Owl Always Love You

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm single (again) this year, but instead of moping I like to think of it as a 'me' day. So I'll be spending the day with my hamster Claude, plus Molly Ringwald and the rest of the Brat Pack - yup, I will be watching cheesy eighties films this evening. :) Are you doing anything for Valentine's Day this year?

My Valentine's manicure this year is based on a design by Chalkboard Nails. She freehanded an adorable pair of owls and I knew I had to give it a go. I love owls - according to my parents I've been obsessed with them since I was little - and recently I've been going owl mad. I've bought an owl necklace, jumper, snood and ring. Owl nails seemed an obvious progression!

The base colour for this design was OPI My Very First Knockwurst, a pinky nude. The two pinks I used for the owls themselves are Essie Tour de Finance and Essie Sure Shot (which I also used for the hearts on my thumb). The heart-shaped rhinestones are from a set I got on eBay.

Right, I'm off to watch Sixteen Candles and eat too much chocolate. Have a great day!

Barry M Magnetic Sparkle Gold

Although I've gone off magnetic polishes a bit since the market was flooded with them, I randomly decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted a gold one (I was feeling in the Christmas spirit.) Barry M Magnetic Sparkle Gold fitted the bill nicely. It's an antique gold, not too much yellow in it, which is the sort of gold I generally prefer. It also has some gold glitter in there - hence the sparkle part of its name. It comes with a diagonal line magnet but I decided to use a chevron one with it instead.

I just realised I do own another gold magnetic polish, but it's a dud one from Nails Inc - I think it was actually recalled because the magnetic effect doesn't really show up! To see really bad photos of it from over a year ago, click here.

Christmas Penguins

Evening! I have my final Christmas design for you today. I wore this to my work's Christmas lunch last week because it matched my jumper, which is this cute one from ASOS (that is obviously not me wearing it. I only wish I was that slim):

Before painting the design on my nails I did some Googling to see how other people had done penguin manicures. To be honest I wasn't overly impressed with most of them, so in the end I blagged it and just tried to loosely copy my jumper. And here's the result:

The black and white are Barry M polishes, the beak and feet are Topshop Louder, the gold bow tie is China Glaze Angel Wings, and the red bow tie plus red nails are China Glaze Ruby Pumps.

Aren't the penguins super cute?! I absolutely love how this turned out, and I received so many compliments from co-workers at our lunch. Yay for penguins!

This will probably be my last post before Christmas. I'm having a quiet one at home with my family and hamster Claude, what about you? So yeah... Merry Christmas!

Halloween Bats

Happy (almost) Halloween! I've had a busy day today. After work I came home and baked sugar cookies in the shape of bats, pumpkins, ghosts and witches for my friends to decorate tomorrow. I then carved my pumpkin, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be (I've only carved a pumpkin once before, back when I was about sixteen). I went for a vampire face and it looks really cool.

Anyway, for my final Halloween design I decided to attempt stamping again and settled on bat design from one of the Bundle Monster plates. I love bats. We have pipistrelles in our garden and I love watching them swoop around in the evening - which is where my inspiration for this manicure came from. I started with two coats of Barry M Matt White before using LA Colors Shock (yellow), Barry M Block Orange (um...hopefully self-explanatory) and OPI Strawberry Margarita (pink) to create a sunset gradient. It's only the second time I've done a gradient (the first is here) and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Finally, I stamped the bats on using Nails Inc Black Taxi.

The smaller of the two bats didn't transfer very well. The larger one was fine so I think it might be the plate rather than my own ineptitude. I tried to fix it with a brush but ended up making the higher bat on my little finger look really bloated! Oops.

Halloween Spider Webs

When I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago (I can't believe it was that long ago already!) I went on a mission to find some Essence polishes. I thought they'd just be sold in chemists like nail polish is here, but apparently not. After some Googling I found a shop on Calle de Fuencarral called Beautik. It turned out to be a great place - not only did they sell Essence, they also stocked Catrice, Konad, two Layla ranges, and a few other brands. I was quite restrained and limited myself to one Catrice, a Konad plate, and four Essence colours, one of which I'm showing you today.

