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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Plaid Style with Colour Club Harlem Lights

I recently picked up my first bottles of Colour Club polish when I snuck into TK Maxx while in Dublin last week. I picked up the Harlem Lights collection, and immediately thought a plaid style design would go well with the cremes in this set. 



The base here is 2 coats Poetic Hues, a yellow toned nude, and I used my striper brush to paint on Lady Holiday (grey) and Baldwin Blues (blue). I topped this with two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat.


The one thing I don't like about the Colour Club sets in TK Maxx is that the bottles don't come with names (I like when brands give their polishes proper names instead of numbers, so when they have neither, it's really annoying!), it would be nice if they even had a list on the back of the boxes or something. Nothing that’s not solved with a quick trip to Google Search though! :)
In any case, I really liked the three cremes of this set, and I'm looking forward to trying out the rest!

Ciao for now! x

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Blue Cross

One particular element of nail art that I feel I need a lot of practice with is striping, and getting used to using my long striping brushes. I also recently separated all of my unused polishes from the rest in my stash, and found that I had an awful lot more than I realised, so in today's mani I’m getting my stripey-stripe on while using up some unused polishes as well. I saw this criss-cross style design online in various different places, and thought it would be a good one to practice.



The base for this mani is Baby Blue from GOSH Cosmetics' Oh My Gosh range, and the crosses and stripes are China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, painted with a striper brush.



It wasn't a bad effort, although I did mess up my index finger something awful! It was one of those rare manis that actually looked passable when I did the stripes on my right hand too, so it was a relative win-win all round!
Ciao for now! x

Friday, January 24, 2014

Girly Argyle

Howdy peeps! Today I've got a girly take on a jumper design – the Argyle sweater! I've been wanting to try this design out for a while, but just never got around to it until now. Also, I made a light box during my time-out, so this was my first time trying it out!



The base is Essence Free Hugs, and I used some squares of sticky tape and then painted on OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips to create the diamond effect. I used Barry M Silver Foil to finish off the silver stripes. Everything's topped off with a coat of Seche Vite. Nice design for some tape and striping practice!


I remember that I used to have a string top when I was about 17 with this design and colour scheme, and I loved it, and thought I looked the bee's knees when I wore it out! I think I’ll stick with wearing this on my nails from now on!

Ciao for now! x

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Hello Again! (Plus, a catch up mani gallery)

*dusts off cobwebs*

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been in here! I’ve had real life get in the way of everything, and the blog has gotten a bit neglected. But now I have a lot more time to dedicate to it, so I’m looking forward to getting more of my manis up for all to see.

Even though this is my first post in months, I haven’t stopped painting my nails, and I’ve taken quick pics of a few over the last few months with my phone so I can keep track of my progress.
This is just a quick dust off to kickstart my posting again, but I thought I’d share some photos of the manis I’ve worn since I last posted (this post will be a bit picture heavy!). Hope you enjoy! J

(P.S. Please excuse the state of my hands in a lot of these – stress plus nervous habit do not a very nice pair of hands make!)

Harry Potter

Sherlock

Monochrome Galaxy

Minions!

Loki

Seventeen Rock Hard Couture Effects Bijoux Baby and Cameo Crush

Floral stamp with Essence Break Through and Hello Marshmallow!

Star Trek

V-shaped tape mani with A-England Briar Rose and Rose Bower

Eevee-lutions, left hand

Eevee-lutions, right hand

Watchmen

Stripey-floral

Halloween Haunted house (my personal fave :) )

Sharks!

Butterfly wings


So, that's what I've been up to on my overly long blog hiatus. I have a couple of manis lined up for the next few days, so hopefully I'll be back to posting regularly from now on!

Ciao for now! x