Hare Medusa Luminosa Snow Flakes

Happy weekend! Don't you just love the weekend?!

It's very cold here today and we are expecting snow tomorrow so I thought I'd post a mani which has been sitting in the file since before Christmas. It's not my favourite but it's good enough to get a mention I think....

When Hare's Illuminated Life collection came out I absolutely adored it. I knew I wanted them all and the only one I managed to pick up at first was Medusa Luminosa. As per Hare's description this polish was 'named for the Pelagia noctiluca jelly fish, aka "the sea's light in the night," aka the Mauve Stinger... aka Medusa Luminosa (in Italian). Bioluminescent light is given off by the Medusa Luminosa in flashes as it is stimulated by turbulence in the water." What a beautiful description and how enchanting!

Medusa Luminosa is described as a bright purple jelly with gold glass flecks, pink microglitter and glowing blue hexes. In short it is beautiful and it really glows.

For this mani I wore it alone and attempted to use 3 thin coats and there is when we ran into trouble...... I couldn't do thin coats because this stuff is thick. I mean really thick. By the 2nd coat I had already added about 10 drops of thinner. I don't say this often but I hated working with this polish so much I ended up hating the result and I promptly took the other 3 off my wishlist.

Now, I hear you ask was it a defective bottle? Possibly yes, however I have heard others say a similar thing. I didn't chase it up with Hare and maybe I should have as it is such a beautiful polish. When I look at these photo's I am reminded of that sticky, glue like formula because I can see that I couldn't get as close to the cuticles as normal. I also hate my nubs in this photo too, and it was before my light box, I remember I literally ran outside in my lunchbreak and stood in the freezing cold to take these pictures with people looking at me like I was a total weirdo. Oh, how I'm glad those days are over!

Anyway, if you are happy to work with a very tricky formula in order to get beauty then this may be the polish for you, it really is beautiful.

After a day of this mani I decided to practise my stamping and I was willing it to snow so I had to use BM plate 323. I am still in the very early learning curve with stamping and to get better at it is one of my main mani goals of the year. I used Barry M Silver foil for this stamping and I think it came out ok.

 

 

 

 

 I used the BM 323 plate for the snowflakes: 

 

I chose to post this mani today for another reason too. I have been practising my stamping on an old mani today and I had a revelation, this is my XL stamper:

 

I bought it because my nails are very curvy which seems to make me have to press extra hard when stamping the images, hence I usually end up with blurred images. This XL stamper is supposed to be more squishy and soft to counteract that problem. When I received it it looked like it does above and I've been using it but not found it much help because it is so far deep into the plastic casing. Well, I can't believe I'm so dumb! I saw a post yesterday on Adventures in Stamping about this very subject and apparently you can pull the rubber stamping bit out and fit a washer under it to prevent it from being pushed inside. Who knew it wasn't supposed to be like that! Here it what it is supposed to look like:

 

 



I haven't fitted the washer yet but it worked so much better just being pulled out, of course!!!! Duhhhh. My other revelation of the day is to use lint free wipes to clean the stamper and mistakes on my nails, I usually end up with bits of cotton wool stuck to my fingers and in my polish. How lovely! Well, baby steps it is for me with stamping, but I think those 2 things will help me so much more.  There'll be no stopping me now!

x

OPI Fall mani - finally some stamping!!

It's been a while since I've done any stamping and I have to admit that these were taken at least a month ago, but I really wasn't ready for autumn yet. Here where I live now the leaves are dropping off the trees and the colours are glorious, really it is pretty but we are having the Christmas lights switch on in my town and I can't help feel a little behind, I just haven't caught up yet. Mind you when my Christmas polishes start arriving (soon!), I'm sure that will put me in the mood.

I did this mani with 2 coats of OPI Schnapps Out Of It from the Germany collection and 2 coats of OPI Coral Reef which I got in an awesome swap with my lovely friend El. Coral Reef is an beautiful coral holo but I just didn't have the lighting to capture the holoness of it. I'll be wearing it again for sure.

