Saturday 11 May 2013

Me again! I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting frequently because I have LOADS of backlogged designs that I need to share with you all. Today, I share my current nails, as advised by some other gloriously awesome polish ladies I had a little trip to Superdrug who have 3 for 2 on all cosmetics. How could you say no??? I bought Barry M Gelly Papaya and Dragon Fruit and the new white nail art pen. Then I bought some cheap MUA polishes because I got some glitter pots for my birthday and I fancied having a play with making some DIY polishes :) I shall post those results next!

In the meantime I introduce you to Barry M Papaya Gelly - two coats and some swirls with my new pen, in white. Pretty simple design but I wanted something bright and summery.


As much as I like the almost-neatness of these, I can't say the same for the left hand. Hahaa.



And below, just the awesomeness of Barry M gellies. I need to get more of these in my life, I now only have three!! 


My purchases;


11:13 Kathie
Me again! I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting frequently because I have LOADS of backlogged designs that I need to share with you all. Today, I share my current nails, as advised by some other gloriously awesome polish ladies I had a little trip to Superdrug who have 3 for 2 on all cosmetics. How could you say no??? I bought Barry M Gelly Papaya and Dragon Fruit and the new white nail art pen. Then I bought some cheap MUA polishes because I got some glitter pots for my birthday and I fancied having a play with making some DIY polishes :) I shall post those results next!

In the meantime I introduce you to Barry M Papaya Gelly - two coats and some swirls with my new pen, in white. Pretty simple design but I wanted something bright and summery.


As much as I like the almost-neatness of these, I can't say the same for the left hand. Hahaa.



And below, just the awesomeness of Barry M gellies. I need to get more of these in my life, I now only have three!! 


My purchases;


Friday 10 May 2013

So it was my birthday last Sunday, 5th May, make a note for next year! In celebration of this I went out for a meal on the Saturday with Uni friends to Bodean's on Poland Street in Soho followed by drinks in Leicester Square. It was really quite a lovely evening. The following day I met some more friends for a day out at London ZOO! Such an awesome day.

Anyway, back to the nails, so my birthday nails were done to match my outfit for Saturday night. My flatmate Beth wanted to do the same so I did her nails to match her outfit too. So mine were Monochrome and Beth's were Leopard print. Have a look;


Mine's the left hand, obviously, and Beth's the right. For my monochrome I used 2 coats of Ion by Sally Hansen and block acrylic paint for the border which I painted on with a little nail art brush. I then topped it off with my Barry M top coat.


I've taken a picture with my Barry M black because I used it to fill in the tips which I accidentally chipped whilst getting ready. :)


These are Beth's gloriously manicured hands and my first attempt at leopard print nails. We used Barry M Mushroom for the base, then a gold crackle for the big splodges (why not, we didn't mind if it crackled a little bit) and then again using Barry M Black and a dotting tool to do the "brackets" as we called them.



And here we are in out glad rags before heading out. :D



21:26 Kathie
So it was my birthday last Sunday, 5th May, make a note for next year! In celebration of this I went out for a meal on the Saturday with Uni friends to Bodean's on Poland Street in Soho followed by drinks in Leicester Square. It was really quite a lovely evening. The following day I met some more friends for a day out at London ZOO! Such an awesome day.

Anyway, back to the nails, so my birthday nails were done to match my outfit for Saturday night. My flatmate Beth wanted to do the same so I did her nails to match her outfit too. So mine were Monochrome and Beth's were Leopard print. Have a look;


Mine's the left hand, obviously, and Beth's the right. For my monochrome I used 2 coats of Ion by Sally Hansen and block acrylic paint for the border which I painted on with a little nail art brush. I then topped it off with my Barry M top coat.


I've taken a picture with my Barry M black because I used it to fill in the tips which I accidentally chipped whilst getting ready. :)


These are Beth's gloriously manicured hands and my first attempt at leopard print nails. We used Barry M Mushroom for the base, then a gold crackle for the big splodges (why not, we didn't mind if it crackled a little bit) and then again using Barry M Black and a dotting tool to do the "brackets" as we called them.



And here we are in out glad rags before heading out. :D



Sunday 28 April 2013

I have been super quiet and I am eternally sorry, it's been quite busy in my proper life recently but that is no excuse for neglecting. I've not been neglecting my nails quite as much but I have slowed in the frequency of adding new designs mainly because I've wanted to give my nails a break so they could breathe for a while. This is what I'm wearing at the moment and I'll gradually post the backlog up over the next couple of weeks and if I don't feel free to get on my case.

