The Digit-al Dozen does Texture Day 5 - Textured Stamped Floral

Hello everyone! Woohoo! I made it! I have completed my first week with The Digit-al Dozen. I have loved every minute of it but it has been a pressured kinda week and its a massive relief to have the first one out of the way! Everyone in the group is lovely and they have been super supportive, but there is a huge amount of talent between all the ladies and its been pretty intimidating to have to jump in to it!

Today I have gone with my new found fave, stamping! It looks a little more Christmassy than I intended as I used all textured polishes to complete the look and the choices from my stash were limited! I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Sugar Fix and then stamped an image from MoYou Pro XL 06 with Konad Black. Once dry, I filled in the flowers with Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Cherry Drop and Claire's Red Leather polish (with a little help from the super sheer LA Colors Moody Red), and the leaves with more Sugar Coat, but this time Sour Apple (and a touch of Sinful Colors Exotic Green). I finished with a little of L-A Glitter Nails fab copper glitter at the centre of the flowers.

I loved how these turned out! The colours show brighter in real life so it looks more tropical (the irony of posting Xmassy looking nails at Easter is not lost on me!). I wasn't sure how the textured polishes would work together for the "colouring in" but they were great. Rexture over texture can be quite unforgiving so I had to be super careful with placement, but its definitely something I'll try again.

So there you have my first week with The Digit-al Dozen. Its been so much fun and I can't wait for next month. Next week is going to be a busy one, with lots of music/tv/film inspired manis for the NCC and a mammoth catch up with the NAILS Mag challenge on the cards. I also have lots of swatches and reviews to post (can you tell that Scarlett is heading back to school??? Normal service will be resumed)! :D

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

The NCC presents "Untrieds" - A Strawberry Skittlette

Hello everyone! I've been meaning to paint this for the longest time, but I didn't have the right red glitter. Well, now I do! My glitter polish queen (Lyka-Ann from L-A Glitter Nails) had a sale that I took FULL advantage of, and when this little beauty arrived, I knew it was exactly what I needed.

I started with a white base topped with Ciate Angel Wings for a bit of shimmer. I then painted my ring finger with Color Club Sultry Diva and added dots of L-A Glitter Nails Strawberry to my middle and index finger. FOr the thumbs, I painted the strawberry shape in with the Strawberry glitter, added the leaves with Sinful Colors Exotic Green and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Emerald City, and used Sultry Dive to add the pips. I finished with Seche Vite.

I am so happy that I finally got the chance to paint this idea, and as it heavily features an untried polish it works for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's March theme, the timing couldn't have worked out better :)

I will have two more NCC manis for you this month and have managed to acquire some new untrieds (amazing what you can justify to yourself when "Untrieds" is your theme for the month lol!). In the meantime, check out everyone else's fab nails by following the links below :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

The NCC presents "Untrieds" - Sugar Coated Daisies

Hello everyone! Today sees my first post for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's theme for March. I'll be honest and say that I wasn't at all thrilled when I found that "Untrieds" had been chosen. I don't have a stash of a gazillion polishes that I haven't even had the chance to swatch. I have been on either a "no-buy" or a "only-buy-if-you-need-to-replace" for what feels like forever (apart from my one indie purchase a month and Poundland - which doesn't count!) and I'm not yet one of those bloggers fortunate enough to get many press samples of polish (happy for that to change though!), although I've been very lucky with nail art supplies so far :)

Poundland brings you this first post - I managed to pick up 6 Sally Hansen Sugar Coat colours and am splitting them over two posts. This one features Sugar Fix (white), Sweetie (yellow) and Lick-o-Rich (black) and some simple dotted, textured daisies!

I actually loved working with these polishes and despite the textured effect, it was easy to dot with them. Forgive me for not editing out the "boo boo". I've taken to popping the watermark over it now its healed but these photos were done last week before I had what I am now calling "the watermark placement epiphany"!

I have three more of these polishes that I will probably be working into another NCC post and I have my March Indie feature polishes on the way too so they will probably be out to say hi! In the meantime, I'm off to look at all the other fabulous untried polish manis by following the links below :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

NAILS Magazine 31DC March Day 3 - Glitter

Hello everyone! Here I am back with my Oscars antidote! Luckily the prompt for the challenge today is "Glitter" so I could get on with blinging it up without a hint of a nude polish in sight!

My current favourite glitter polish is LA Colors Jewel Tone. It has a purple jelly base and has beautifully bright turquoise and magenta glitter. I usually layer it over a simple black but this time went for Sally Hansen Pat On The Black, an almost black berry purple. My index, thumb and pinky fingers have two coats of Pat On The Black and two coats of Jewel Tone with a final hit of Seche Vite. For the two accent nails, I picked out turquoise, magenta and purple rhinestones that matched the glitter colours and set them into a coat of Seche Vite over the purple base.

Tomorrow's prompt is "Mardi Gras" - probably a bit more sparkle for you and then I'll consider calming it down a bit. I also have a new Tri Polish Tuesdays colour combination for you tomorrow - busy, busy, busy! ;)

Sam xx

FingerFood's Theme Buffet - Abstract

Hello everyone! Its Abstract week over at FingerFood's Theme Buffet and as everyone knows I love abstract! I intended to go with one of my traditional swirly "out there" abstracts but then I did this mani (intending to use it for something else entirely!), and thought it would go well here!

