Candy Shop Glitter and Skulls

Last week I had the chance to try out another Born Pretty stamping plate. I believe it's one of the newest additions to their plate collection, it's the QA8 and it sells for $2.99.
This plate consists of five full nail images and three smaller plant/ flower images. The reason I picked this plate was because it has three animal prints (I love animal prints), a checkered pattern which I have wanted for a long time and a skull image which I thought was so cute.

The manicure I put together involves the skull image and I tried to keep it part rock chic and part cute girly. What do you think?

Here you can see all the images the plate has:

Polishes used:
Thumb, middle and pinky - Justy Cosmetics No. 293 and Claire's Candy Shop
Pointer - Barry M Black
Ring - OPI Alpine Snow, stamped with Konad Black Polish

About the plate - If I am comparing to my BM and Cheeky plates, the image size on the QA8 is quite good (apart from that middle cow sort of pattern). They are rounded off as apposed to a full rectangle but I guess that doesn't really matter. 
I've seen some Born Pretty Store plates on other blogs that the image was too small to fit the nails, even on girls who had very short nails, but that isn't the case with this one. They are also etched really well and my stamper picks up all the polish nicely. I have no complaints about this plate thus far (I haven't yet tried the other images).

Get 10% off your Born Pretty Store purchases by using discount code VA7J61.

*Some of the products in this post were sent to me for my honest review.

My Las Vegas Nails - What would you wear?

Earlier this year, I spent a week in Las Vegas. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, it was way better! It's one of those places that you need a holiday after holidaying there! There's always something super exciting to do and see and the days are just exciting as the nights!

Whilst we were there, we went to shows and events every night and I wanted to show you what I wore on a night out in Vegas. As you guys know, I'm more partial to simpler designs and nothing too cheesy so I stayed away from drawing the Ace of Spades or Casino chips on my nails and opted for something that would fit in with the glamour of Vegas and still matched all my evening dresses.

I wore Leighton Denny Sensual Glam with a rhinestone encrusted accent nail! Sensual Glam is an off white packed with silver glass flecks which gives it that extra sparkle. My bottle is already half empty, I love this shade so much.

 I used nail glue to stick down the rhinestones otherwise they would fall off all the time. A couple still fell off throughout the week but I took the little tube of glue and a few spare rhinestones with me so I replaced them straight away. I was surprised the whole look actually stayed put for about 6 days.

What do you guys think? What would be your nail polish/ nail art of choice for a night out in Vegas?

Mish-Mash of Vintage Flowers, Glitter and Rhinestones

Today I wanted to show you guys a design I did for a contest currently taking place on Instagram, hosted by the ever so talented Bedizzle. The rules were simple, just to copy a design that she had done in the past. I opted for a design that I could manage as every other mani she had done was way to complex for me to attempt!

So that it wasn't an exact copy, I changed up the colours a little and the placement of the flowers and glitter as well. So it turned out a bit of a mish-mash of vintage flowers and placed glitters:)

Polishes used - Essie Mint Candy Apple, Collection 2000 Fruit Loop and Ninja, Rimmel London Apricot Punch, Miss Sporty Gold Backstage and OPI Alpine Snow for the dots and stripes.

Remember the Mermaid Tail nails I did a while back, also for an Instagram competition? I won second place. I couldn't believe it, there were so many great entries!

60's Red Polka Dot French

A nude and cherry red polka dot French. That's what I wanted to show you guys today! I thought it was very retro and 60's looking, hence the post title :)

Since I've been back, I've been so busy that my nails have been naked for a few days! I managed to finally paint my nails last night with a Speciallita polish I recently received in a swap and I will post that as soon as I've posted these last few manis I did before I went on holiday!

For this mani I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, a creamy nude shade with the slightest hint of rose. I use this polish very often as a base for funky Frenches! The tips and polka dots are Nails Inc Victoria, a dark cherry red which is much darker than what you can see in these pictures but as I just applied one coat over the tips, it looks lighter.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Fruit Loop & My Valentine Glitter

*This is s scheduled post, I am currently on holiday*

This is my latest Superdrug purchase (along with a couple more bottles...oops!). Fruit Loop by Collection 200 Hot Looks. Other than Barry M, I've been trying to stay clear of drugstore brands lately because I always either get a dodgy bottle or the formulas are so poor that they all need 4 coats which I can't deal with and always end up disappointed. However, sometimes I can't help it because they have really cute and fresh colours!

I assume Fruit Loop is part of their Spring/ Summer collection and it's a pastel peach which would look absolutely stunning with a tan. I nearly gave up after the first coat because it was so streaky but it eventually evened out after three coats.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do with this mani so I just started stamping and adding random things! Lol! I stamped with Konad m36 and sponged Kleancolor My Valentine onto the tips (I must do another mani with this glitter because it's so gorgeous!).

Glitter & Spark Overload!!!