This is two coats of No.7 Teal and on my ring finger, one coat Teal and one coat of glitter from Claire's Accessories that the lovely Saz @mintnails got me for Christmas!



I was going for something quick and simple because I was going out and the design I tried before this smudged after about 10 minutes so I had to get rid :( I liked it too! Oh well I did manage pictures so I'll post that one next.

21:23 Kathie
I have been super quiet and I am eternally sorry, it's been quite busy in my proper life recently but that is no excuse for neglecting. I've not been neglecting my nails quite as much but I have slowed in the frequency of adding new designs mainly because I've wanted to give my nails a break so they could breathe for a while. This is what I'm wearing at the moment and I'll gradually post the backlog up over the next couple of weeks and if I don't feel free to get on my case.

This is two coats of No.7 Teal and on my ring finger, one coat Teal and one coat of glitter from Claire's Accessories that the lovely Saz @mintnails got me for Christmas!



I was going for something quick and simple because I was going out and the design I tried before this smudged after about 10 minutes so I had to get rid :( I liked it too! Oh well I did manage pictures so I'll post that one next.

Friday 29 March 2013

Why ever the hell not.

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11:57 Kathie
Why ever the hell not.

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Tuesday 26 March 2013

I'm back after a little tiny break and as celebration I thought I'd sit down and actually spend some time prettifying my nails. I'm very pleased with these! I don't normally go for having a different thing on every nail but I've been inspired by some of my fellow bloggers who have done something similar. You are all very talented and awesome and below is my attempt to pretend I even come a little bit close to being as talented as you are.





So I've used one of my favourite polishes as the base, it's Nail Pop Shade 11, Dove. I have this shade and Chino which is the nude version, absolutely love them, they're long lasting, really glossy, quick drying and they give a great full coverage after two coats. Next I used a nail art brush to do the stripes and covered my ring finger in full with Revlon's Silver Screen and finished them off with my Born Pretty hexagonal pieces of glitter. They're still quite subtle but I love the shine of Silver Screen and it looks awesome in all kinds of lighting! More pics to follow;



And below Nail Pop's Dove after two coats. Love it!





19:54 Kathie
I'm back after a little tiny break and as celebration I thought I'd sit down and actually spend some time prettifying my nails. I'm very pleased with these! I don't normally go for having a different thing on every nail but I've been inspired by some of my fellow bloggers who have done something similar. You are all very talented and awesome and below is my attempt to pretend I even come a little bit close to being as talented as you are.





So I've used one of my favourite polishes as the base, it's Nail Pop Shade 11, Dove. I have this shade and Chino which is the nude version, absolutely love them, they're long lasting, really glossy, quick drying and they give a great full coverage after two coats. Next I used a nail art brush to do the stripes and covered my ring finger in full with Revlon's Silver Screen and finished them off with my Born Pretty hexagonal pieces of glitter. They're still quite subtle but I love the shine of Silver Screen and it looks awesome in all kinds of lighting! More pics to follow;



And below Nail Pop's Dove after two coats. Love it!





Thursday 21 March 2013

I was originally not going to post this until I had a bit more time but I have been tempted by the awesome posts of some notably talented people. Please click links at the side to see their awesome works of nailart. :)

So, today I went to an outlet shopping mall with my Mum and there was a Next! We popped in for a browse and I spotted nail varnishes! Dangerous. I didn't realise Next sold w7 but they had a huge range and a load of suede effect ones which I'd been meaning to try out (the effect mainly, not necessarily the w7 ones). Well I decided to treat myself - they were £2.50 each and I decided I liked the pink the best so I plumped for that one, but the brown and black looked gorgeous too, and the purple... ok they were all nice.

They're great after one coat but I went for two to start off with, they're great to the touch, matte but with a sort of metallic quality about them, if that's a suitable description. I wanted to do something else to it too, simple yet quite striking, and this is what I ended up with;


Below is with two coats of the w7 Pink Suede, before I used masking tape to create the top triangles. Unfortunately it's not a very forgiving polish as my nails are quite brittle at the ends at the moment and this is visible under this polish where it isn't normally with others.


The black I used for the top is Barry M, I used to two coats to fully cover the pink underneath before removing the masking tape. I'm yet to be 100% happy with any of my masking tape designs I think I may need to invest in some less dodgy tape because I always end up with sticky nails afterwards!

