Yellow Roses and Green Leaves

I love bright, floral manicures in the summer so here's another one ...

Bright Summer Flowers

We had a really bright, sunny day yesterday and to match that, I have a very bright, summery, floral manicure today ...

China Glaze Road Trip - some Swatches, Reviews & nail art

I have swatches of three of the polishes from the China Glaze Road Trip Collection for Spring 2015.

I also stamped one of these for a pretty look, great for a spring/summer manicure ...

China Glaze Electric Nights - Nail Art & swatches

I am a little late to the party but I finally got most of the China Glaze Electric Nights polishes! I have been looking forward to this collection, as I saw many people in the Nail Polish world were. It has some really gorgeous, bright cremes perfect for the summer, along with some unusual, multi-coloured glitters, though I only got one of those this time. I have some quick swatches and a review below but first, I used a few of these for this nail art ...

Diagonal Dotted French Tips

I did this manicure with my March Nail Art Challenge in mind, the prompt for which was a 'Dotticure'. I don't think I do French tip manicures often enough - I am not a big fan of the plain white tips but I do love a more fun and colourful take on it, like this one ...

Hearts for Valentine's Day

A pink manicure with hearts - just the thing for Valentine's day, right?! I thought I would add a bit to it though by filling in the hearts in different colours with the advanced stamping technique.

Keep Calm and Polish On!

I have been looking forward to using this image plate ever since I ordered it! And since it was from the Born Pretty store, I had to wait a few weeks for it to be delivered. But I really enjoyed wearing this manicure - it was worth the wait!

Celtic Knots Green Manicure

I did not get a chance to do a St. Patrick's Day manicure last week so a green manicure has been on my mind for a few days! Also, I had this lovely green nail polish that I have wanted to wear for some time. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a nail fail as you will see!

Ruffle French Tip Manicure - GOT Polish

The prompt for the GOT Polish Challenge is the Ruffle Manicure. For this manicure, you just need to use a large dotting tool to create a line of dots on your nails. Then follow it up with successive lines of slightly overlapping dotted lines in a different colour. The end result looks like fabric ruffles. There's a good tutorial on Chalkboard Nails.
I thought it would be nice to use the ruffle nail art as an accent and french tips rather than the whole nail so this is what I did.

Its a pretty simple technique and the end result is very cute and colourful. This is my first attempt at this kind of nail art. I painted my nails with China Glaze For Audrey. And I did the ruffles with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Flashy Fuschia and Revlon Gold Coin.

Valentine's Day Nails - GOT Polish Challenge

I am late with my Challenge Valentine's Day manicure but here it is at last.
I haven't really done much for Valentine's Day in the last few years. But this year we did make an effort and I have to say, that it was really nice! It made me realise that if you have another day (other than anniversaries and birthdays) to have a nice meal and spend some quality time with your loved one, surely that is not a bad thing! What do you think?

Anyway, on to the nails ... For this manicure, I did a holographic gradient on four nails with China Glaze Holographic Astro-Hot and Infra Red. The ring finger is painted with Infra Red. These China Glaze Holographic polishes do not have a very strong holographic effect but they still look very pretty. The stamping images are from the Pueen Love Elements Set, Pueen 29 and Pueen 34. The stamping polish is Essie No Place Like Chrome.

Tri-Polish Tuesday - Pink Hearts & Lace

The colours for the Tri-Polish Challenge for February are Grey, Brown and Pink. My stamping manicure today uses two of these colours. And since its getting close to Valentine's Day, I thought I would go for an image with lace and hearts!

The grey base polish is Color Club Silver Lake - its a very light, almost white grey - although there is really no silver in it, as the name might suggest. It does look grey in the bottle, although it appears almost white when you apply it - its a good base for nail art, if you don't want a stark white. The stamped image is from Pueen 27 and the stamping polish is China Glaze Holographic Infra Red. The Infra Red is more fuchsia than red and stamps pink - it does not have a strong holo but its good for stamping.

GOT Polish Challenge 2014 - Stripes

Its been quite interesting going through my stash and trying to decide which ones of my old polishes to use for the manicures for this challenge! The next prompt in the GOT Polish Challenge is Stripes. I considered stamping the stripes on - there are some really nice stripey images on some of my plates. But then thought I would try my hand at striping tape one more time. And going a bit further with it, I decided to use three colours in stead of the two that I have normally used before.

The base colour for this manicure is China Glaze Fast Track, which is a really nice nude with a gold shimmer in it. The stripes on top are done with Sally Handen Insta Dri in Ruby Rush and Emerald Express.

Festive Food!

