NAILS Mag April Challenge Day 23 - Bow

Hello everyone! Despite having the worst night's sleep ever (thanks to a fox that decided to sing us the song of its people from our driveway at 2am), I'm here bright and early with today's post. When I saw the prompt for today was "Bow" I wasn't overly thrilled. I've painted some freehand bows before that didn't turn out great, but I had some success with them at Christmas and was hoping to get away with not painting any more until this coming Christmas. Fortunately I was out shopping and had a bit of a Eureka moment - this happens all too often when I'm shopping, but usually causes more damage to my credit card than this one did ;)

When I got home (with a new shirt, no shoes), I started these nails with two coats of OPI Don't Bossanova Me Around. I painted a freehand French tip in Dream Cheeky Cherry and then extended it down the sides of the nail. I added a fine outline in black (very carefully!) and then topped with Seche Vite. Before the top coat dried, I added the acrylic bows to my stilettos and they were done!

These are impractical in so many ways - yet many of the best shoes are! They also fit the Bow prompt and I didn't even have to paint any! I have to say that they couldn't possibly have stayed on for very long, but I did love them!

Tomorrow's prompt is nice and simple - Pink. There is also a "Something Tropical" prompt for the GOT Polish Challenge so I might try and tie them together. Maybe I should go shopping for more ideas! ;)

Sam xx

The Digit-al Dozen does Texture - Day 2

Hello everyone! Today is the second day of Texture week and I have something a lot simpler than yesterday's creation featuring one of my favourite colour combinations (so much so that this was the colour scheme for my wedding)!

I painted freehand sections of Claire's Accessories Black Leather polish and Pretty Hot Pink Leather polish. Pretty is a brand I have only ever found in Poundland - the effects polishes are a bit hit and miss and the smell is not something they should be proud of, but some of their polishes are gems and this is one of them. I separated the colours with LA Colors Metallic Silver to add a little bit of shine and that was that!

This is a very "me" design, in very "me" colours, but I'm not a huge fan of textured polishes so I have ventured at least a little bit out of my safe zone! Tomorrow is a little bit more "out there" though, and doesn't really involve a whole lot of polish ;) Check out all of today's other awesome DD manis below!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

A bright wavy abstract - the "almost ran" wedding nails :)

Hello everyone! As I mentioned there was no post yesterday because we were in Portsmouth at a wedding - it was a stunning day on board HMS Warrior and it was lovely to see two lovely people who deserve nothing but happiness getting hitched :)

As I also mentioned when I showed you my nails I painted for the wedding, there was a change of wardrobe at the last minute. I switched dresses as I thought a maxi dress was a bit impractical for climbing about on the ship (its definitely easier to pretend you're a pirate in a knee length dress!), but I had already painted some matching nails for that too, so I'm going to show you those today :)

I started with a plain white base to help the colours stand out and then added sections of colour (two tones to each section). The greens are Barry M Gelly Greenberry and Sinful Colors Exotic Green. Purples are LA Colors Illusion and Barry M Gelly Blackberry, and Corals/Oranges are Barry M Gelly Papaya and Ciate Speed Dial. I separated those sections with LA Colors Black Velvet and finished with Seche Vite.

I don't have a pic of the dress but its a black maxi with a bold tropical flower print working its way up from the hem trailing off at the waist. As you can see my nubs are back and I'm back on the Jessica Restoration system to try and get them strong and long again. I'm now at the point though where I can't see them starting to grow out again until my health improves so there's a little bit of grim acceptance there lol! Hopefully I'm nearing the end of this run of ridiculous health fails and I'll be back to loud typing and not being able to comfortably use the touch screen on my phone very soon!

Sam xx 

Don't Worry, Bee Happy! (A Born Pretty Store review)

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday, we laid a new floor in Scarlett's bedroom and it didn't leave a lot of time for nails (apart from repairing the one that got broken - luckily on the non famous hand lol).

I will be catching up on my late TPC mani later on but for now I have a happy "Yay! Its nearly summer" mani using products I received for review from Born Pretty Store. They sent me some fabulous bee themed water decals which I have used here as part of a buzzy skittlette.

I painted my thumb and pinky nails with LA Colors Black Velvet before adding some of the cute little silver bee water decals (they applied so easily!). I painted my index finger with Kleancolor Neon Yellow and added a wide stripe of Black Velvet before adding a silver honeycomb decal through the middle. For my middle and ring nails, I freehanded some blakc and yellow stripes to complete the look, before finishing them all with Seche Vite.

I love this busy bee look! The little silver decals didn't look that impressive on the sheet, but once I started playing with them and they contrasted so well against the black polish, I was totally won over!

You can find these and a ton of other lovely decals (I have some super cute ones to show you at a later date!) here and you can use the code UKX31 to get 10% off your order.

I'm off for an extended nail catch up and hopefully will have a Tri Polish mani for you later today :)

Sam xx

NAILS Magazine 31DC catch up post - Metallic and Stripes

Hello everyone! Today is another catch up post for the NAILS Magazine 31DC and I managed to cover two prompts in one mani! 

I have the complete collection of LA Colors Metallics so decided to put them to good use with some ombre stripes.

I painted each nail in a different colour starting with Metallic Silver on my pinkie, then Metallic Pink, Metallic Purple, Metallic Blue and finally Metallic Green on my thumb. Once dry, I taped off the stripes and went over the metalllic polishes with two coats of Black Velvet before carefully removing the tape and finishing with Seche Vite.

I love the effect of the metallics shining through the black, and I'm happy that my indecision made me use five different metallic colours too!

This is the mani that is going to see me through the weekend and I'm going to be sad to have to change it on Sunday, but onwards and upwards! So many challenges, so little time (and not enough nails!)!

Sam xx