Aqua Flower Garden

I still have a whole load of manis I never posted throughout July and August and have been trying to crop the photos and write up the posts in a frenzy, before the weather starts to get really cold and I feel rather strange posting summer manis! Lol!

Here is a rather eccentric mani I did last month. The reason I call this mani eccentric is only because I remember a friend telling me "you've really pushed the boat out on this one", although I thought it was quite "normal" for me. My nails are the only way I get to express myself.

Anyway, here is my Aqua Flower Garden! The polish is a franken I made a very long time ago but had only ever tried it in a pedi. It turned out an unusual pearly aqua colour. I stamped with BM12 (just realised I hardly ever use the original BM plates anymore, who does?) and filled in the flowers and leaves with various polishes. What do you think? Too much?

Lovely Lacquer - Blue Gem & Fruity Pebbles

Today I have another two indie pretties to show you. These were sent to me by the lovely Lauren, the mastermind behind Lovely Lacquer.

Lets get straight onto the swatches. First up is Blue Gem. The first thing I noticed as soon as I opened the bottle was how dense the colour changing pigments were. One coat of this is all you need to get that blue/ purple duochromeness to show. I am in love with how evident the duochrome is on this one!
Lauren also has other colour shifting polishes for sale in her Etsy store, a pink/ copper called Princess Cut and a green/ gold one called Gold Rush.

Fruity Pebbles (love that name) is a multi glitter topper consisting of large hex and square as well as micro-glitter in different colours. This is one coat over white. The glitters aren't hard to work with at all, they don't curl or stick up nor do you need to fish them out.  I mattified it in the last picture as I was curious to see what it would look like matte.

Both of these and many more Lovely Lacquer polishes can be found in Lauren's Etsy shop. All full sized polishes are $8 and minis are $4.50 (plus shipping).

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Muted Green With a Stroke of Sparkle

Today I have another Polished by KPT pretty to show you. This is her Spectraflair top coat which is also for sale in two grades in her online shop.
This is a mini bottle but both grades also come in full size bottles. And because Katherine is a sweetheart and wants to share the luuurve, there is also a step-by-step tutorial on her instagram page on how she mixes up her Spectraflair top coats. So if you have Instagram, check it out. Her username is @kptran.

Here I layered one coat of spectraflair over OPI Thanks a Windmillion (Holland Collection) which was sent to me by the lovely Bridget from Polish oh my! I only layered one coat because I don't want this pretty baby to finish but I really like the subtle sparkle effect. If you want a stronger holo effect, more coats will be needed.

Bridget couldn't quite believe I didn't own a muted green shade like this so she immediately sent me a bottle. I love it! It has a slight pastel look to it, although probably a little too dark to qualify as a pastel! Maybe a murky pastel?!

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Icebreaker - Polished By KPT

Hi guys!

Today I have a great indie polish from Polished By KPT to share with you! Indie polishes have been everywhere for the last few months and each one is more beautiful and unique than the last!

KP Tran is the mastermind behind Polished By KPT and she was so sweet to send me some of her creations to try out. She sent me Icebreaker, which I will be showing you today and two mini bottles of her own Spectraflair topcoat and Midnight Kiss, a purple based multi glitter.

Without further ado, here is Icebreaker:

I pretty much did the happy dance for half an hour when I opened her package and Icebreaker was in there! It's a white creamy base packed with large purple and blue hex glitters as well as smaller green, blue and holo pieces of glitter and silver micro glitter! Whoa!! White based glitters are my absolute favourite!

You can buy Polished By KPT directly via her site on Big Cartel - here! All her polishes retail at $9.50 apart from the Spectraflair top coat. You can also check out her Facebook page and her Instagram user name is @kptran.

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Salt n Peppa over Mango Sorbet

I was really excited when some pretties from Lush Lacquer arrived in the post. I had seen swatches of Salt n Peppa all over the blogasphere and Instagram and always thought it was such an interesting and cool polish.

The first Lush Lacquer I tried is the famous Salt n Peppa. A mix of black and white hex, square and bar glitter in a clear base with some iridescent glitter mixed in to add to the fun. If you love glitter, you'd love this! They weren't skimping on the glitter either, it's so packed with it that one coat is all you need. No fishing or placement required and the formula isn't too thick and goopy like some other densely packed glitters I've tried!

This is one coat of Salt n Peppa over a franken I've recently concocted from some old leftover polishes. I think I'll call it Mango Sorbet because the pastel orangy shade reminds me of just that!

