The Digit-al Dozen does Metal Day 1

Hello everyone! I am very much enjoying my blogging break and hope that you are all enjoying a sunny June wherever you are. I'm back for this week to bring you five manis with all the other ladies in the Digit-al Dozen and this month our theme is metal. 

Once I saw this I was so annoyed that I hadn't saved my sheet metal mani from two months ago! It was my most popular mani to date and would've been perfect! Still, to kick off this week I decided to go with one of my fluid designs. 

I started with a base of Nail Essentials SIlver Shimmer and freehanded some sections of Color Club Pearl District. I then added sections of All About Nails Bronze, leaving a fine line of silver showing between the gold and the bronze. To finish, I went over the silver using Color Club Sex Symbol with a striping brush, and finished with Seche Vite.

I wish that the bronze was a little "bronzer", but I like the style and overall molten metal feel of this. They're not my usual sort of colours either, but I resisted to cover the whole thing in glitter and tried to make the sparkle an accent to the design instead. 

For those of you that missed this one, here's the mani that I wish I'd saved for this week :)

See you tomorrow!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

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

My "breaking them in gently" nails...

Hello everyone! A super quick post for you today as I have just hurriedly painted my nails for a meeting early tomorrow. Most people I work with know me well enough that they expect me to turn up with random colours and patterns on my nails, but every now and again something comes up and I feel the need to play it safe (I also tone down the make up and take out the facial piercings - that kind of meeting). 

But me being me, I still can't go for completely plain nails, so I opted for a subtle accent nail on each hand ;)

I painted my nails with two coats of my all time favourite polish (and one I hold responsible for much of my polish addiction!), Jessica Ruffled Bottoms, except for my ring finger which I painted with three coats of LA Colors Lilac Frost. I then added some random freehand lines to the accent nail with the Ruffled Bottoms edged those with Barry M Gelly Guava and then added in a few fine lines with LA Colors Metallic Silver before finishing them all with Seche Vite.

I suppose you could call this my "breaking them in gently" nails, and this is about as subtle as I get - the restraint involved in leaving these as they are is beyond comprehension!

I will be back with my GOT Polish challenge nails for you tomorrow. The prompt is Coral and I apologise in advance for the strange colour my skin appears whenever in the vicinity of anything remotely resembling that colour! You have been warned!!!

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

Studded Hearts - another Valentines theme mani...

Hello everyone! Today I have another Valentine-ish mani for you. Its super simple, but I think its pretty effective, and as always, I haven't exactly gone down the traditional route.

I started with a single coat of Barry M Gelly Blueberry, which was enough for full coverage, and then added two coats of Models Own Indian Ocean. All the coverage online of the massive Models Own sale made me revisit my stash and I was really happy to rediscover this beauty!

Once dry I added a generous coat of Seche Vite to one nail at a time, and added heart-shaped and round silver studs all over the middle and ring finger, and a more delicate half moon design to the others.

I like how this turned out, I think the metal studs take the edge off the gushy lovey nature of the design just enough for me to be able to cope with it lol!

Hope you're all ready for some swatches coming your way soon, I have received some fab nail mail lately and I am dying to show you some of my new discoveries!

Sam xx

Tri Polish Challenge January #4 - Thermal dotticure

Hello everyone! Today is the final Tri Polish mani for January using the colours yellow, orange and red. I've gone for a simple dotticure, but graduated the size of the dots in opposite directions. It reminds me a bit of the colours on weather maps, which explains the title in the hope of making it sound slightly less random!

I started with two coats of Nail Essentials SIlver Shimmer and then added the dots using Models Own Lemon Meringue, Barry M Gelly Paints Mango and Blood Orange. I finished with Seche Vite - simple!

I'm glad I accidentally discovered the graduated dots - I had originally planned on the dots being a lot more uniform, but I like it so I'll definitely be doing it again!

So, next month out TPC colours are brown, pink and grey. I already have some of these ready as I loved the idea of putting these colours together :) Check out all the other Tri Polish manis following the links below and I will be back with you soon!

Sam xx