Pretty Paisleys

Hello lovelies!

Here is a girly, swirly and fun manicure for you...I am sharing these pretty paisley patterns as a quick break from all the festive madness that takes over this time of year.

Curly cuteness!

This manicure is a design that took me a while to post.  That's because this is actually my third attempt at completing this...and it still isn't perfect! Ah well.

Bottle Shot

I love this amazing full image paisley pattern that born pretty have created.  But to be quite honest, it was beyond my stamping decal abilities.   (The fine detail is sooooo hard to colour)

To make things easier for myself, I isolated a really small section of this image for my decals, and tried my best to colour the pretty paisleys in!

For my accent finger, I reversed the decals by stamping over a "smoosh attack" base (see tutorial at the end of this post).  This meant I only needed to colour the centre of the paisleys white!

Close-up

Base colour:  Sinful Colors, 101 Snow me White
Stamp colour:  Konad Stamping Polish, Black

Tools of the Trade

Decals and Smoosh Colours:

1. Primark Nail Polish, Unnamed (Pink)
2. Barry M Nail Paint, NP318 Peach Melba
3. Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Sugar Apple GNP 21
4. Rimmel 60 Seconds, 450 Get your Shades On

Stamping plate:  Born Pretty, BP-22

The Decals

Here is the smoosh attack accent finger before I added top coat....don't worry, one coat of clear smoothes out all of these lumps and bumps.

Smoosh Attack

I will definitely use this gorgeous stamping image again, but next time, I'll try it with gradient stamping instead of decals.

Halogen Lighting

Thanks so much for taking the time to  look and read my post <3

Candy Cane Chevrons

Hello you!  I am finally feeling festive, so I am sharing the Christmas spirit with this golden candy cane manicure.

This design brings all of my favourite aspects of stamping together:  Moyou London stamping plates, holographic glitter, decals and last but not least Mundo de Uñas stamping polish.

Bottle Shot

Here is my post for the A-Z Weekly Blog challenge. We post alphabetically on thursdays. Today is the letter G for "Gold". Hashtag #A2ZNails

This is also my challenge manicure for Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge. This week, we have been given the prompts: "chevrons" and "red and gold".
Hashtag #52wpnmc

Gold and Glitter

Base colour:  Beauty UK Nail Polish, Unnamed (Gold)
Glitter:  Loose holographic gold glitter from set of twelve
Stamp colour:   Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polish, 32. Reddish
Decals:  Konad Stamping Polish, White
Stamping plate:   Moyou London  Fashionista Collection - 04

Tools of the Trade

The Decals

Halogen Lightinng

Crumpets

An InLinkz Link-up

A2Z

An InLinkz Link-up

Crunchy Autumn Leaves

This is another manicure where I am attempting to fulfill several different challenges all at once!   The themes all cried out for me to do an autumn manicure with rich autumn colours, using leaves as decals.

My awesome Mexican friend, Mariana and I worked together again.  See more of Mariana's beautiful nail stamping manicures here:   http://instagram.com/stampingqueenblog or on her Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/stampingqueenblog

Our manicures together <3

Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.
This week, we have been given the prompts: "Books" and "Brown".  I don't have any books to stamp with so I used the most gorgeous, glossy, chocolate brown ever: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Cocoa.

This is also a challenge manicure for our facebook group: Stamp one, Stamp all Ten!   And the theme for the group this week is "Seasons"  I chose Autumn since this is my favourite season.

A-Z Weekly Blog
I am so happy to be part of the group of nail bloggers A-Z challenge. I will try to post alphabetically every thursday.  Yesterday's letter is D for "Dark", so I used deep autumn colours for the leaves and background. Hashtag #A2ZNails

Halogen Lighting

The lovely Mariana

Close-up

Bottle Shot!!!

Tools of the Trade

Base and decal colour: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Cocoa GNP 34

Accent fingers:  Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Plum GNP 1

Glitter tips:  Barry M Aquarium Collection, AQNP4

Stamp colour: Rimmel 60 Seconds, 405 Rose Libertine

Stamping plate:  Cici & Sisi Set 01 - Plate 03

Colour shift!

Shimmery tips

Another Bottle Shot!!

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

The Bird is the Word

Firstly, I am going to thank Priscilla for here amazing post http://pcontreras8nails.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-bird-is-word.html. I loved her manicure so much I am paying tribute, with my own interpretation using bird decals over pretty glitter and the same title.

This week I've been feeling under the weather, and by Saturday, I realised I had not fulfilled any of the challenges set by some of my favourite facebook groups.  When I looked more closely at the prompts, I realised I could just about combine them all in one manicure!