I like this, I love the colour of the Suede and I haven't had bright nails for a while so I'm going to see what the wear is like on this polish, hoping to get a couple of days at least.
22:53 Kathie
I was originally not going to post this until I had a bit more time but I have been tempted by the awesome posts of some notably talented people. Please click links at the side to see their awesome works of nailart. :)

So, today I went to an outlet shopping mall with my Mum and there was a Next! We popped in for a browse and I spotted nail varnishes! Dangerous. I didn't realise Next sold w7 but they had a huge range and a load of suede effect ones which I'd been meaning to try out (the effect mainly, not necessarily the w7 ones). Well I decided to treat myself - they were £2.50 each and I decided I liked the pink the best so I plumped for that one, but the brown and black looked gorgeous too, and the purple... ok they were all nice.

They're great after one coat but I went for two to start off with, they're great to the touch, matte but with a sort of metallic quality about them, if that's a suitable description. I wanted to do something else to it too, simple yet quite striking, and this is what I ended up with;


Below is with two coats of the w7 Pink Suede, before I used masking tape to create the top triangles. Unfortunately it's not a very forgiving polish as my nails are quite brittle at the ends at the moment and this is visible under this polish where it isn't normally with others.


The black I used for the top is Barry M, I used to two coats to fully cover the pink underneath before removing the masking tape. I'm yet to be 100% happy with any of my masking tape designs I think I may need to invest in some less dodgy tape because I always end up with sticky nails afterwards!

I like this, I love the colour of the Suede and I haven't had bright nails for a while so I'm going to see what the wear is like on this polish, hoping to get a couple of days at least.

Saturday 16 March 2013

This one is from a months ago and I've just got round to uploading the pictures so this is the one I'm posting next. It's three coats of Sally Hansen's Lavender Cloud and a "Chit Chat" from Poundland glitter gradient on top. I really like it, I love the glitter, it's made up of different coloured and sized pieces of glitter which stand out more on the lighter base coat.




It lasted quite a while too, was very chip resistant which I was pleased about because the glitter was only a cheap one. Would recommend definitely!
20:00 Kathie
This one is from a months ago and I've just got round to uploading the pictures so this is the one I'm posting next. It's three coats of Sally Hansen's Lavender Cloud and a "Chit Chat" from Poundland glitter gradient on top. I really like it, I love the glitter, it's made up of different coloured and sized pieces of glitter which stand out more on the lighter base coat.




It lasted quite a while too, was very chip resistant which I was pleased about because the glitter was only a cheap one. Would recommend definitely!

Friday 15 March 2013

I haven't tried out dotting before and I thought I'd use the biggest of my dotting tools for this one. New polishes, Sally Hansen Himalayan Blue and Rimmel Misty Jade. I like the colours together so I thought I'd see what this looked like.

 




Three coats of each colour then dotted each colour on top. Quick drying and seem to be holding fast so far. :) I like them.

Also, whilst I'm here, I did my Mum's nails earlier, they could have gone better but this is what she wanted. I did a simple french manicure followed by stamping the little flower design with Sally Hansen Gray by Gray and then adding three little dots to finish it off. I wanted to try silver but Mum wanted this one. Ho hum, she's happy so I am :)

23:26 Kathie
I haven't tried out dotting before and I thought I'd use the biggest of my dotting tools for this one. New polishes, Sally Hansen Himalayan Blue and Rimmel Misty Jade. I like the colours together so I thought I'd see what this looked like.

 




Three coats of each colour then dotted each colour on top. Quick drying and seem to be holding fast so far. :) I like them.

Also, whilst I'm here, I did my Mum's nails earlier, they could have gone better but this is what she wanted. I did a simple french manicure followed by stamping the little flower design with Sally Hansen Gray by Gray and then adding three little dots to finish it off. I wanted to try silver but Mum wanted this one. Ho hum, she's happy so I am :)

Wednesday 13 March 2013

So today I've got another little idea inspired by my born pretty glequins. I started with two layers of my blue Nails Inc mini from the "Flutter and Paint" gift set I got for £2 from TK Maxx. Bargain! I then used my dotting tool to place the glequins one at a time over my Barry M top coat to stick them down. I then finished off the moon shape with a line using my nail art pen from Topshop.
 






I've had it on a couple of days now and it's lasted well. I also tried out my new Sally Hansen Dry Kwik for this design and it worked a treat. It's not a thick top coat it's consistency is water like but it does the trick.
17:09 Kathie
So today I've got another little idea inspired by my born pretty glequins. I started with two layers of my blue Nails Inc mini from the "Flutter and Paint" gift set I got for £2 from TK Maxx. Bargain! I then used my dotting tool to place the glequins one at a time over my Barry M top coat to stick them down. I then finished off the moon shape with a line using my nail art pen from Topshop.
 