To make it autumny I stamped over it with some lovely foils and Red Angel plate 118. These pictures were taken with my old camera and already I can see such a difference!

China Glaze Spin Me Round

Happy Friday!!! Let the weekend begin!

OK, so I need to start doing some more stamping and because I have nail polish freedom for the next little while and we've had some sun I thought I combine a holo and stamping.

China Glaze Spin Me Round is a beautiful subtle pale tan holographic polish from the Kaleidoscope collection which I sadly missed out on. I was lucky that my lovely birthday girl Nicole found some dusty hunting and let me buy them for cost price - how awesome is that! Thank you Nicole.

For this mani I used 2 coats of Spin Me Round and a topcoat, which didn't dull the holo effect. I then stamped over it using Konad special black polish and plate 85. I found some small black dots in my stash and then added one to each of my nails to finish it off.

I loved this mani, I hope you like it too.

You can see the holo effect quite well here, in real life it was even better, I just couldn't capture it with the camera!

Here it is plain, it's pretty isn't it!

And while I was taking my photos here was Miagi sunning himself! It was so funny, he was washing but everytime he moved he got covered in the plants above him - you can see them on his head. Bless!

Olympics Mani and something even better....

So, as everyone in the world will know by now London is currently hosting the Olympics. I lived in London for years and years and specifically in East London, about a 15 minute walk to the Olympic Stadium. It's a great place and I've really enjoyed seeing how it's developed.

Of course I wanted to do a mani to celebrate the Olympics so here it is. The stamping isn't the best, in fact I messed up the index finger and re-did it a few times but it never got to look any better. Oh well, you get the point!

For the base I used 2 coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls from the Spriderman collection. The formula on this was OK but it was a little streaky so I did have to work with it a bit. The then used Barry M Gold and Silver and OPI Take The Stage for the medals and drew in the podium and ribbons with Color Club nail stripers. The glitter is Barry M Britannia because I just had to fit it in somewhere.

I really did have trouble with the stamping on this mani and the green and red are both Konad polishes so I don't know why. My nails are pretty curved so I don't think that helps but I also got smudging from Cult Nails Wicked Fast so I think I need to try a new topcoat for stamping too.

Anyway, I got a lot of compliments and this mani was such fun. I even got to wear it to the Olympic villiage to see the water polo - make sure you scroll down to see the pics!!

And here's what I used:

And finally, the Olympics: here's the main stadium - look at the weather!!

The water polo centre: This was just at the start of the game - this is the Italian team

Look at them, aren't they gorgeous??!!

This is one of my most favourite London icons - Tower Bridge. All dressed up for the Olympics, isn't she beautiful? I just had to show you. Hope you've enjoyed this all just a tiny bit as much as I did.

Barielle Falling Star

Hope you are all having a nice Diamond Jubilee weekend. I'm relaxing today and finally have some time to update my stash and do a post (as you might see, I didn't wear this polish today - it is raining here and we certainly didn't have any sun!).

I have to say this polish wasn't on my wish list but I was lucky to come across it when I was looking for a polish for my Aussie swap buddy. I remember seeing it on a blog and thinking it was pretty then so I had to pick it up.

Basically this is a pretty mid tone blue creme with bronze glitter - I think it's unusual and the glitter does translate to the nail as you can see here:

This is 2 coats and a layer of Poshe topcoat.

Then I decided to practise some stamping  -  I think it actually turned out quite nice but in real life it wasn't quite as noticeable as in this picture.

I used OPI Take The Stage and one of my Cheeky plates which I set aside to take a picture of and now can't find!! I'll update when it appears. Take The Stage was a bit thin for stamping so I need to investigate a nice broze foil that will work well. Let me know if you have a suggestion??

Girly Bits Purple Potion

I have internet again. Yay!!!!! Which also means I need to catch up on my posts!!!!

I'm sitting here in my new house which I LOVE, in the peace and quiet with a cup of coffee with Almond Milk (first try today and it's yum), looking at swatches and working on my blog (finally), it's Friday afternoon and the sun is out. It can't get better than this!

