Gelish: Marbled croc nails and bows.

I'm officially experiencing a love affair with my new Gelish gel polishes. Here is a look I created with the help of a pretty crystal bow from Born Pretty Store.

The bow is actually curved so it fits the nail quite well. I used gel to stick this one down - I don't know if it would stay put if you only used glue alone. This would be perfect to use with enhancements or on top of gel polish.

Now that I tend to be doing nails for others more regularly, it makes sense for me to wear gel polish as opposed to normal polish.

 If you like these bows, why not visit the Born Pretty Store site and use the above discount code to get 10% off!

'French' Valentine's manicure, number 2

Here is Valentine's manicure number two:

 I rarely wear French manicures. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if I've ever posted one on my blog. I wore them constantly when I had talons (natural) back in the 90's...cor, that makes me sound really old.

My nails are actually incredibly short at the moment. You wouldn't believe it, but my index finger nail is about 1mm long. I have high hyponychiums (that piece of skin on the underside of the nail where it's  actually attached to your finger), so my nails look longer than they are. The French manicure also gives the illusion of length, but I find it incredibly boring...hence why I HAD to jazz it up!

 For this look, I used these Gold Lace Stickers from Born Pretty Store.

The stickers come in long strips which have an adhesive on the back, so you can cut as much or as little as you want and stick it to the nail.  I used two layers of top coat to seal these on because I was worried about them lifting at the edge.  I needn't have worried - they were really hard to remove. I used pure acetone to remove the polish, but the stickers were stuck tight. Unfortunately I had to scrape at the stickers to get them off my nail in the end.

So there you have it. Some really easy Valentine's day looks. I couldn't go with some crazy pink design this year - I have several important meetings tomorrow and a bunch of hearts and glitter wouldn't really have been appropriate!

Use this code for a 10% discount on your order:)

Whatever you do tomorrow, have a lovely day and thanks for reading!

xx

Valentine's day manicure, part 1

'Tis the night before Valentines, people!

I don't know how you feel about the day, but I'm neither here nor there. My wedding anniversary is at the beginning of March, so my husband and I always place more emphasis on that day.

I have a couple of manicures to show you, created with items from Born pretty store:

 Barry M's 'Berry Ice Cream'

 I am totally in love with these nail studs. In particular, the cut-out circles are my favourite and after searching high and low, I was stoked to see that they were available at  Born pretty store.

I used the gold coloured, cut-out circles and gold mini studs to create this manicure. I stuck them into the polish when it was tacky and the designs were created with white acrylic paint. When it came to removing the studs, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the acetone had no effect on the colour; they didn't tarnish at all. They were in such a good condition that I actually kept them to use them again!

 Here is me posing with my iphone case from a pound shop!

Use this code for a 10% discount on your order:)

Stick around because I have another Valentines manicure for you...


xx

Strawberries and cream

A few weeks ago I was in the mood for some Eton Mess. Yes, that lovely, simple dessert comprising of meringue, strawberries and whipped cream was on my brain for days. When I'd made up my mind to go and buy the ingredients, there was not a strawberry to be found at my local Sainsbury's!  It was when I was staring at my lonesome double cream in the fridge, that I had an idea...strawberries and cream!!

You'll see that I found my strawberries in the end! I went for pouring cream...made out of acrylic. The white acrylic powder was sent to me along with 17 of it's colourful friends, courtesy of Born Pretty Store. If you've never visited before, please do - and  use the 10% discount code in the sidebar for any purchases.

Out of the 18 tiny pots of acrylic contained in the package, I used the one pot of white powder with a monomer, or acrylic liquid. Because the powder is specifically for creating art structures, it was 'slow setting' and I was able to mold and shape the acrylic without it drying out too quickly. This acrylic is a different consistency (in my opinion) to that which you would use to create a french tip on a sculpted acrylic nail extension. Unfortunately I spilt the little pot of powder after doing these nails, hence why I left the two fingers 'creamless'. Honestly, I could've kicked myself.

The 'seeds' are plastic yellow bullion. No glue was used - they stuck quite well in a clear top coat which was covered in a further two coats of Seche Vite.