I started with three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Deep Blue Sea and added a coat of Seche Vite. Once dry, I used a large dotter to create large dots on each nail, then added a smaller dot of white inside and another smaller contrasting dot in the middle. In between, I added smaller white dots with one inset colour. I would love to list all the colours I used in the dots for this mani, but the only repeated colour is LA Colors French White and this post would be waaaaaay too long! I left them to dry and finished with a final coat of Seche Vite.

I'm so in love with these and am planning on recreating them for the weekend! Well, I was until I sliced through my cuticle and the top part of my finger while trying to slice through a grape stalk today. No more pretty nail pics from me for a while lol - I'm so lucky I managed to build up my mani stash this week and I still have so many great guest posts on the way for you all.

Our theme for next week is "Cute". I haven't decided where to go with that one just yet, but we'll all be posting from Sunday so be sure to check out all our designs :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

FingerFood's Theme Weeks - Hearts

Hello everyone! I hope that you've all had a lovely weekend. This week's theme for the buffet is a little predictable with Hearts, but I would've felt weird choosing something totally unrelated to Valentine's Day (conformity, meh!). Still, looking at all the designs so far, we all have very different interpretations of the theme and we're all fab, so there!

I started with a base of LA Colors Black Velvet and waited for it to dry. I used a fine liner brush to add the white lines, hearts and symbols with LA Colors French White and then went over the hearts with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Jolie En Rose. To give it a final twist and a blackboard feel (lessons in love anyone? Not from me lol!), I finished with OPI matte top coat.

This can be interpreted as either a cute way of working out what love is, or a slightly stalkerish, obsessive kind of mani - I'm going with the cute ;)

Take a look at all the other fab heart manis from the ladies this week, and if you've done some Valentines nails, head on over to the Sparkle Queen's Valentine's Link Up Party and show us what you've got! :)

Next week's theme is Abstract - "Kah favourite!" (if you or your child has a furby, you'll feel my pain in no longer being able to speak plain English, but having to add in Furbish :/ )

Sam xx

GOT Polish Challenge - Green!

Hello everyone! Today I am back on board the GOT polish challenge - everything got a bit hectic last week and I missed it, but I'm back for green! I love greens and have now decided that I don't have nearly enough. I got out all the greens I own that are more than one year old and once again tried to decide between them. Then realized, again, that I couldn't so used them all! Again...

I started with a base of French White and then added sections of each green, starting with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Teeny Greeny Bikini, then Revlon Sassy and Sinful Colors Exotic Green. I finished by adding Color Club Fly With Me between each colour and a top coat of Seche Vite.

Looking at the pictures I realize that I've created something similar to the rainbow mani I did last month, but this one is a green rainbow (maybe I should've saved it for St Patrick's Day!). I'm in love with most of these greens and even though they probably shouldn't all ever be seen together, I think it works!

Next week our theme is Valentines, so many manis to come up with for this theme - hmmmm... :)

Follow the links below to check out all of today's other fabulous green manis!

Sam xx

FingerFood's Theme Buffet - Weather

Hello everyone! Another week has flown past and a new theme  has started. This week our theme is weather! I had a few ideas for this but it seemed appropriate after a storm killed my laptop a week or so ago, that I go with lightning! Especially as I'm smugly typing on my new Chromebook in between extended periods of app browsing :)

I started with a black base and allowed it to fully dry, before sponging on white and various shades of blues, greys and purples (Ciate Vintage and Power Dressing, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Grape Going and Revlon Impulsive). I then added the lightning by layering French White and Models Own Sun Kissed and finished with Seche Vite.

I am so in love with these - I love the stormy sky effect! The hint of yellow in the lightning didn't show up in the pictures very well but in real life added a little more depth and crackle!

Take a look at all the links below to see all of our weather inspired manis and maybe join us for next week's theme - Sparkle!

The NCC presents "Inspired by a Tutorial" #2 - Robin Moses' Jerseylicious

Hello everyone! Today I have the second of my four "Inspired by a Tutorial" manis for the Nails Challenge Collaborative's January theme. It was always a given that I was going to pick one of Robin's awesome designs (you can visit her YouTube channel here), but with so many to choose from, it took a lot of time to finally settle on this one - the Jerseylicious Nail Art - Diva Bling design.

I'm not fan of foil. In fact I've done it twice, once for part of my nail tech assessment, and then once again to prove to myself that I could do it. But I hate playing around with it so I went with a Sally Hansen HD polish in LCD Pink as my base. I followed the tutorial and added the white sections (using nail polish instead of acrylic paint) with French White and then LA Colors Black Velvet for the black lines with a striping brush. I finished with Seche Vite.

Robin's designs are always amazing but this one I totally fell in love with, and I'm happy with the way my recreation turned out.

I still have two more "tutorial" manis to come in January, but in the meantime, follow the links below to see what all the other talented NCC ladies have painted :)