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

Barry M Blue Grape Gelly

Tonight on the blog I want to show off my latest crush...

Barry M's  'Blue Grape Gelly', how I love thee. This picture doesn't even show how gorgeous it is.

I really had to take this picture under yellow light AND tweak this picture quite a bit to get the colouring right. The blue is very vibrant but is a little darker than shown here.

Honestly, you may just want to go and pic this one up yourselves - it's amazing. I love all of the gelly polishes because of the consistency, the shine and the colour variations but this one is my ultimate favourite.

Have you tried any of the gelly polishes yet? What do you think of them?

Powerpuff nails!

It's been a while since I've been on the blog, but here is a manicure that I'm pretty pleased with.

My eldest daughter likes to pick at her nails and in order to stop her from doing this, I've had to start bribing her...with nail art. During the Easter holidays, I told her that she could have any nail art of her choice, providing she didn't pick and tear at her nails. She chose this:

 The Powerpuff girls! Do you like the way she modelled the Barry M 'Blueberry'?

I'm not the best at painting faces but these came out alright. This was done with acrylic paint and a tiny brush.

Hope you like it as much as my daughter did. This lasted for just over a week!

xx

Painting with my eyes closed...

Tonight, I have a quick post showing you the results of boredom.

I was watching a few YouTube make up videos and saw that a few ladies decided to make videos with them putting on make up without mirrors. Some of them were pretty good! I thought I'd do the something similar - so I painted my nails with my eyes closed:

Absolutely abysmal.

Hmm. Not even the wonderous Rimmel Flat Brush could help me...

Dear, oh dear. I'm actually quite shocked at how badly I did!

Have you been bored enough to try this out? If you have, let me know :)

xx

2True 'Shade 3'

Recently I've managed to build up quite a few un-tried. What with frivolous polish buying and taking part in a Secret Polish Santa on Instagram, my second Helmer (yes, I now have another) is now brimming.

Here's one I picked up and have been staring at for a few weeks:

This is 2True's 'Shade 3'.

This is two layers of a blue jelly polish jam packed with glitter hexagons. So jam packed in fact...it was quite thick. I some of the hexagons were standing on their sides - that's how thick the consistency was. I had to pat them into place! Stroking this onto the nail was not easy.

I think I may have to add a few drops of polish thinner before wearing this one again. It's really not bad though because this only cost £1.99 (from Superdrug).

Have a good weekend and thanks for reading.

xx

Mani's I've missed

You know what it's like. You do a mani, you remove it and then you forget to post it?

As I've already said, my New Year's resolution is to be more organised in terms of blogging (and schedule posts if I know I have a busy week). I also need to make more use of my blogging app on my phone too.

Here are a few things I've done recently.

Some press-on's I did for Annie for a photo shoot.

This pattern was created with acrylic paint and Nails Inc's Baker Street.

Black Gellux and glitter.

The acrylic extensions I gave myself for Christmas. I had some staining which I covered with a rose blush acrylic.

That's it for now.

xx

Nails Inc 'Baker Street'

In a bid to continue catching up on all of the manicures I've worn over the last few weeks, here is something I did to Nails Inc's 'Baker Street'.

The dodgy photo is attributed to the mobile phone camera and a million edits! This was inspired by a tutorial Ying posted on Nailartexpress.com
 

 This is Baker Street before I brought out the acrylic paints. Unfortunately, these pictures do not reflect the true colour of this polish. In actual fact, it's slightly darker.

This is OPI's 'RapiDry'; I bought this from a beauty supply store because I'd run out of Seche Vite. I actually bought two bottles...and I don't like it. In comparison to Seche, it doesn't dry as fast and it isn't a glossy. I'm now stuck with two bottles of this stuff!

That's it for today - I have a few more mani's to post and then I'll be up to date!

xx

31 Day Manicure Challenge Day 5 - 'Blue'

Happy Saturday folks.

So, we are on day five of the challenge and I have a stunner for you.  This is China Glaze's Frostbite.

This is one of the first China Glaze purchases I made for myself last year. The formula is lovely, and it took just two coats to get full coverage...I used three out of pure habit.

Daylight shot.

Unfortunately, it didn't last that long because I found a blue shatter polish by Barry M whilst tidying my helmer the other day. Here is the switch-a-roo.

 

The base was a nice pearl with a sprinkling of glitter particles (it was an old polish and it didn't have a label). The pearls were from Bornprettystore and were a part of a mini-haul that I got last weekend. I'll show you that another time though.

Which blues are your favourites?

xx

The sky at night?

Today was the epitome of an autumnal day. Wind? Check. Rain? Check. Fallen leaves? Check, check, check! By the time I got to school for the school run (something that only took about 10 minutes) my fingers were frozen despite wearing leather gloves! So you'd think that my polish might have been a bright one, to cheer myself up? Wrong.  I've been wearing this for the past two days and as it's not chipped or worn yet, it's going to stay right where it is!

 Maybelline Midnight Blue (on its own on my pinkie finger).

 With a couple of layers of  Flash Cosmic (which has green and blue glitter particles in a clear base)

 This blue is a lovely rich colour but the sparkle just gave it that 'oomph'.

This reminds me of looking up into the sky on a beautiful, warm Summer night. You know, when you can see every last star with pure clarity? Hmm. Maybe this WAS a manicure to cheer me up after all? What do you think?