Another gratuitous shot of the highly sought-after strawberry.

I loved them so much that I decided to make some false nails...using some white molding acrylic powder (for extensions) which has a different consistency to the previous powder. It wasn't the same, but I had to improvise because having this idea bouncing around in my head would cause me to have sleepless nights. Really.

I'm not usually one for wearing fruit on my fingers (it's not quite office appropriate, is it?), but I thought these were cute.

Would YOU wear food on your fingers??

xx

Dearlee nail polish review

Evening all.  

Tonight I have a review for you.  Recently Born Pretty Store sent me this nail polish for review purposes.

This is Dearlee nail polish in '080'. The base colour is a orange/brown jelly (okay, so that doesn't sound very nice), but it is jam packed with red, green/blue and gold hexagonal glitter and gold mini glitter particles. You may notice that the lid has a crackle pattern on it. IT IS NOT A CRACKLE POLISH. I don't know why the lid is like that.

At first I thought I'd be able to use this as a glitter top-coat for a Christmas manicure - the colours would be perfect right?

Unfortunately, this is the consistency I was working with. This formula could use a bit of polish thinner to make it easier to apply. Having just had a look at the website, I think I got a dodgy bottle, because the polish doesn't look this thick in the pictures.

This is one coat.

Two coats. Great coverage.

Overall, this polish is nice enough. It is quite thick and this can make application difficult. It dries rough due to there being so many glitter particles in it, but you can counteract that roughness with a few coats of a rich top-coat like Seche Vite.  I don't think it would be suitable for a delicate nail art design, but you could definitely stamp some bold designs on in dark colour. I was in a hurry so I didn't!

If this is a polish that interests you, you can find it here and can use code: JAYCEJ61 for a 10% discount.

Milani Neon Pink and a little tutorial

Hey friends.

I'm taking a little break from checking giveaway entries to post a manicure that I did prior to the 31 Day Manicure Challenge.  

If you follow me on Twitter (click my button >>), you will recognise this manicure - it's my twitter icon.

I started doing this when it suddenly occurred to me that I should actually do a tutorial just in case anyone was interested. 

Ready?
Okay!

1. Start with completely dry nails in the colour of your choice. Tape some thin strips of tape in random places on the nails you want to accent.

2. Paint over the tape and let it dry completely.

3. Choose your stamping image - I chose the top left full image on plate M60 bought from Bornprettystore. This plate was actually in the sale and was a little over $2...you KNOW I love a good discount :-p

4. Use white stamping polish to stamp on the image. This was easy to do, because the images on the plate were clean cut and deep. As a result, I was able to get the whole image to transfer onto the stamp in one attempt.

5. When the polish is completely dry, SLOWLY remove the tape and add some random lines of glitter.

6. Slap on your favourite top-coat and you are good to go!

I hope you like it.

xx

31 Day Manicure Challenge Day 9 - 'Rainbow'

Hi all (and a big hi and welcome to my newest readers)

Today is rainbow day!

These 'rainbow nails' were one of my favourite manicures to do. I used a base coat and then my trusty acrylic paints. Thinking about it now, the pinkie is missing a stripe of pink...ah well.

Sally Hansen's 'Diamonds' was layered over the acrylic paint twice. I bought this from Superdrug for 45p - I kid you not!

I decided to stamp over the manicure and used the M60 image plate that I bought from Bornprettystore
Admittedly, I'd been looking at this plate on-line for a while and when I saw it in the sale, I snapped it up.  I'm happy to say that the images were clean and crisp; sometimes you get plates that have defects in them; they have spots or nicks that end up with polish in them and get transferred to your nail, thus ruining your manicure. The only issue I had with this plate was that this image was just too narrow for my nails. I had to transfer the entire image and go back in and a re-stamp again. You can see how messy it looks on the index finger.

I'm a little disappointed because I actually really like the pattern on the top left. It's a shame that it didn't fit. Nevermind, I'll just have to be creative with my applications in future!

I'll be back tomorrow with gradient nails...

xx