£1 shop, fake nails and some body jewellery

I LOVE my Pound shop. It's great. It has everything in it. From food to books, to nail art gems to garden soil. And everything is a £1. You know I love a bargain.

This is what I picked up today.

 I bought these so that I could practice my nail art without having to dry out my cuticles experimenting on my own nails. I like to keep the fake tips I already have for when I need to put an extension on myself or anyone else. I have no intention of wearing these things because they are just so weird...there's already an adhesive on the bed of the plastic nail. The pattern is awful, but I'll be painting over them so it's no big deal.  You know how to remove them after wearing? Soak your hands in warm water. Crazy right? If you do wear these, you'd better not get your hands dirty!

Yes! More storage, but for £1!

Tiny isn't it? I think I may need to pick up a few more at some point. Oh, and yes, my daughter slapped Sponge Bob on my phone one day when I was gossiping with a friend.  I'm too lazy to take it off. Plus it looks like I put it there on purpose, lol!

 

One drawer contains a lid from a Body Shop body butter tub. There are a few costume jewellery earrings in there along with a pair of white gold and yellow gold creoles, several silver rings, silver heart pendant and white gold chain.

Body jewellery (a labret, bioplast nose and labret retainers, nose studs, banana bars and a hoop-thingy). I don't wear them all at the same time - I keep lots of spares because they get lost so often!

More of my favourite costume jewellery earrings, a few rings and a Tiffany bracelet buried in there too.
I have a lot more costume jewellery floating around my flat but they are all in Tupperware boxes or hanging up all over the place. I've been meaning to make a frame to hang my necklaces and the rest of my earrings on, but I haven't got around to it yet.  I say YET. When I do it, I'll let you know.

Thanks for reading

xx

So, I bought a Helmer...and did some stamping too.

Hey, hey everyone.  The weekend is nearly here!

Look what I bought...

Yes, I succumbed to the lure of 'The Helmer'.  I know I'd complained about the way it looked in the Ikea catalogue, but when I saw this 'white' one (which looked more like a cream colour), I thought it was passable.
It took one hour to get from this ^,

to this ^. It was pretty straightforward to put up, though the millions and trillions of pieces I found when I opened the box was a bit of a shock!

She fits cozily into the corner of my room. Unobtrusive, inconspicuous, quiet.

She's adorned by the crystals my late aunt gave to me every time I went to stay with her in Bussum, Holland.

My little girl helped to put some drawer liners (also from Ikea) in the drawers to stop the polish sliding around and she also arranged the polish too. The drawers do have labels on them, but they are there so she could figure out where to put what! What a sweetie <3

Overall, I do have to say that I am pretty happy with my purchase.  This little treasure is slim, easily hidden and is extremely spacious. The polish I have only fills 1.5 of the drawers! I've had to spread the rest of my art supplies, liquids and cotton wool around in the other ones...but I believe I need more polish. Muhahahahahaha.


Speaking of polish, I got 'Betty Blues' from Boots.  I had another £5 voucher so I only spent £2.

Such a gorgeous colour in the bottle...

...but rubbish on the nail.  Okay, so this has been on my nails for three days so it looks a bit worn, but the colour does NOT translate onto the nail at all.  Booooooo. I'm not going to use this again.

The images on my nails are from Shirley's plates (SdP A16)

Oh, it's my wedding anniversary tomorrow. Five years and two kiddies later, we still like each other, lol!

xx

Storage hell.

I have none. Literally NO storage space.

My polish is still in plastic bags and the thought of having to rummage through all of those bottles just fills me with dread. For months now, I've been saying that I don't want to go and buy an Ikea Helmer...

image

...which seems to be the preferred method of storage for many nail polish bloggers. Looking at it here reminds me of the bulging filing cabinets at work *shudder* (in my mind I am 'Bruce Almighty' being attacked by one of these metal monsters). Surprisingly, when I got Hubby's measuring tape out to check the dimensions, it turned out that they were a lot smaller than I'd anticipated. There I was thinking that the bloody thing would be up to my neck - it would only reach just higher than mid-thigh! That and the fact that they cost £20.42 (where'd the 42p come into it??), has nearly made up my mind.