I really like grey polish at the moment, so Essence I'm the Boss is right up my alley. It's a medium to dark grey polish with sparse-ish silver glitter. It's really pretty and was opaque in two easy coats. To make it Halloween-y I stamped spider webs using a Bundle Monster plate and Barry M Silver Foil. I'm still working on my stamping skills so the image didn't transfer perfectly, but I think it adds to the effect rather than detracting from it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Finally, I used Nails Inc Black Taxi and some striping tape to make black French tips.

I went to Waitrose today and they had a section dedicated to Halloween food and decorations. I bought a bunch of it. Apparently if something is coloured orange and black at this time of year, I will buy it. All of it. People don't really trick or treat where I live but I bought some spooky chocolate just in case - and if we don't get anyone, oh well, more for me!

Halloween Mummies

Hi, quick post today because I'm really busy. I've literally just finished watching the latest episode of Downton Abbey, I can't believe it's the series finale next week? What will I do with my Sunday nights once it's gone?!

Today I'm showing you a Halloween mummy design I did a couple of days ago. I followed a tutorial by Kayla Shevonne, although hers turned out a lot more mummy-like than mine! I asked a few people what they thought the design was and no one got it right - my mum thought they were supposed to be gladiator sandals with eyes. WTF? Let's see what you think!

I started with a base of Barry M Matt White before sponging on OPI San Tan-tonio to make it look dirty. I then used my trusty Models Own black nail art pen for the bandages. The lines aren't as opaque as I'd like, but oh well.

What are you up to for Halloween this year? I'm having a few friends over - I'm baking Halloween-shaped sugar cookies in advance for my friends to decorate on the night. Because we're cool like that. I have an awesome costume idea that I'm really excited about, but I'll keep schtum about it until the actual day. :)

As Seen On... Lucy's Stash

Hola! I'm still in Spain (today I'm travelling from Seville to Madrid) so I have another scheduled post for you. Today's manicure is one inspired by the blog Lucy's Stash. Lucy does a lot of beautiful nail art looks, and her swatches are so amazing that I always lust after every single one of the polishes afterwards (even the greens!).

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Recently Lucy showed a stunning half-moon manicure, and I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to try it for myself. Hers used Models Own Jade Stone which I don't own, so instead of searching my stash for a close match I decided to use a completely different polish. I settled on Kiko 336, a bright blue that's a very close dupe for Nails Inc Baker Street.

I began with two coats of Barry M Matt White, and once this was completely dry I used some hole reinforcers to create the half-moon design with Kiko 336. When this was dry too I used my Models Own nail art pen for the small black detailing. I think it looks a lot like a lace doily or something!

You wouldn't believe how many compliments I got when I wore this. In Boots the girl who served me told me my nails looked 'lush' and then called over one of the other sales assistants to look too!

As Seen On... Nailside

Hola! I'm on holiday in Spain (Seville and Madrid) for the next nine days, but make not with the long faces because I have some fun nail art posts to keep you entertained until I get back. Every other day I'll be posting a manicure inspired by some of my favourite nail blogs.

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A few weeks ago I showed you this manicure that followed a tutorial from the Dutch nail blogger Nailside, and today I have another one. Probably her most famous design is the cloud one. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to recreate!

The base is two coats of a-england Galahad, a vibrant teal. The other colours are Barry M Silver Foil and Nails Inc Black Taxi - all British brands today!

Have you tried Nailside's cloud tutorial? If not, what are you waiting for?! :)

Barry M Dusky Mauve

I have what's thought of as an 'ugly pretty' colour for you today. Barry M Dusky Mauve is a near-perfect dupe of Chanel Paradoxal, which has a brown/taupe base with purple shimmer. It chucked it down the entire time I wore this so I couldn't take photos in the sun, which means the shimmer was a little shy. Still, you can, ummmm, kind of see it if you look very closely...

