Alessandro International - 'Espresso'

Hi friends.

Tonight's post is one that is a review of Alessandro International's Espresso. I love that name, Alessandro. Everytime I type it, I sing 'alley alley andro, alley alley andro' to myself. I blame Lady Gaga for that. You do have to admit, though, the name rolls nicely off the tongue...Alessandro...

Anyway, this Monday marked one full week of me wearing this manicure. This is a big deal for me, folks. I never wear a manicure longer than a few days.

 Espresso - a deep coffee brown with a subtle blue/grey shimmer.

 This picture was taken next to a window to show you how it looks in normal day light. This is three layers of colour.

 Check out that shimmer...

 So you're wondering what that thing on my ring finger is? It's a Kiss nail wrap that I found in a copy of 'Nail It!' magazine. Unfortunately it only lasted one day, so I removed it and painted on some more.

Now this is my most favourite topcoat at the moment. No shrinkage!

Here is my current manicure :) As you can see, I've mastered the art of taking pictures with sheer Jedi Force...

Until next time folks!

xx

I'm catching up, slowly...

If these are repeat posts, I'm sorry. 

I had been voluntarily submitting some work for a blogazine over the last few months, but with some free-lance nail work and a lot of other things coming up, I had to call it a day. I was finding it hard to blog for fun here, let alone blog for free somewhere else. As I had been asked to provide unique work, I didn't post the manicures here. Now that I'm no longer submitting work, I'm posting my pictures here for you to have a look.

I'm still way behind with all of my pictures, but I'm getting there folks!

xx

Green and gold

Hi all.

Today I have a manicure I was wearing the other day. My nails were painted green with a gold accent nail...of course, I got antsy and decided to fiddle with it.

Gold and black acrylic paint with some individually placed hexagonal shaped glitter pieces.

On a different note, I've noticed that a few of my manicures have managed to find themselves on Pintrest. My watermarking editor is pretty substandard and looks quite blurry. Anyone know of a good watermarking tool? I'll be eternally grateful.

xx

Invisible wings

On Sunday it was my daughter's second birthday and because she loves animals so much, we all went to London Zoo on the Saturday, as a warm-up celebration. She loved it, but she didn't like the Gorilla's. She spent most of the time wrapped around my neck when she eyed those bad boys.

One thing she did like was the butterfly house. It's literally a tent-like structure hosting an artificial tropical climate and hundreds of butterflies. They have big ones the size of your hands and tiny little ones which land on you if you aren't screaming your head off. 

I found this little beauty:

 Look, the wings are practically invisible! I don't know her name, but she inspired me to create this:

I hate this nail length, but this glitter IS pretty!

 I was trying to capture the wings.

 

I like the design better on a longer 'nail'.

Right, I'm off to go and find something to plaster onto these nubbins of mine. I hope you are having a lovely week.

Thanks for all of your nice comments and support. I don't always get a chance to reply or visit other blogs nowadays but I'm going to change that!

xx

Leopard water decals and a little stamping too.

Hey friends.

I would love to tell you that today, I am wearing the below, but I'm not.  I did this over a week ago, and totally forgot about it until I found the pictures in my camera.

These are full cover water decals bought on Ebay.  You may notice that the index and ring fingers looks slightly darker - that's because I used two decals on those fingers due to tearing the first ones.

I can't express how much I love water decals that are big enough to cover your entire nail.  They don't take long to apply and because of their size,  I didn't need a base colour - only a base coat. To seal the decal onto the nail and add some shine, I used a top coat too. Simple, yet effective in my opinion.

I admit, I did get a little bored with the design so I tried stamping a design over it from BM plate 201 and wore it for another day.

Have you used water decals before? How did you find them? What about nail foils?

Leopard gradient

Hey, hey!

Today I would like to introduce you to my first (and possibly last) animal print manicure.  I don't know what it is...I like looking at them on other people, but not so much on myself.

Inside picture:

I used three different polishes to do the gradient, a pink to make spots and then some black acrylic paint to outline them (click  for a gradient tutorial). As usual, Clever Clogs forgot to take bottle pictures, so if you really want to know what I used, let me know in the comments section.

 Don't know what this colour is because I gave it away shortly afterwards, when I realised I had a dupe for the gold AND the purple. I don't like to hoard duplicates. If I have two colours that are similar, it's either by accident or because I want a back-up bottle.

 That pink flower? That was one of my sculpted acrylic trials. I don't have any hot pink acrylic; it was white and I painted it with the same colour polish I used for the spots! This picture shows the gradient a little better.

Hope you like it! Have a great week.

xx

The Tiger and the stump (nail rescue and nail art!)

Hi Friends and welcome to my new readers :-)

I'd hoped to have a little something for you tonight (or rather, this morning because it's 01:15), but right now, I still have to jump in the shower, iron my travelling outfit and get a couple of hours of sleep. I'm setting out again at 6am...my flight isn't until 12:00!!! If I hadn't spent so long gluing rhinestones, smudging polish and having to re-glue all over again, I might have been able to put up some pics! 

I have seen all the nice comments that you have left on the entries to my giveaway and on my recent posts. I shall try to do some more tutorials and easy to follow nail art. If I get a chance, I'll upload them when I'm lounging on a beach, drinking cocktails and baking myself....LOL!!

Okay, so I felt guilty. I couldn't come in here and not post what I've done tonight! No editing or watermarking on these so please excuse the colours of the pics, backgrounds etc.

I've been walking around like a maniac since Thursday. I tore off my nail trying to get out of the car park at work I have really dry hands. They look terrible.

 I couldn't walk around like that so I had to stick on a tip.

 Use some fibre-glass...

 From a strip like this^^

 Put it, sticky side down, on the nail,

 Use resin and activator to bond the fibreglass to the nail (I didn't picture them because I'm not trained to use fibreglass for extensions. I do it at my own peril and don't want you to follow me!)

 This is after the resin has dried. Repeat the strip and resin step again.

 Buff to finish.

Now for the nail art!!!

 Sponge on some white (whilst ignoring the heavy staining on the nails. Ehem)

 Paint on some orange strips (two coats)

Paint on strips with a striping brush

Use gold polish for the outlines

Glue on rhinestones and you're done!

I'm sorry for rushing, but I didn't want to leave without posting.

Talk to you soon

xx