I've had it on a couple of days now and it's lasted well. I also tried out my new Sally Hansen Dry Kwik for this design and it worked a treat. It's not a thick top coat it's consistency is water like but it does the trick.

Monday 11 March 2013


So I've had a super busy week and thus I haven't had chance to do any nail related things unfortunately. It was good to have a break though, I've let my nails breathe for a few days and they're feeling much better, if not a little battered after my hands-on week camera assisting. 

I did have a lovely delivery of nail varnishes earlier in the week though so to celebrate my last day and getting to work on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway I painted my nails on Friday night and here are the results.


This is Sally Hansen Gray by Gray with SH Gilded Lily on top. I love this. The gilded lily looks gorgeous in all kinds of light. It really shimmers but as you can see from above picture you can still really see the colour underneath when you move your hand. This would look brilliant as a gradient I think.


It's not quite glitter pieces it's lots of tiny differently shaped gold flakes, really pretty. 


And here's Gray by Gray on its own. Really nice, this is after two coats but I was impressed even after just one. Apologies for state of nails and hand, like I said a week of manual labour has caused some damage but I'm all over the hand cream now so they should be good again soon. :) I'll be back soon with some more updates!!

And a little after thought - although it did last quite well considering I worked a 14 hour hands-on day the day after applying (without a top coat may I add) it held quite well. And it's so much easier to remove than normal glitter. Perfect!
00:12 Kathie

So I've had a super busy week and thus I haven't had chance to do any nail related things unfortunately. It was good to have a break though, I've let my nails breathe for a few days and they're feeling much better, if not a little battered after my hands-on week camera assisting. 

I did have a lovely delivery of nail varnishes earlier in the week though so to celebrate my last day and getting to work on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway I painted my nails on Friday night and here are the results.


This is Sally Hansen Gray by Gray with SH Gilded Lily on top. I love this. The gilded lily looks gorgeous in all kinds of light. It really shimmers but as you can see from above picture you can still really see the colour underneath when you move your hand. This would look brilliant as a gradient I think.


It's not quite glitter pieces it's lots of tiny differently shaped gold flakes, really pretty. 


And here's Gray by Gray on its own. Really nice, this is after two coats but I was impressed even after just one. Apologies for state of nails and hand, like I said a week of manual labour has caused some damage but I'm all over the hand cream now so they should be good again soon. :) I'll be back soon with some more updates!!

And a little after thought - although it did last quite well considering I worked a 14 hour hands-on day the day after applying (without a top coat may I add) it held quite well. And it's so much easier to remove than normal glitter. Perfect!

Saturday 2 March 2013

I promised myself I'd let my nails breathe for the night and do this tomorrow but I couldn't resist. New polish, Nail Pop, I've got it in two colours so I'll try the other one soon too. I've just gone for the simple nude shade, or "Chino, Shade 7", because I'm working all next week so I need something that is understated and can chip as much as I like without me minding too much. So here's some pictures;


Three coats but it looked great after two, I just needed to do some patching up after my dodgy painting. My nails are pretty short right now too for reason mentioned above. It's quite a nice polish, quick drying, super smooth, no bubbles and glossier than some of my other polishes.


Haven't used a top coat, I might, just to seal it but I'll see tomorrow. Pretty pleased with this, my other shade is a light gray. I bought them to use as base coats for other designs but this one's nice for just an understated coverage whilst I'm playing with cameras next week.


23:01 Kathie
I promised myself I'd let my nails breathe for the night and do this tomorrow but I couldn't resist. New polish, Nail Pop, I've got it in two colours so I'll try the other one soon too. I've just gone for the simple nude shade, or "Chino, Shade 7", because I'm working all next week so I need something that is understated and can chip as much as I like without me minding too much. So here's some pictures;


Three coats but it looked great after two, I just needed to do some patching up after my dodgy painting. My nails are pretty short right now too for reason mentioned above. It's quite a nice polish, quick drying, super smooth, no bubbles and glossier than some of my other polishes.


Haven't used a top coat, I might, just to seal it but I'll see tomorrow. Pretty pleased with this, my other shade is a light gray. I bought them to use as base coats for other designs but this one's nice for just an understated coverage whilst I'm playing with cameras next week.