A million years ago (or thereabouts) my mum and I were in Selfridges and I painted one of her nails with a tester of Chanel Paradoxal. I was 'eh' about it but my mum downright hated it. She took it off as soon as we got home! Still, considering how cheap the Barry M version is, it would've been a crime not to buy it. XD

An Impeccable Dinner Suit

Yesterday I went to a murder mystery party at a friend's house for her birthday. Ahead of time my friend gave us our character names and some background information. My character was a male Cambridge-educated wine merchant (funnily enough my dad actually is a Cambridge-educated wine merchant!) and under costume suggestions it said:

An impeccable dinner suit

What with being female and all I don't actually own a tuxedo (shocking!), so I decided to put the dinner suit on my nails instead. I've done tuxedo nails once before and didn't want to just repeat myself, so I did it as an accent nail on my ring finger (using Barry M Matt White and Nails Inc Black Taxi). I painted the rest of my nails with two coats of Rimmel London Grey Matter and one coat of Sonnetarium Samurai Princess, which is packed full of matte black and white glitter.

On a completely unrelated note, the new series of Downton Abbey starts in half an hour. Eeeee, I'm so excited!!

Studded V-Gap

Nailside is a blogger I admire immensely. Her tape manicures in particular are incredible. So when I saw a tutorial for this look, I knew I had to recreate it. Funnily enough I was already wearing Nails Inc Little Miss Splendid, which matched the base colour of her design pretty well. I used Nails Inc Black Taxi and Barry M Silver Foil for the rest. Here's my go at the studded V-gap:

You can see I was a bit impatient putting my top coat on and smudged the black, but other than that I'm really happy with how this turned out. I've actually done another manicure based on one of Nailside's tutorials as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that soon!

Lavender Jelly Sandwich

The title sounds a bit like something edible, doesn't it? Mmmm...

I have had the most AMAZING few days. The historic house I intern at has had filming going on for a BBC TV drama starring Michael Gambon (Dumbledore), Michelle Dockery (Mary in Downton Abbey) and Charlotte Rampling (Never Let Me Go). Holy crap, it was so exciting! I was kind of a general dogsbody but it meant I got to watch a few scenes being filmed. Plus I met Dumbledore! YAYYYY.

So today's manicure is my second ever jelly sandwich (you can see my first here). I began with two coats of China Glaze Sweet Hook (swatches here) before adding a coat of Barry M Lavender Hexograms. You'd think this would be lavender hex glitter, right? Wrong. It's actually purple square glitter with silver micro glitter. I love unusual-shaped glitter, so it ticks all the boxes for me. The formula was okay - I had no trouble getting the glitter out, but I did find that it clumped together a bit. I followed it with OPI Care to Danse?, a sheer lilac, then another coat of Lavender Hexograms and finally a second of Care to Danse? Plus top coat, obviously. :)

Barry M Magentic Sparkle Blue

I went off magentic nail polish a while ago because every company seems to be doing it now, but I spotted one in Superdrug recently that looked pretty cool. Barry M Sparkle Blue may have one of the most boring names ever, but the polish itself is anything but dull. It's a sort of pale blue/grey before the magnet is applied, but after it's magnetised it reveals a stunning bright blue shimmer. The magnet it comes with is a fun star pattern. The first coat went on quite sheer but I used the magnet after painting on the second coat and it was perfectly opaque.

In hindsight I think perhaps I should have taken the photos in the shade because the sun obscures the pattern slightly, but I wanted to show how sparkly it is!

Pretty cool, isn't it? But wait, there's more...

It's a duochrome! At the right angle, the blue shimmer turns purple.

What's your opinion of magnetic nail polish? Are you still a fan or are you over it? Sparkle Blue may have just rekindled my love of it...