Sooooo, I'm off to Ikea tomorrow, to wander around with a huge trolley and a massive grin on my face. If the Helmer looks cool in real life, I may just have to indulge myself. Oh joy!

xx

I got some nail mail

Hi friends, how are you all doing?

I've been MIA (again) and it seems to be getting worse.  In addition to this, I'll be returning to work on Thursday of this week and my schedule is now going to change drastically.  I've enjoyed my maternity leave for the last seven months, but now it's time to go back to reality :-(.  How else am I going to fund my polish habit if I don't?

I've had a few packages through the post recently:

 Some lovely new goodies that I bought for a bargain and swapped with amused Polish.

 Some water decals that were sent to me from Vivalanails. I'll be doing a review of these as soon as I get an opportunity to paint my nails (which I gave a massive trim today).

 Here is the prize that I won from Nail Art Express  after taking part in the Chinese New Year contest. If you are interested in entering any contests, Ying is actually running another contest with three fantastic prizes to be won. I don't know if I'll even have the time to enter myself, but I thought I'd share with you just in case you are game.

 I picked up these little beauties at Brent Cross on the weekend. Fenwick's have a little Barry M stand in the front of the store.

I'm also having a little change around at home. The polish trolley that I got for a Christmas present is now too small to hold everything so I've put it in the bathroom so that the kid's rubber ducks have a new home.  I'm going to see if I can find something bigger tomorrow.  So for now, this is what my polish will living in; two Asda shopping bags!

Ruined Christmas mani...but got nice pressies!

Hi everyone! Did you have a good Christmas?

I had a lovely day filled with family, food and festivities.  Dribbles cut her first tooth (finally), Little'un got presents galore and my macaroni cheese went down a treat at the huge Christmas dinner table.

I got a few nail related presents from my hubby, but first, I need to show you what I did to myself...

 Yes, I tore my nail whilst opening a drawer!

 What a way to ruin a manicure, eh?

 This lazy girl decided to fix the nail - I wasn't about to start removing polish at 1am.  I used some nail glue to stick the tear together then got a piece of fibre glass wrap and cut a strip off to cover the the tear.

 Here the strip is. This is only a temporary fix. When I change my manicure I'll soak the whole thing off with acetone and repeat the repair process on bare nails.

Next, I brushed some resin onto the fibre glass strip. This stuff bonds in seconds, like superglue so you need to be careful.  You can use an activator spray to dry and harden the resin instantly, but I chose not to use it because it dries out my skin...I have really dry hands already. Once it air dried and was no longer tacky, I brushed on a second coat.

And there you have it. Repaired and no longer scary to look at! I'm going to try and grow this nail out with the strip on.  The break doesn't hurt, but I don't fancy wandering around with a nub on my 'photo' hand!

Here are some of my presents!

A little storage chest from Argos. It's already full but I have a large wardrobe and could fit this and another two (possibly) in there if need be... I'm also going to attempt to use the box this came in to make a light box! Stay tuned for that one.

 Bottom drawer of reds, pinks, purples, blues and greens.

Middle drawer with some more greens, blacks, dark duos, greys, glitters and clears. I have a little tub of mini pots in there too.

Top drawer. In this one there are files, diamantes, stamping accessories, nail tips, striping colours, tape, transfers, stickers and other bits and bobs.

 Nails inc set.

 L-R. 10ml bottles of Kensington Caviar topcoat (dries in 45 seconds apparently), Kensington Caviar basecoat, Ebor Street (pink with tiny shimmer particles), Shoreditch High Street, Kabaret.

 L-R 4ml bottles of Stables Market, Bruton Street, Henrietta Street and a vitamin E oil pen.

 Manicure set.

What did you get for Christmas? Was your polish obsession indulged by your nearest and dearest?

Take care friends x