Anyway, enough rambling. I am actually going to start with what I am wearing right now because I just love it so much and I'm pretty pleased with it.

So, I started out with GOSH Deep Purple which is exactly that, a deep purple creme, just one coat. Then came a polish I have had for ages and wanted to try out but for some reason didn't get around to it, Girly Bits Purple Potion.

Now I must saw I love Girly Bits and the creator Pam is just so lovely that it makes me love the brand even more! I have several other Girly Bits polishes that I love and will post them later. I used 2 coats of Purple Potion but I really didn't need to as one gave the same effect. Then I did some stamping.....

Now I'm a novice at stamping so I was pretty pleased with this effort. Have a look:

For the stamping I used Butter London Fairy Lights and Bundle Monster plate 224. Fairly Lights was a limited edition rose pink foil which they brough out for Christmas 2011. In my opinion don't be sad if you missed it. I have previously worn it for a mani and it was a big fail - very streaky, brushmarks and not that pretty on me, I ended up layering a glitter over it which worked well. In fact I was going to put it in my swap pile but actually it's quite nice for stamping so I think I may as well keep it (and the bottles are so cute they are hard to get rid of!). I might try it again one day and let you know how I get on.

OK, so I know this stamping is not perfect but this is the first time I have used a design which goes across my whole nail. I've been practising and as my nails are quite curvy I found that some of the design wouldn't take at some of the edges but today this turned ot fine. I think next time I would either keep the design the same over all the nails or I would position it differently on all the nails (rather than the same design on the index and middle finger and different ones on the other two). To be honest I hadn't even thought about that at all so it's a learning curve for me (which is one of the reasons I thought I'd do this blog), hopefully this time next year this will be a synch for me....

Anyway, it wouldn't be fair not to show you some of Girly Bits Purple Passion on it's own. This polish has a sheer purple base packed full of multi coloured and holographic micro-glitter. It's very pretty. It actually dries very smooth for a glitter and I only used one layer of NYC topcoat.

I've been wearing it for 2 days so far and it has no real tipwear and was easy to work with too.

This is so sparkly in real life, it's beautiful. In case you are interested (and to jog my memory) here is what I used:

Any pointers on stamping more than welcome....

Check out the untrieds my birthday girls have been using:

Helen at Nail Newbie

Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa C at Polish Junkie Ninja

Ashley at One Nail To Another

Lexi at Finger Painted

Alyssa B at Fancy Phalanges

Nicole at Epitome of Superficiality

China Glaze Poinsettia

Time for another untried and today was London Marathon day!

My lovely boyfriend was running the marathon so I know what effort goes into training and preparing, it's an amazing acheivement. I wanted to do a mani to support this occasion but I only thought about this the day before and we have been moving into our new house so I really haven't had a lot of time to plan it.

One of my lovely birthday girls suggested that I use the London Marathon Logo which I thought was a great idea.

I started off with China Glaze Poinsettia. I know this isn't a complete untried to me as I used it in my Cadbury's Creme Egg mani (here) but I've never used it for a full mani and I really think it deserves it.

This is a gorgeous true red creme which I think is actually quite jelly like. It is a bit more sheer than most cremes and has a beautiful squishiness and the shine typical of jellies.

This is 2 coats with NYC topcoat:

I then wanted to add some hearts. It got really late and I tried a few different plates when I settled on this one. It actually looks more like a Valentine mani than a Marathon mani but it was cute anyway. I used Konad special white polish and Red Angel plate 101. To give it a little sparkle I then topped it off with Northern Lights Silver Hologram Topcoat.

I'm only a newbie at stamping so I think that also qualifies for another untried.

I don't want to take this mani off but it's Monday and work (non-polish wearing) beckons. My boyfriend completed the marathon (yay and congrats!) so I guess it served it's purpose, next time I'll have to try and think of these things further in advance!!

Have a look at what untrieds my other birthday girls have been using:

Helen at Nail Newbie

Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa C at Polish Junkie Ninja

Ashley at One Nail To Another

Lexi at Finger Painted

Alyssa B at Fancy Phalanges

Nicole at Epitome of Superficiality