Christmas Lights

Another Christmas instalment of nail polish fun from me today!

I thought I'd do this one as a tutorial too, always a little unnerving when you have no idea if a design is going to work, but here goes!

Cloud and dots - Christmas jumper style!

Okay, so my latest mani is a really cute one that I think ended up looking a bit like a Christmas jumper, in a cheesy festive sort of way. I started off with the red clouds and then went a bit crazy with a dotter!

The base is Nails Inc's Park Crescent, which is really shimmery. It's one of those polishes that is 95% silver, but can be a little golden in some light, which you can almost pick up in the image above. It makes it less cold looking than a silver polish. The above is only one coat too, but you'd probably want two coats if you were wearing it on its own.

The red is my favourite red, Bourjois So Laque in Rouge Escarpin. It's super glossy and a lovely formula that has never ever needed a second coat, (yes I was lazy and went for one coat polishes today!)

I was really proud of myself too because I managed to make my right hand look identical, as last time I tried little dots applied by my left hand it was a bit hit and miss!

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Sparkle Snowflakes

In my previous post for Polish Days: Bling, I attached some stars to my nails in a Christmas themed design, with the hope that they would last until the office Christmas party on Friday. Well they didn't. I got fed up with them by the end of Thursday, and my other half complained that he was in the shower and found a star stuck to his bum...

Instead, I opted for a low maintenance design in the form of a simple dotted snowflake on Boots 17 Holo polish. While the above photo captures the design, it doesn't really portray how fabulously sparkly this is, so I took the one below with way too much flash to give you an idea. A week of Christmas bling!

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Polish Days: Bling

For this Polish Days theme of "bling", I went a bit crazy and found some of those little stick on stars that you get in craft shops. It is pretty much the least practical design ever, but it's fun and Christmassy too.

I'd hoped to wear my bling nails to the work Christmas party on Friday, but it will be a miracle if they last that long!

I was able to use one of my favourite polishes at the moment, the holographic polish from Boots' 17 range. It has an odd plastic film like texture to it, which makes it have a really lustrous, glossy finish. It does take a fair while to dry though.

I'd been looking for an excuse to try out one of the Nails Inc Special Effects 3D glitters, and this one, 'Fitzroy Square' does not disappoint. I was a little concerned with the first coat that there wasn't much glitter coverage, as it is blue glitter in a clear base, but the second coat went on a lot thicker. There are two coats in the image above, and I can see why it is called 3D glitter, as it has the same appearance as actually sprinkling loose glitter onto your nails. There's more sparkle to it than comes across in the above picture. Also, I got it for £3 at TK Maxx; and with the holo polish being only £3.99 as well, everyone loves a Christmas bargain!

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First Cloud Mani, in my pyjamas!

So I tweeted last night that I might try a cloud mani, and then woke up at about 8am this morning and couldn't wait! I couldn't decide on a single colour theme, so I went with the bright blue and pink with sparkly silver in between. The pink is a little more pink than it comes across in these photos too.

If I was going to attempt this one again, I'd make sure I chose a more opaque colour for the final colour - there are two coats of pink here and you can still see a little bit of the sparkle underneath if you look closely.

Anyway, now that's sorted, I may actually shower and get dressed! And wake up my other half, lazy moo...

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Polish Days: Sentimental = Bunnies!

This is my first Polish Days post, and for ages I was wondering what on earth I could do with the topic Sentimental. I've only been nail blogging for about a month, so there isn't a great deal to get sentimental about there.

Thankfully my other half reminded me that our house is filled with cuddly rabbits, which I collected as a child, so that fit the bill nicely.

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Here's looking at you

I suddenly had this random idea that I wanted to put fake eyelashes on my nails for some reason, so I came up with this decidedly creepy manicure. It did look pretty spectacular, and obviously more 3D than I can really get across in the image! I'll take you through the steps to create this one.

Always greener on the other side?

In my very first tutorial, I'll be explaining how to create beautiful 3D grassy nails. This one is actually really simple, and I was surprised by how long lasting it was - the grass is properly stuck on, even after washing my hands! It's done with the grass that you can get from modelling and craft stores, (mine is from Games Workshop - shh).