Tropical Flowers

Pretty, colourful tropical flowers on a pastel base - that's what's on my nails today!

Colourful Neon Holi Manicure

Holi, the Festival of Colours, is a spring festival celebrated widely in India and parts of South Asia and the world. Everyone, the young and the old, colour each other with coloured powder and water and use water-guns and balloons for the water fights. Its a joyful festival to get together, forgive and forget and have a lot of fun! This Bollywood song is a good one to get an idea about how its celebrated!

Blowing Kisses!

I love those "girl blowing dandelion" manicures and have wanted to try one for a while. But since its close to Valentine's Day I thought I would do hearts instead of dandelions. I didn't have a stamping plate with the face though so I thought I would try my hand at painting mine freehand. It is much trickier to paint the silhouette of a face on your nail than on paper, let me tell you! This is how it turned out ...

The Last of the Festive Nails!

I have two manicures today - one that was done for Christmas in 2014 and the other for New Year's Eve. First up is the Christmas manicure, which I did with a new Born Pretty Stamping Plate. The Born Pretty store has recently released a range of new stamping plates which have really pretty images and stamp very well. The Stamping plate for this manicure is the BP01. The stamping polish is Essie No Place Like Chrome on a base of Zoya Dream. I used a dotting tool to depict the snow around the reindeers.

The second manicure I wore for the New Year's Eve's celebration. I chose the colour teal to match a teal and black lace dress that I wore and used the lace image on the index and little fingers to depict that. I used the gold for stamping though, since black didn't show up very well on the teal.
The sparkly base for these nails is one Coat of Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Scarab topped with two coats of Sally Hansen Triple Shine 360 Sparkling Water. The images are from the MoYou London plates from the Festive Collection - 05 and the Bridal Collection - 07. The stamping polish is Mentality Shirin.

Happy New Year 2015!

A New Year means new beginnings - so here's to a new beginning for my little blog!
I have been painting my nails and doing some nail art these past few months - but not as much and I think it shows! I am a little rusty but it can only get better from here.
Here is a fireworks manicure for the New Year celebrations.
The base polish is Models Own Diamond Luxe Marquise Maroon. The images stamped are from the MoYou London Festive Collection Plate 05. The gold polish used for stamping is OPI Love Angel Music Baby.

Lilac & Pink Roses Manicure

Lilac and pink roses for the Lilac prompt of the GOT Polish Challenge today ...

Black Stamping manicure on a pink copper duochrome

Today, I have a stamping manicure on a pink duochrome nail Polish from the Barry M Aquarium Collection. Barry M Mediterranean is a pink copper mix. I have it here as two coats over a black polish.

Summer Bling!

The prompt for my GOT Polish Challenge was bling. My first thoughts were a manicure with black and gold or something dark and sparkly like that. But since its summer, I am in the mood for something sparkly - but bright and colourful!

Neon Tortoise print! - GOT Polish

Its been sometime since I last posted. I was away from home for a few weeks and the last few posts were scheduled before I left. After I came back, we were all sick one after the other and I just did not feel like painting my nails - which is unusual! Also, I broke a nail and had to cut them off. And when I did this manicure, it seemed to me like I had lost touch with my whole paint-clean- photograph-post routine. So although, the manicure turned out all right, I am not too happy with my clean-up, pictures and other details like that - but hoping things will settle back into the old routine from the next one!

Peach Manicure with Copper Stamping - GOT Polish

There may still be a slight chill in the air but the flowers are in full bloom in my garden and the days are longer and brighter. Spring is definitely here at last! And I continue my Spring theme here on the blog with a lovely pastel peach manicure!

I painted my nails with Barry M Gelly in Papaya. For the accent nail, I painted half the nail with the peach and the other half with Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Jade Jump. I added pastel studs to the accent nail and sealed them with top coat. For the other nails, I stamped them with images from the MoYou London XL Image Plate 01 from the Pro Collection. The stamping polish is Essie Penny Talk. I finished with top coat.

Colourful Flowers to Celebrate Spring!

I have a special Spring Manicure today! Its a stamped manicure but I have used a glazing or lead light technique to fill in colour into the stamped images. With this technique, you stamp an image with a dark stamping polish onto a light base, for example a black stamping on a white base, which is what I have used here. Then you can use a dotting tool to fill colour into the image with translucent polishes. Julia from Messy Mansion has done a good tutorial video on this technique.

For this manicure, I painted my nails with Model's Own HyperGel White Light. I stamped an image from the XL image plate 10 from the MoYou London Pro Collection with Konad Black. I really like Konad Black for stamping because it is such a dark, vivid black to stamp with but it is tricky to clean up and stains my cuticles.