Glitter is always a fail proof mani right? Wrong! Well, at least for me anyway! I messed up a glitter gradient mani :(
I really had high hopes for this one with a neutral base and lots of red and silver glitter to keep with the festive theme, but what you see in these pics wasn't exactly what I had in mind! It's like the glitter fairy threw up on my nails! I still had to post it though because it took me so long to do it AND remove it, that I would feel really guilty if I didn't.

I used Leighton Denny Sensual Glam as a base colour. I got this polish free with Harpers Bazaar magazine. The UK January edition is out now and they are giving away 6 different colours.
Sensual Glam is a sheer milky white with silver micro shimmer, which you can somewhat see in the bottle but it doesn't really translate onto the nail.
I'm not a fan of very sheer polishes so I had to do 3 coats to get a good level of opacity. However, I really like this colour. I used to wear pearly/ whitish polishes almost all the time a couple of years ago and now I rarely do.

True Love Toughens Up

As usual, I added a few bits and bobs to my existing mani by stamping with BM222 which looks a little like barb wire, and used Konad Special polish in Silver.
The reason the stamping is quite subtle is because I had trouble with the Konad Silver, I expected it to be much more opaque and thick than it is! Anyone else had trouble with Konad Silver?

I also added a coat of CND Effects Violet Shimmer. These effects polishes really transform a colour. This mani went from a purple maroon fusion to an electric purple shimmer in a heartbeat!

The not so scary Halloween mani

I didn't do any Halloween nail art this year. I'm not very good at themed manis and even worse at freehand. I suppose I could have used some BM plates but I rather admire what other bloggers have been creating. I have seen some amazing Halloween manis floating around this year :)

So, trying to at least keep with Halloween'ish colours, here is a not-so-scary scotch tape mani in orange and black. You can tell by the title, I had no idea what to call this one!

The burnt orange polish used is Metallic Mango by Milani. Orange is one of my least favourite colours, I'm not even sure why I bought this one, I think it was really cheap on Ebay! It's a shame I won't use it much because it's orange as the formula is amazing! The consistency is perfect and so manageable I didn't even have to do any clean up. Perfect is 2 even coats!

Purple Embelished Half Moons

Today I have a mani from the vault to show you as I still haven't removed 17 gold glitter crackle from my nails. I'm trying my best to keep a mani for longer than 24 hours, especially if it's still intact.
I like to see my nails polished all the time but I also have to take it easy on them as they are still peeling around the sides and I think it's the harshness of the acetone.

Onto this mani. Not much to say really. It's been sitting in my "to post" folder for a long time now! I got this idea from a picture I saw on Sephora's website whilst browsing. The model was wearing some sort of stiletto extensions and I'm not a fan of extensions but it still looked really cool.

I love half moon manis and need to start doing a few more of these but I wouldn't necessarily wear this one for very long because the rhinestones would start to fall off!

Pink Wednesday - Gothic Lolita Nails!

When I saw this picture on the Gothidge Angel Makeup blog, I fell in love straight away and had to recreate this mani! I thought it looked awesome!

I used a pound-store Barbie'ish pink polish (or should I say Euro-store as I bought it whilst on holiday in Portugal), it's by a Spanish brand called Lusty Cosmetics (I think) and it's #293 - no name! It's a pretty good polish considering how cheap it was. I also used BM11 to create the lace effect.

Nail Photo shoot 1 - Polka Dots & Rhinestone Black French Tips

Good morning all

Yesterday I joined forces with my cousin who is a make-up artist and a photographer. We used eyes/ nails or lips/ nails for the photo combos.

The model had very short nails so I had to use nail extensions on her (sorry some may look wonky but she had very small fingers and I only had certain sizes extensions).

I decided on 2 different looks. Polka dots (because I don't do enough of those) with a girly pink and blue barbie doll feeling and an edgy black/metallic with coloured rhinestones. The make-up and accessories we applied according to the nail polish colours.

Here are pictures of the hands only:

Products used:

- Jessica - Samba Parade (and I mixed in a few drops of CND Colour Raspberry parfait #519 to customise the colour. Don't worry, no polishes were harmed in this process).

- Barry M - Blueberry Ice Cream

- 17 Lasting Polish - Mini Skirt

I know most people change the design of the ring finger but on this one I decided to change the design of the middle finger !!!

Here is the photo after wardrobe and make-up was applied:

(please note that photoshop was only used on face skin and make-up, not on the nails)

  On the model's other hand I applied Metallic with black tips and a shatter effect on the ring finger:

I thought it looked a bit plain, so I added multi coloured rhinestones along the french tip line and vertically on the ring finger:

Products used:

- Barry M Nail Paint - Silver #288
- Barry M Instant Nail Effects - Black #311
- Rimmel London 60 seconds - Blackout #800

Here are the photos after wardrobe and make-up were applied:

                            
Hope you guys enjoyed the photo shoot.

If you have any requests for a glossy photo shoot, please e-mail me - nailstories@hotmail.co.uk

xoxo