The Nail Challenge Collaborative presents "Skittles" - A Neon Skittlette

Hello everyone! Following on from my oh so serious post earlier today, normal service is somewhat resumed now with the first of my NCC manis for May. I was thrilled when I found out that this month's theme was Skittles (so much so that I have three of the four done already, which is unheard of!). I'm starting with a skittlette and a bit of LA Colors neon :)

The middle and ring fingers were painted with a base of LA Colors French White, with the leopard print dotted on using Absolute, Spat!, Mint, Flicker and Black Velvet. I freehanded the stripes on to my index finger with Black Velvet, French White and Absolute and used more of the black and white to complete the dotted design on the thumb and little finger. 

So there you have number one! And on the 2nd of the month - go me!!!

As I explained in my previous post, I won't be posting on the blog over weekends from now on,

there may be a few bits and pieces on the "quickfire" sites, but I will be back next week hopefully feeling all renewed and full of sunshine, joy, kittens and candy floss (if that turns out to be true then you won't recognize me lol!). I also have a giveaway coming up very soon that I know you'll want to check out :)

Have a fabulicious weekend!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

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 Mag 31DC - Colour Block Patchwork

Hello everyone! The theme for today in the NAILS Mag March Challenge is "Colour Block". Normally I would go right into a taping mani but today I felt like doing something a little different. I have been looking through some old photos with my parents recently and was reminded of my favourite duvet cover from when I was little. It was purple patchwork and I thought it would be fun to try and replicate it for this challenge.

I started with a white base and then drew in some guidelines with a purple Sharpie. I filled in the sections with Barry M Gelly Prickly Pear, Collection 2000 Hot Looks Go Retro! and China Glaze Spontaneous and then added flowers, spots and criss cross patterns for the patchwork feel. To finish, I went over the lines with the Sharpie and added some little "stitches" before finishing with Seche Vite (after the Sharpie had had plenty of time to dry)

So there's a trip down memory lane and my version of colour blocking for this March challenge. I've been reliably informed that NAILS Mag are also holding an April challenge which I will be joining in on as much as possible - although with the school Easter holidays in full swing and my first Digit-al Dozen week coming up I'm not sure how much I will get through! All my NAILS Mag challenge posts are on IG with the tag #31NAILS2014, so if you've missed any head over and take a look here - you can see all my pics without having to to read my verbose nonsense ;)

Sam xx

Purple madness! GOT Polish, Theme Buffet and NAILS 31DC!

Hello everyone! Today I have a three in one post for you. This mani combines the GOT Polish challenge and NAILS Magazine 31DC "Purple" prompts, along with FingerFood's Theme Buffet "Dots and Stripes" prompt. The polishes are all over 1 year old, there are dots and stripes and its all purple, so therefore made of win!

The base is two coats of Barry M Gelly Prickly Pear. I then taped on a grid pattern and went over the whole nail with French White before carefully removing the tape. I added dots to each white space using a selection of my favourite purples (light to dark: LA Colors Wisteria, Electra and Edgy) and finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

I was able to use some of my favourite colours in this design and I love the fact that I managed to get it to line up for the most part!

So that's my three for the price of one post! I hope you like it. There are loads of links beliw to some gorgeous nail art, so be sure to check them out!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

GOT Polish Challenge - Skittles!

Hello everyone! Its Skittles week in the Golden Oldie Thursday challenge which makes for a very happy Sam! I love having an excuse to get random!

I also felt the need to use some clashy colours, so this post comes with a "May need sunglasses" advisory :)

I started with Barry M Gelly Prickly Pear as my base and then added in dots, heart flowers (Hey, why not? Its skittles!), stripes, leopard print and a hybrid zebra/tiger using LA Colors Hottie and Barry M Gelly Blackberry.

Next week our theme is "Purple". Wondering now why I didn't look at next week's prompt in advance! Not to worry, I think I have bought more purple polishes over the years than anything else, so finding some different ones for next week shouldn't be too hard!

I will be back with a fun post for you later today as its "Your favourite drink" day in the NAILS Mag 31DC - can't wait to share that one :)

In the meantime, check out all the other skittles on show from Crumpet's Nail Tarts today...

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Tri Polish Tuesdays March #1 - Marine Candy Stripes

Hello everyone! Today we begin a new colour scheme for the March installment of the Tri Polish challenge. Our colours for this month are green, blue and purple - my favourites! I decided to start off with something simple, but bright.

I started with an opaque French White base and then added tape diagonally but at random widths. I then filled in with LA Colors Illusion (purple), LA Colors Aquatic (blue), and Ciate Mojito (green). I removed the tape and finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

I love these three polishes together and cannot wait to do more with this month's colours! Check out the links below to see what everyone else is doing in this week's Tri Polish Tuesday, and I will be back later with a Mardi Gras themed mani for the NAILS Mag 31DC :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

My OH does my nails!

