Proceed with 'Caution' - Gelish

I recently ordered some really nice Gelish colours and due to me having a busy few weeks, this is the manicure that I have been wearing.

Gelish 'Caution'.
I accomplished this look with white striping tape and some gems that I got from eBay (not Swarovski).  

The floral detailing was painted (free-hand) with white acrylic paint after I had put down the striping tape. Usually with gel polishes, you are left with a sticky dispersal layer after curing. You would generally wipe this away prior to adding any art, but on this occasion, I placed the tape on after partly curing my last layer of colour for about 10 seconds. After adding the tape. I cured for another 20 seconds under an LED lamp and then added the top coat. When this was cured, I removed the dispersal layer, buffed LIGHTLY with a white block, painted on the flowers and added another layer of top coat when the paint was dry.

Here's a sneaky peak at my right hand, which is completely unused to modelling! I'll let you into a little secret...this was done about two weeks ago has grown out now although the gems are still intact. I'll probably remove it tonight though, because I'll be manicuring on a nail bar this coming week and want my nails to look freshly done!

If you wear gel polish, how long will you usually wear it before removal?

Have a great week.

x

Boutique Nails

Okay, so I've finally downloaded an app which will allow me to blog (with pictures) on the go, straight from my phone. I'm really, REALLY hoping this will work, because I would prefer to blog in real time as opposed to whenever I have five minutes to off-load a backlog of posts.

Here goes...

Here are a few pictures of nail set that I painted recently:

I now have a little on-line shop ( boutiquenails.bigcartel.com ) where I'm selling my hand painted nail sets and a few rings. I add new items regularly so feel free to visit and peruse. If you have any questions, ask down below! Have a look here at EpiphannieA wearing my 'Rhino' nail set (and please follow her blog because she's AWESOME...and has a better camera than I *sniff*)

Another picture of a pink neon set.

Whilst I know a lot of you are perfect polishers already, there are a lot of ladies who prefer to have someone polish their nails for them. Some people also prefer the convenience of press-on nails. If you think you know someone who would like a set as a gift, please visit the site and contact me. 

There's a 22% discount on orders, for two weeks, to coincide with what was my second blogger anniversary...in October (shakes head)! Just use the code: TWOYEARS

Let me know what you think?


xx

Models Own - Hot Stuff and Japonesque

Hi everyone,

This month has been Breast Cancer Awareness month and there have been a lot of pink manicures floating around. I think it would be a bit depressing for me to highlight the statistics of the amount of women, families, friends etc who have been affected by cancer so I won't.

Here is my pink ribbon offering:

 Models Own 'Hot Stuff' over Sinful Colors 'Beautiful Girl'.

Look at that glitter!

 

I created the ribbon out of acrylic paint. My camera just did not want to capture the beauty of this pink polish, or my ribbon. Meh.

I received this Japonesque Manicure Set a while back but didn't get around to posting about it. It's such a beautiful pearl pink and a portion of the sale price will be donated to Breast Cancer Research.

 All the tools you'll need for a good manicure...you just need this and a tube of cuticle oil!

I love this Japonesque kit because it's perfect for home use (my husband loves the cuticle nippers) and it's suave enough to take on set too. I won't be taking this to any set though. When I worked at London Fashion Week, someone nicked my acetone pump bottle!

I do have some more Japonesque goodies to show you, so please bear with me.

Thanks for reading folks.

xx

Hello!

Well, hello!!

It's been about a month since I've blogged or even attempted to have a look at my dashboard. After having so many things going on, blogging became a second thought and I didn't want to just churn out manicures for the sake of it. Hence my sabbatical.

I thought that for the next few posts I would just show you what I've been doing.

 I absolutely love this pink. It's a jelly polish so you will need a few coats of it, but this is a colour that will definitely cheer you up. I wore this manicure to The Nails Show...but it didn't last more than one day because I used the wrong UV top coat and the whole thing started to crack!

 

I worked at The Cherished Hair Party the following weekend and wore the below designs:

Here's a set of nails I did at the party:

And here are a few pictures of some other manicures that I've done recently:

This particular design was one I found on Instagram and replicated.

I do have a backlog of pictures, so please bare with me.

Thanks for continuing to subscribe and follow during my absence.

xx

When I'm up late, I get ideas.

How's it going?

I have a quick post for you tonight...

This is what happens when I'm up late at night. I really should have been on my way to bed, but I spied my nail art pens and got to scribbling:

 I didn't even use a real polish, just a random base coat.

 I used two nail art pens to scribble on my nails and make some dots.

Admittedly, this was the first time I tried them out properly. I have lots more colours but have yet to experiment with them.

I'll try to do something with a few more colours in another manicure one day.

Take care for now.

xx

Maybelline 'Khaki Green'

I am pretty impressed with myself. I've been wearing this polish for about three days now - I never do that.

As much as I haven't found any Maybelline colours that really strike me, I do like this one.  I picked up 'Khaki Green' a little while ago when there was a deal on at Boots.

One thing I like about the Express Finish range is that they do dry very quickly. You can't really go wrong with them and the wide, flat brush also makes application a breeze.

You know me. I have to adulterate polish, I can't just leave it alone and let it bask in its own glory. The first dots were made with a large dotting tool and black acrylic paint; the gold was dotted in with a tooth pick.

This is a simple enough design but I've actually enjoyed wearing it. I needed a design to give my nails that extra something now that they are so short.  Hopefully you've enjoyed my little instalment and have had a good week.

xx

Green nubbins

Hey all, ready for Monday?

As my nails get ever shorter, I'm going to have to come up with manicures that work on nubbins.