Friday 1 March 2013

This was my first attempt at stamping. I bought a little stamper set that came with a random plate, which to my delight was flower based and really quite lovely so here are the results;


First one is a close up with flash because you can really see how lovely the basecoat is with this lighting. It's Sally Hensen's Shiny Penny, two coats and it looks great on it's own;


I then used Barry M black to stamp on the flower design and I was really happy with how it showed up. Covered with a top coat and it looked lovely! 


And then here's without flash so you can see the stamp better.


It's a really fun and super quick way to create designs but there's something to be said for spending a bit more time doing it yourself so I don't know how often I'll be using this but it's a great little gadget to have!
17:50 Kathie
This was my first attempt at stamping. I bought a little stamper set that came with a random plate, which to my delight was flower based and really quite lovely so here are the results;


First one is a close up with flash because you can really see how lovely the basecoat is with this lighting. It's Sally Hensen's Shiny Penny, two coats and it looks great on it's own;


I then used Barry M black to stamp on the flower design and I was really happy with how it showed up. Covered with a top coat and it looked lovely! 


And then here's without flash so you can see the stamp better.


It's a really fun and super quick way to create designs but there's something to be said for spending a bit more time doing it yourself so I don't know how often I'll be using this but it's a great little gadget to have!

Thursday 28 February 2013

Inspired by a clingfilm tutorial I read a while back. I used Superdrug's cheap light pink MUA Natural Days and a little Marks and Spencers Bright Pink from a set I got a while back. Then topped off with a new Barry M glitter I got called Pink Sapphire Glitter. It's awesome, I'm really into my glitters that have different sized pieces of glitter in them at the moment. They're gorgeous and I have loads to try out! So here's some pics;

First is before I added the glitter;



Serious love for this, it lasted a fair few days with my Barry M top coat on and the glitter wasn't actually that stubborn to get off! I will definitely be doing this again with different colours.
18:43 Kathie
Inspired by a clingfilm tutorial I read a while back. I used Superdrug's cheap light pink MUA Natural Days and a little Marks and Spencers Bright Pink from a set I got a while back. Then topped off with a new Barry M glitter I got called Pink Sapphire Glitter. It's awesome, I'm really into my glitters that have different sized pieces of glitter in them at the moment. They're gorgeous and I have loads to try out! So here's some pics;

First is before I added the glitter;



Serious love for this, it lasted a fair few days with my Barry M top coat on and the glitter wasn't actually that stubborn to get off! I will definitely be doing this again with different colours.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Hi!

I have very lovely and talented nail arty friends who have encouraged me to get a blog so here I am! I'm looking forward to having somewhere to show off all of my (successful) nail art adventures.

I may have lots of posts in the beginning because I have quite a large backlog of photos from previous attempts. (I may even get a bit Christmassy, who knows!)

In the meantime I shall introduce myself with a blog post about my most recent arty attempt.



I recently purchased some Hexagon Nail Art Glitter Dust Powder from Born Pretty, link here. After some strong words about rubbish delivery my glitters finally arrived, numbers 5, 9 & 14. I love them;


I used my new nail art brushes (£1.84 from ebay - go buy they're awesome. here.) And my new dotting tools to pick up the glitter, again, super cheap and brill delivery (here).

More pics,



So that was last night and the last pic from the bus stop this morning. After this I met up with my equally addicted to nail art friend Saz. Here is a picture of both of our hands together;






And my belated Christmas present and loads of lovely nail art things for my to play with in the future! Very excited to try these... and a photo-framed picture of us in Maltaaaaa.


22:42 Kathie
Hi!

I have very lovely and talented nail arty friends who have encouraged me to get a blog so here I am! I'm looking forward to having somewhere to show off all of my (successful) nail art adventures.

I may have lots of posts in the beginning because I have quite a large backlog of photos from previous attempts. (I may even get a bit Christmassy, who knows!)

In the meantime I shall introduce myself with a blog post about my most recent arty attempt.



I recently purchased some Hexagon Nail Art Glitter Dust Powder from Born Pretty, link here. After some strong words about rubbish delivery my glitters finally arrived, numbers 5, 9 & 14. I love them;


I used my new nail art brushes (£1.84 from ebay - go buy they're awesome. here.) And my new dotting tools to pick up the glitter, again, super cheap and brill delivery (here).

More pics,



So that was last night and the last pic from the bus stop this morning. After this I met up with my equally addicted to nail art friend Saz. Here is a picture of both of our hands together;






And my belated Christmas present and loads of lovely nail art things for my to play with in the future! Very excited to try these... and a photo-framed picture of us in Maltaaaaa.