Blue, Green, Purple Stamped Gradient - Tri Polish Tuesday

The colours for Tri Polish Tuesday for March are Blue, Green and Purple. I thought this combination would be good for a gradient. I also stamped a pretty pattern on top to add to it.

I painted the nails with Klean Color Metallic Aqua. I then sponged on the gradient with Klean Color Metallic Aqua, Green and Purple. I stamped an image from the MoYou London plate 05 from the Sailor Collection with Color Club Harp On It. The stamping is subtle so it keeps the focus on the vibrant colours of the gradient.

Textured Stamped Roses

I think I've said this before that I never thought I would like textured polish but I've loved them since the first time I used one. And I really like stamping over them. Although, after this manicure I realised that bold images with thick lines show up the best with textured polishes. I used OPI My Favourite Ornament as the base polish for this manicure - its a very pretty Champagne glitter. I don't think OPI states clearly that its textured (not to my knowledge, anyway!) but it does have a fine textured effect to it.

I stamped on top with Klean Color Metallic Purple (on the accent nail) and Metallic Pink. The images are from the MoYou London image plate 04 from the Pro Collection. The Klean Color Metallic Pink is so highly pigmented that it stained my stamper - but it does stamp very well. I didn't use any topcoat on these nails to keep the textured effect.

Champagne Bubbles for New Year's Eve

The New Year is almost here. To prepare for the various celebrations in the next couple of days, here is a shiny, sparkly manicure!

For my Champagne bubbles nails, I used Boots No 7 Just Black on my middle finger and thumb. I stamped with Essie Good as Gold, the champagne bubbles image from the Messy Mansion image plate, MM02. The accent finger is painted with Nails Inc. Luminous Red Metallic. The bubbly glasses are from the MoYou London image plate 05 from the Festive Collection.

The pointer and little fingers are painted with OPI My Favourite Ornament from the Mariah Carey Holiday Collection 2013.

Hope you all have a great New Year's Eve!

Reindeers, Snowflakes and Snowmen

My last Christmas manicure of the year today.

For this manicure, I used the Deborah Lippmann polish, Lady Sings the Blues - a dark blue glitter polish. Its highly pigmented and even one coat would do, though I used two.

The snowflake images, which I love, are from the MoYou London image plate 03 from the Festive Collection, stamped with Essie Blue Rhapsody. The reindeers on the pointer finger are from the same plate, stamped with Essie No Place Like Chrome. The snowmen are from the image plate GA33 from the Gals Fairy Set also stamped with Essie No Place Like Chrome.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are enjoying the holidays!

Christmas Traditions

There were many Christmas traditions to choose from, for my nail art today. So I picked Holly, because I love the beautifully shaped leaves with the red berries. And since a lot of the festivities revolve around the little ones in the family, I couldn't leave out all the excitement in hanging up those Christmas stockings and finding lovely little presents in them and under the tree!

For this manicure, I used a base of Revlon Gold Coin. I love these shiny, glittery polishes but really struggle with the clean up. I can't seem to get rid of some of the glittery particles - if anyone has any tips, I would love to hear them!
I stamped images from the MoYou London image plate 03 from the Festive Collection. The stamping polishes are Sally Hansen Insta Dri Quick Brick and Jumpin Jade.

Red and Gold Festive Nails

More festive nails today ...

For these nails, I used Nails Inc in Luminous Red Metallic. I did a glitter gradient on three of the nails with Butter London West End Wonderland and Revlon Sequins. For the glitter gradient, I painted on a thin layer of Butter London West End Wonderland starting at three-fourths of the way up the nail. Once dry, a second layer of the same polish halfway down the nail and a third coat just at the tips. When this was dry, I painted on the big glitter in Revlon Sequins on the glitter part of the nail. 

On the other two nails, I stamped an image from the MoYou London image plate 03 from the Festive Collection with Essie Good as Gold. 

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!

Candy Cane Nails

I think its time for some Christmas Nail art! Here are my candy cane nails ...

For this manicure, I used a textured nail polish, Essence Sparkle Sand Effect in me & my lover. The polish is definitely textured though not quite as much as the OPI Liquid Sands. Its a lovely sparkly colour, specially for the holiday season.
The candy canes are stamped from the MoYou London image plate 03 from the Festive Collection, with Essie No place Like Chrome. I debated between using a white or a silver polish for the stamping. In the end, I decided, silver was better to add some extra sparkle - it is a festive manicure, after all!