• Stamp One Stamp all Ten!  Over Glitter
• AIS Sunday Challenge:  Wildlife
• Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix: Domestic animals and 3 shades of blue

Lovebirds were the obvious choice for me.  We had a pair when I was small, but they escaped and flew away and became wildlife,  (even though all of our neighbours climbed their ladders to the roof of their houses equipped with nets and food, trying to tempt them back, but sadly the birds just wanted to be free).

My Dad gave me this Cici & Sisi plate set for my birthday and the images are fantastic, but I have just cut my nails, so I was able to split the images and use one stamping image for two nails.

To keep with the "three shades of blue" and "over glitter" themes, I coloured stamping decals in blues over a glittery blue base.  Thank you San for this amazing iridescent glitter top coat, I love it.

Base colour: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Sugar Apple GNP 21
Base glitter:  Generic iridescent loose glitter found in a set from ebay
Glitter nail polish:  Catrice Cosmetics Million Styles, 03 Have an Ice Day

Stamp colour: Konad Special Stamping Polish, Black
Stamping plate: Cici & Sisi Set 01 (white cover) Plate 02

The colours used for the decals:

• Essie Nail Lacquer, Where's my Chauffeur
• Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Blueberry GNP 5
• Konad Special Stamping Polish, White

Big Bottle shot!

Close-up

Humongous finger!!!!!

The amazing Priscilla

Bottle Shot

Gigantic finger

The decals

Tools of the Trade

Halogen Lighting

Tweet tweet tweet

Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge

Stamp One Stamp all Ten: Over Glitter

An InLinkz Link-up

Diwali Decals with San

I had the opportunity to work with two very talented nail artists to collaborate manicures for my birthday.  Here is the full post for my second manicure:  (See my previous post for my first collaboration.)

This time I got to work with San.  She is my wonderful friend and an excellent teacher, please, click here for her amazing YouTube stamping tutorials.  The quality of San's work is just perfect.  I have learnt so much from her.

You can also find San's manicures on instagram:
http://instagram.com/santie_nails

We both adore our DRK designer plate 01, and when San agreed to work with me it was obvious we would use this plate.  We decided to stamp the flowers, swirls and flourishes at the bottom of the image to make decals to colour and apply to our nails.  These beautiful patterns really remind me of Mehndi:  the art of painting the body in ornate designs with henna.  After a few tests, we both loved the way metallic colours worked with softer peachy pinks and this image.

Base colour:  Primark Nail Polish, Unnamed (pale coral)
The decals (from left in photo below):

Savers Nail Polish, Unnamed (copper)

Barry M Aquarium Collection, AQNP4 Mediterranean

Barry M Instant Nail Effects Foil, NP319 Silver

Essie Mirror Metallics, 944 Blue Rhapsody

Stamp colour: Konad Stamping Polish, Black
Stamping plate: DRK xl Designer - 01

Bottle Shot

The gorgeous San

Close-up

The Decals

Tools of the Trade

Our twin nails <3

I love this plate!

Enormous fingers

Halogen Lightining

Neon Disco

This is week four of the Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.

Every week, there are two prompts.  Participants can choose whether to do one, both or combine them. The first prompt is a technique and the second is a colour or a range of colours

This week, we have been given the prompts:   "The seventies" and "grey + colour"

Base colour: Sinful Colors, 101 Snow me White

Decals: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Chai GNP 29 and all neons from Primark

Stamp colour: Konad Stamping Polish, Black
Stamping plate one: Moyou London Princess Collection -
Stamping plate one: Moyou London Pro Collection - 20

Bottle Shot

Are you dancing yet?

Disco!!!!

Halogen lighting

Tools of the Trade

The decals

Scary swirls!

Big hypnotic fingers!

Catch you on the Flip-side!

An InLinkz Link-up

Flower Power

I am participating in the Crumpets 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge and it's week three.

Every week, there are two prompts.  Participants can choose whether to do one, both or combine them. The first prompt is a technique and the second is a colour or a range of colours

This week, we have been given the prompts:   "The sixties" and "textured polish".  I found a "groovy" floral fabric pattern from the 60's and copied it using similar colours and a flower power stamping image.  For texture I simply added a matte top coat.

Pick n Mix

Base colour:  Sinful Colors, 101 Snow me White
Stamp colour: Konad Stamping Polish, Black
Stamping plate: Moyou London Pro Collection - 10 XL
Decal colours:

• Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Paprika GNP 32
• Maybelline Color Show, 220 Orange Fix
• Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polish, 46. Mustard

Flower Power

My 60's inspiration

Gigantic finger

Closeup

Bottle shot

Halo lighting

Tools of the trade

The decals

An InLinkz Link-up