Asymmetric Periwinkle Bandit

As I haven't done a scotch tape mani in a while and today I had a little extra time on my hands, that's exactly what I went for. I should probably have the Union Jack or some sort of red, white and blue on my nails today since it's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee but to be honest, we're not really celebrating. In fact, we are going to the theatre to watch Rock of Ages, hopefully it's a good one.

Today's design is inspired by one of my favourite girls on IG, Nicole. If you have an IG account and want to follow her, search @nic_tchelly.

I started with Collection 2000 BMX Bandit which is a periwinkle blue much like CG Secret Periwinkle and Essie's Lapis of Luxury. Collection 2000 is usually a shelf I don't go near when I am in Boots but every now and again they do put out a mini collection that has some amazing colours. BMX Bandit (I love that name) is part of the Dynasty, Hoola Hoop, Wham collection which has been around since circa summer 2009 but I still love it.

For the asymmetric lines I also used Zoya Trixie which is one of my favourite silvers and the black with blue micro glitter is a franken I made a while ago called Starry Midnight Sky.

And here is a look at BMX Bandit on it's own! Isn't it beautiful? And gotta love the price too, £1.79 or 2 for £3!

Electric Fairy

I only brought 2 polishes with me on holiday as I knew that the mani I was wearing would definitely chip. One of them is a franken I made a while ago. It's a dark purple jelly with blue shimmer (only visible in the bottle) and some pink glitter. I called it Electric Fairy.

I didn't bring any of my "tools" with me or even my acetone so I had to do with my mother in law's which isn't very good, and no clean up! It feels strange wearing untidy nails!
The formula was also bit of a nightmare to work with as it was extremely goopy and of course, I have no thinner with me!

I also had to take these pics outside as there's hardly any light in the house. The colour looks strange to me as I'm so used to judging the colours of my polishes under a crafts lamp.

The watch ring you see in the pic was a Xmas gift from my husband's cousin. I love rings so I thought this one was really cool :-)

Fields of Gold

Here is another Franken I created a while ago. It's an olive green full of green (duh!) and gold shimmer, hence the name! I used micro shimmer for this one as I had already created a similar franken with coarse glitter.
I was going for the "old Egyptian gold" look but it turned out slightly lighter. I still like this colour, it's unique, I don't have any other olive greens like this!

The formula turned out really good. Not too thick and opaque in 2 thin coats. Drying time was average.

You have probably noticed that I filled my nails right down. They are starting to peel around the nail walls which isn't good and the little bumps are visible underneath some polishes. They are as strong as they were before so I don't know what's up with the peeling. I've started using Rimmel Stronger Double Duty Base Coat: Strengthens and Protects, we'll see how that goes.

What do you think of this olive green shade? Yay or nay?

Lost in Deep Waters

I was playing around with "forgotten" bottles of polishes again! I call them "forgotten" because as I don't really like some of the colours or the bottles are nearly finished, I use them for frankens and try to create shades of colours that I do not yet have.

Here is Lost in Deep Waters. When I tried this colour on a nail wheel as I was mixing it, it looked much more teal than it does on my nails but I still like the end result. It's a sort of murky, smokey blue which turned out more jelly based than creme (thus not as opaque as I would like)! There is the smallest amount of micro shimmer to it as well which is visible on some of the pictures!

What do you think of this colour. Yay or nay?

Pinkyberry & Old English Roses

Yesterday I showed you my first franken polish which I named Pinkyberry. As the colour is a cross between pink and a light shade of berry, it reminded me of old English roses painted on a porcelain tea pot :-)
I stamped roses using BM14 and Konad Silver stamping polish. The Konad silver and gold stamping polishes aren't as heavily pigmented as the other Konad colours, therefore not as good (imo) for stamping.

Pink Wednesday!!! - Pinkyberry Franken

Hi Everyone. It's that time of the week again - Pink Wednesday! Today I want to show you my first franken. I know it may look slightly more of a light berry shade but the base polish I used for this was Mavala Daring Pink. I named it Pinkyberry!! Not very creative, I know *hangs head in shame*.

I have so many pink shades so I guess I just wanted something a little different. I like the way it turned out, it reminds me of old English roses.
In some of the pics below, you'll be able to see silver, blue and pink glitter...oopps! I got carried away with the glitter and I also tried to add some perly shimmer to it.
I'm taking a penchant to frankens. I'll definitely be experimenting some more.