Hello everyone! When I saw a suggestion in the British Nail Bloggers group on Facebook that we all get our OH's to paint our nails, I barely had time to get the words out of my mouth before Scott told me he was up for it, asked for a sheet of nail templates and started drawing ideas (he also muttered something about 80's bay thrash metal). Here's us in various incarnations (we've known each other for 19 years, although the school uniform pic was only a couple of years ago for my birthday!):

Here's what he had to say about it all:
When asked to paint my wife's nails my heart immediately sank. Imagine Leonardo da vinci's other half being asked to emulsion the back bedroom. It's not going to go well. Still, it sounded like a laugh so I jotted down some ideas from what I'd seen her do in the past and decided to keep it deceptively simple. Dots, stripes and dark, gloomy colours to match my love of heavy metal. In reality, they looked bright, jaunty and oddly optimistic! I found the whole process quite relaxing and I think the finished product turned out better than expected! Now I'm going to sit back and wait for my Jessica endorsement. Scotty x 

He asked for striping tape, a brush, dotting tools and chose some "intreresting" colours before he got to work. Now I'm a control freak at the best of times but when it comes to my nails (which are in really bad shape at the moment for various reasons), I had such a hard time with this! I spent most of the time looking anywhere else but at what he was doing! I took a few snaps though. As you can see by his posture, its a good job that he doesn't do nails often lol :)

And here's what he came up with, using Jesscia Ruffled Bottoms, Color Club Age of Aquarius and Take Me To Your Chateau, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Wet Cement and All About Nails Licorice :)

I'm the first to admit that I was actually impressed and quite proud of him! It worries me slightly that he already has ideas for "the next one". I can just see all the OHs getting competitive and starting their own challenge ;)

We've all linked up so go and check out what all the others have got up to - there are some crackers in there! :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

A zebra changing its spots! :p

Hello everyone! I've been looking at this mani and trying to figure out how to fit it into one of my challenge prompts for about a week now with no success whatsoever! But as I liked it, I decided to share it anyway, despite the fact that I can't really make it fit in anywhere!

The idea originally started out as a stripes and dots mani when the "bright" idea struck me to make it zebra stripes and dots instead... Obviously :/

I started with a French White base and then added in the zebra stripes with a striping brush using Barry M Greenberry. I then dotted in between all the stripes with Color Club Wicker Park before finishing with Seche Vite.

I must say that I really like the way this turned out and I love these two colours together. Happy accident manis are my favourite! :)

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

NAILS Mag 31DC Day 19 - Rainbow

Hello everyone! Well yesterday got totally out of hand with the fabulous nail art community shareathon and I didn't have a chance to post this mani. I was originally going to make this my Theme Buffet Weather mani too, but I had settled on trying out some lightning so saved this one for another post!

I started these nails by painting a small section or strip of yellow (each a different size, shape and position) using OPI Yellowpalooza on to each nail. I then added each colour working outwards. Orange (Revlon Siren), Red (Barry M Gelly Paints Blood Orange), Purple (Color Club Pucci-licious), Blue (Models Own Feeling Blue) and Green (Revlon Sassy). I freehanded it all with a very fine striping brush (using thicker, opaque polishes helped with tidying up the lines at the end!). I finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

I love this bright cheery mani and I think as the shapes and lines are different on each nail it has a bit of a retro feel! Perfect for celebrating all my lovely new followers! I first did this design back in November 2012 and I'm glad to say that it looks a lot better today! Click here to see the original post.

Tomorrow I will be bringing you the third Tri Polish mani for January, more bright red, orange and yellow! In the meantime, thank you to all of you that shared my pages over the weekend! I shared as many as possible and am looking into setting up some share time each week :)

Sam xx

  

GOT Polish Challenge - Stripes

Hello everyone! Scarlett is finally back at school but now I'm ill! Really can't catch a break at the moment :( However, on the upside my laptop problems have been solved with an early birthday present of a Chromebook! I'm a total Google/Android geek so saying that I'm excited is probably a little bit of an understatement, and playing with all the apps is keeping me occupied until I'm back on form!

Anyway, back to the nails :) My polish hoarding started with my Jessica collection in 2009. Up to that point I constantly wore acrylics and my natural nails were ruined. A friend suggested Phenomen Oil and Restoration base coat and I never looked back. I probably have about 60 or 70 Jessica polishes even though I haven't bought any (apart from replacements) in over a year, but I love them all.

I picked some bright neon colours as I've decided I've had enough of winter several months early - Purple Burst, Blue Blast and Diva On The Dunes. I taped wide stripes over a white base and then added the brights. The formula has suffered a bit with age on the blue and pinky purple but I got there without too much trouble and finished with Seche Vite.

This mani was a little trip down memory lane for me - not the best time of my life but I'm happy to say that things are lot better now. If nothing else I can see that I've always had good taste in polish!

Sam xx