Food is an important part of any festive celebration - and the prompt for my Christmas Nail Art Challenge. And Christmas has so many foods that are eaten specially at this time of the year. This manicure celebrates some of these yummy treats - Christmas Pudding, mince pies, gingerbread men and sparkling wine!

The base polish is Revlon Hot for Chocolate. The little finger is stamped with gingerbread men from the image plate GA41 from the Gals Fairy Set with Essie Good as Gold. The mince pies on the pointer are also stamped from an image plate from the same set, GA47. The bubbly on the ring finger is from the Messy Mansion plate, MM02. The middle finger and thumb have a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust on top of the brown polish. The Christmas pudding is painted free hand with OPI Alpine Snow, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Quick Brick and Jumpin Jade. I finished everything off with top coat.

Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread man on my nails today!

For this manicure, I used the polish, China Glaze Fast Track. I love this polish - its a natural beige but has a lovely sparkle to it. I stamped these three nails with the Gingerbread men image in Konad Black from the GA41 image plate from the Gals Fairy Set. The other two nails are painted with Revlon Hot for Chocolate. I painted the Gingerbread Man on the ring finger and thumb freehand with OPI Did You Ear About Van Gogh? The hand painted gingerbread man is decorated with chocolate buttons!

Woods in the snow and a snowman

The manicure today is my attempt at winter nature. I painted the snowman freehand. The trees are stamped and I dotted on the snow. The trees in the snow looked better in my head, I have to say! But I guess, you can still make out what I was going for!
For this manicure, I used a base of OPI I Don't Give A Rotterdam. I stamped the trees with Revlon Hot for Chocolate from the MoYou London image plate 04 from the Mother Nature Collection. I dotted on the snow with Barry M Matt White and finished with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. The snowman is painted on with a nail art brush in Barry M Matt White.

Winter Lights and snowflakes

Some more festive nail art! For this manicure I used Barry M Gelly in Blueberry on three nails. On two of my nails I used OPI Don't Touch My Tutu with two coats of China Glaze Fairy Dust on top. The images are stamped from the MoYou London image plate 03 from the Festive Collection. The snowflakes are stamped with Essie Bohemian Rhapsody and the Christmas lights with Konad Black. Lastly, I used red and green polishes to dot on the lights before finishing with top coat.

The OPI Don't Touch My Tutu is a white jelly. I got it because I really liked swatches that I saw on other blogs. But even after three coats, you can still see the nail line and it does  not really go completely white. I am just wondering if it might be better to use it with a base coat of opaque white polish. I would love to hear comments from anyone else who has used this polish or similar.
I was planning to do the Christmas lights free hand but this image looked so cute, I had to try it first! I love the blue on blue snowflakes. I can't get enough of these snowflake images - you might see a lot more of these on the blog in the next couple of months!

Edited to add one more photo when I noticed how the nails shone with the China Glaze Fairy Dust in indoor light!

Inspired by water!

This manicure was for the Sunday stamping challenge in my Stamping group. It didn't quite turn out as I had imagined it. I started off with a base of Sally Hansen Insat Dri Blue Streak and used the saran wrap technique to dab on some OPI Sea You in Hollywood. I was going for a subtle blue on blue look but by the time I finished stamping and the top coats, you couldn't tell at all that its a mix of two colours! I then stamped images from the plates, MoYou London XL 05 from the Sailor collection, Messy Mansion MM02 and Konad M90. I finished with some China Glaze Fairy Dust for some sparkle.

Celebrating the Festival of Lights with Nail Art

Wearing nice new clothes is an important part of the Diwali celebrations - so of course, you need pretty nails to match! The Diwali inspired nail art today uses a traditional Indian colour combination - dark red and gold. Also, Diwali is the Festival of lights and traditionally tens of small earthen lamps (diya) are lit by every household on Diwali. And the day is not complete without some fireworks! I have tried to include all these aspects of the festival into my manicure.

For my Diwali nails, I used China Glaze Fast Track on the middle and ring fingers and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Quick Brick on the other three. I then used a nail art brush and the polishes, SH Quick Brick and Essence My Fortune Cookie to paint the diyas and the sparkly fire fountain from those fireworks flower pots. I added gold and red hex glitter for extra sparkle.

To everyone who celebrates this festival, wish you a very Happy Diwali!

Silver stamping on a multi-coloured base.

I used:
Base and Top Coat - OPI Nail Envy and Seche Vite
For the base - China Glaze Holographic Infra Red, Strap on Your Moonboots, When Stars Collide and OMG a UFO
Stamping Plate - MoYou Suki Collection Plate 01
Stamping Polish - Essie No Place Like Chrome

I painted diagonal stripes with the base polishes and then stamped on top.