 Not really much to say about this one.  I'll go into the colours in another post - I got all three polishes in a 'lovey package' from Anastacia

 My free edge may 'look' longer here, but I have literally about 2mm on my index finger. Had I painted my free edge only, I wouldn't have had much of a green tip!

Here's an example of the depth of my nail beds, but on my right hand before polishing.

Have a wonderful week friends.

xx

My second attempt at a 'one-stroke' manicure...

Hello friends old and new.

Today I finally tried to use some of the numerous nail art brushes that are languishing in the bottom draw of my Helmer.  I did this very quickly (trying to grab the last of the natural light after the school run) but alas, my photos are somewhat lacking.  My home-made light box has now been hi-jacked by my cat and I don't have the heart to evict her. So, until I can get to a craft store to buy some sheets of plastic to make another, I'll just have to settle for sticking my hand out of the garden door in the freezing weather to take pictures.

My nails are getting shorter by the week - these women on my manicure course are devils with emery boards. If I file these bad boys right down, those sadists won't have anything to play with.  One woman was trying to slice off dry skin around my cuticles with a cuticle knife. Seriously. I don't HAVE anything to cut and I just know she was trying to slice me up, just so that she could practise with that knife. Next week we go on to pedicures. BARF.

 A mini bottle of China Glaze's 'Urban-Night' from the Metro Collection (2011), such a beautiful purple cream.

Ha! This was the jumper dress I was wearing today...perfect match.

One-stroke 'technique' with red and white acrylic paint.  Also some extremely lazy dotting...with a striping brush. For shame.

It's not perfect yet, so until I get it completely right, I won't post a tutorial. No point in showing you how to do something the wrong way, is there?

I hope you likey!

xx

Kiss Meh Nude!

Happy Monday folks.

Today's manicure is inspired by a lot of talk on Twitter about red lipstick and also a pair of leggings I saw on  last night's episode of Dancing On Ice. Inspiration comes to me from the strangest of places, I have to admit.

Black nail polish, red acrylic paint lips and dots.

Please ignore how dry my cuticles are. I could do with a paraffin wax manicure because my hands are obscenely rough.

Here is another manicure that I was wearing the other day. The Mannequin Manicure was created by Sophy Robson and I remember seeing it in a magazine some time ago. I'm really not found of nude colours on myself, but it seemed like a great concept so I thought I'd try it out.

Nails Inc's 'Balmoral', topped with Rimmel's Matte top coat.

Bleh. This colour washes me out terribly and the lighting was horrible too.

I have come to the realisation that I cannot be happy with a manicure if it not enhanced or adulterated with 'stuff'. Ah well, what are ya gonna do eh?

xx

31 Day Manicure Challenge Day 11 - 'Polka dots'

Hey everyone!

So today is polka dot day! I'm pretty late in the day posting this, but only because I didn't want to take off my gradient pattern. Whilst I'm enjoying this challenge, it's irking me that I can't wear the mani longer than a day - especially after putting time into it. Okay, so no-one is threatening me with a flogging if I don't change my polish everyday, but I don't want to let the challenge drag (I'm actually looking forward to letting my nails rest for a bit).

Anyway, here are my nails.

The Face Shop nail polish with Sally Hansen's Golden Cinnabar dots, topped with Wet 'n' Wild's Tipsy.

I'm sorry, I couldn't help but pose a little with my new toy. I had my old 3GS for two years so I'm pretty impressed with the latest iPhone technology *cheesy grin*.

See you tomorrow with 'stripes'!

xx

Half moons and roses...

 My Friday fingers...

The other day I was over at Nail Art Express and I saw this gorgeous design:

If you haven't already seen Ying's blog, I suggest you take a look.  She has some serious talent. So much so,  I had to ask her if I could try the design out for myself. 

I tried to replicate the design:

 I used Beauty UK's Glam Nails in Soft Grey.  Three coats made it opaque and I didn't have to wait long; this polish dried very quickly. 

 My acrylic paints come in handy.

I put dots of paint next to each other and swirled them around until they looked like flowers; I'm still learning how to make them look less like blobs! My half moons aren't great either, but I did them free-hand because I didn't have any french manicure guides.

I hope you likey :-)

Oh, and I had a great time at the circus yesterday, but my phone has no flash and my pictures came out too dark.  My hubby has some nice ones so I'll try to steal them and put them up at some point.

xx

On a Saturday night, the polish comes out.

Hi friends.

A big welcome to my new readers - thanks for visiting me :-)

If I still have the energy after the kids have gone to bed, I like to play with my paints and polish. As you've seen before, sometimes my experimentation doesn't always work, but I feel no way about showing my successes and failures.

Here are a few nails that I've been toying with.  First, I will warn you that at the bottom of the post will be some pictures of my current pedicure...and that of my daughter's design on one toe. I'm not a 'foot person' and I know that they gross some people out, so I tried to distract your attention a little bit.

 I was just trying out new things - they are not supposed to be proper patterns.  I've just plonked things in random places because I was running out of tips (which I'd stuck to some wooden skewers).

I saw this black pattern somewhere on-line and the rest were just inspired by other pictures floating around in the ether somewhere. If you've seen them somewhere too, let me know. I'm not trying to plagiarise!

 These tulips were something I actually I thought of myself and the hearts were commissioned by the little one. She actually indicated that she wanted polka dots because she made me a heart fridge magnet with the same pattern on it today.

 

She's a romantic, my little girl *rolls eyes*.

Here are my tootsies. I'm sorry if I offended anyone, lol!

BTW, if you are wondering why there are so many dots, it's because I was playing with my new marbling/dotting tool.

xx