles and it is the exact colour of thistles, that beautifully natural pinky purple shade enhanced by the most gorgeous holographic shimmer. The holo is apparent in almost all levels of light and this polish is a delight to wear.
As a creme shade I think I'd find it too vibrant for me, but the holographic shimmer softens it to an extremely wearable shade, with a real richness and regal look to it.
As always with A England polishes this applied beautifully, coverage was excellent with 2 coats, but opaque enough to use for stamping - I checked :)
I think the photos have come out a bit bluer than real life, so frustrating and it has been dull all day here, so no sunshine pictures I am afraid. Hopefully you'll be able to see the depth and beauty of this polish though, even in the low levels of light.
This is definitely a very welcome and pretty addition to my collection. Having shied away from brighter shades I certainly have nothing else like it and I am so pleased to be tucking it away with all my other lovely A England polishes.

A England Crown of Thistles

 

 

 

 

A2Z Series - G is for Gold

It is Thursday again and time for the next instalment of the A2Z series - G is for Gold.
In a way this was an easy prompt: I don't like gold nails so I only have one gold polish. It is A England Holy Grail, which I will confess I only bought because it was on offer some time last year and I thought it might be useful for nail art. It is a very yellow gold, absolutely not in my comfort zone but as soon as I'd decided I would use it for this mani, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.
When I first started stamping, I went to Moyou London's site, and went through all the plates. This one plate leapt out at me, I think basically because I recognized it instantly as Gustav Klimt's The Kiss. I had no idea at the time what I would do with it but I liked the combination of patterns on the plate, and I remember thinking at the time I didn't have to use it with yellow! That said, I think Holy Grail is the perfect colour for Klimt's The Kiss.
I have quite a few gold glitters but I have chosen Hare Own Your Opulence as I thought it would soften the yellow of Holy Grail, and realised that it would be great to add that extra something rather than just black stamping on yellow. Own Your Opulence is a delicious mix of gold, pastel and black glitter, with fine gold micro glitter in a clear base, it is so pretty!
The plate is from Moyou London's Artist Collection 04 and I have chosen to use just one section of the plate, the overlapping squares.
I am really pleased with how these turned out, I love the combination of stamping and glitter. I can almost forgive the base for being gold, it's not the polish's fault my skin tone just looks wrong!

A2Z Series - G is for Gold

 

 

Look HERE to see what everyone else got up to.

An InLinkz Link-up

First Christmas Mani of 2014

Well, this was a mani that I sort of made up as I went along. I was planning to use the beautiful glitter thermal Magic Ocean Potion from Black Cat Lacquer but I think maybe it has lost its thermal properties. Luckily it is very pretty anyway, so as A England Galahad was still sat on my desk from last weeks leopard spots, I used that as a base for Magic Ocean Potion.  Galahad is a lovely colour, but not for my skin tone at this time of year, I'll wait for the spring to try it again.
Magic Ocean Potion is pretty sheer with copper shimmer and teal holographic glitter in a teal base, it is a lovely polish, and I think it worked well over Galahad.
The thermal properties still weren't working, so after a day I decided to go Christmassy and add some snowflakes. My 2 snowflake stamping images decided they weren't in the mood for stamping, and none of the pale colours I had were giving enough contrast so I used A England Saint George and Born Pretty Plate 09 which has an image close enough to be a snowflake.
The end result looks more Christmas jumper than snowflake but I think the combination of stamping and glitter do make for a subtle Christmassy look.

A England Galahad

 

Black Cat Lacquer Magic Ocean Potion
over A England Galahad

Christmas mani