Indy 500 Nails...Plus New Plates!

This weekend was the Indy 500 in Toronto; while I didn't attend, I thought it was a good time to do an Indy 500 mani....as well as gave me an excuse to use a few images from a newly released plate, MJ XXII; this is what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet, with an accent of Nubar Faded Jeans, then topped with SV.



Stamped using black Konad special polish using images from Big SdP Q (pinky and flag french tipped design on middle finger), Big SdP J (thumb), MJ V (car on middle), MJ XXII (flag on index and racing words), Mash-16 (CN Tower on accent) and m79 (clouds on accent).



Topped with SV to finish.



Here's a closer look at MJ XXI.











MJ plates are available here.

Thanks for looking!

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Unknown Big SdP J, Big SdP Q, Fauxnad, Konad, M79, Mash-16, MJ V, MJ XXII, nubar, OPI, SdP

I'm Still Here...With a Bunch of Swatches!

Hi guys! Yep, so I'm checking in to let you know I'm still around. Sorry I've been MIA lately and haven't been updating my blog often. Sometimes life just happens, I've been extremely busy lately and probably won't be able to post as often as I'd like to.

Although I haven't had a lot of time or patience for nail art, I have been painting my nails regularly (can't stand the sight of my naked nails, lol!) and I've been posting all those pictures on Instagram. My IG name is '@nailstories', if you have an account you can follow me there too :)

Here are some of the polishes I've been wearing for the past few weeks. Apologies about the quality of the pictures, I don't use Photoshop or crop pictures before posting on Instagram.

Butter London - The Black Knight

Jade Holographic - Rosa (sent to me by Bia)

Nails Inc - Baker Street & Essence Prince Charming

OPI - It's My Year

Tip Top Nails - Fairy Dust & Nubar Violet Sparkle

Homemade gold leaf top coat (sent to me by @bedizzle)

The Hungry Asian - Strawberry (sent to me by @nic_tchelly)

Essie - Brooch The Subject

Essie - Splash of Grenadine & OPI Crown Me Already

Color Club - Glitter Wonderland

Thanks for visiting
xxx

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Unknown butter london, color club, Essie, indie polish, Nails Inc, nubar, OPI, swatch

Olympia Beauty Show Haul

Today I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Olympia Beauty Exhibition. Well, depends which way you look at it, considering the damage to my credit card! If you are a nail polish hoarder or beauty junkie, this place is like heaven! There were so many pretty polish stands, I didn't know where to turn!

Everything was so clean and neat on the Essie and OPI stands, they were both packed with people browsing and grabbing bottles but the crowds and queues weren't as bad as I thought they would be. OPI had the entire Skyfall collection in stock apart from The Man With The Golden Gun which I wanted to badly but the lady said they sold out about 1 hour after the doors opened!

Here's some of the stuff I bought:

Skyfall Collection:. L-R: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Live And Let Die, Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice.

Some other OPI's I was lemming. L-R: Hot & Spicy, Pirouette My Whistle, You Callin' Me A Lyre?, Don't Pretzel My Buttons, Every Month Is Oktoberfest.

OPI was selling for £5.80. Some of the American girls on Instagram were shocked at this "discounted" price as that is what they would usually pay normal price. However, OPI is very expensive in the UK and there are hardly any sales ever, so this is an awesome price for us.

Color Club In True Fashion and some of the Winter Affair 2012 Collection. L-R: Gift of Sparkle, Winter Affair, Glitter Wonderland, Berry And Bright, Editorial.

Some random China Glaze lemmings (Lubu Heels, Ruby Pumps, I Herd That and the only 2 that caught my eye from the Wicked Halloween 2012 collection - Cast A Spell and Make A Spectacle.

L-R: Throw Me Something Purple Please, Uptown Glamour, That's My Little Secret, BreakAway, Indescribable.
Misa was selling for £2 so I grabbed these. I really like Misa and it's really difficult to get our hands on this brand in the UK!

L-R: Night Sparkle, Hieroglyphys Purple, Stylish Peacock, Lavender, Beaute, Twlight Kiss. Nubar was 6 polishes for £20.

To be completely honest, Cuccio is a brand I have never heard of but they did have a vast array of colours on their stand. I couldn't help getting some of these nudes and pinks. The formulas look very good, we'll see.

Phew! I'd been saving up for a while when I found out I had a ticket to this event! It is well worth saving up for if you stick to a budget throughout the rest of the year! This obviously means I won't be buying anymore polish for a very long time!

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Unknown china glaze, color club, cuccio, misa, nubar, OPI

Autism Awareness Day Mani

Today is World Autism Awareness Day. This is the mani I came up with to support awareness for a cause that is near and dear to my heart.

Base polishes used starting from thumb are Essie Borrowed & Blue, China Glaze Bahamian Escape, OPI No Room for the Blues, Nubar Boyfriend Jeans and Nubar Dark Wash Jeans.  All two coats except No Room for the Blues which was three.

Image plates used are Big SdP F (thumb), Big SdP L (index), XL A (middle), Big SdP F (ring) and XL A (pinky) using an assortment of Konad special stamping polishes except pinky which was Sally Hansen Instadri Blue-Away as I was less than thrilled with the stamping on the ring finger.  I hoped that when I topped the stamping polish was SV that it would even it out a bit, but it never.

I've had this idea of a mani in mind for a while and had hoped that the new Lilic plate I ordered a couple weeks ago would have arrived to I could include the puzzle pieces on it as then I'd have five different images for all five fingers...but I guess its still in transit!

Hope you had a great weekend...thanks for looking!

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Unknown Autism Awareness, Big SdP F, Big SdP L, blue, china glaze, Essie, Fauxnad, Konad, nubar, ombre, OPI, SdP, XL A

Pot of Gold At the end of the Rainbow

Green isn't one of my favourite colours...so I had to be a little creative coming up with a St. Patrick's Day mani without painting green on every nail. I thought of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would be a little colourful...here's what I came up with.



Base polishes used starting at thumb are OPI What's Dune? over two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet, then Catherine Arley 803, Catherine Arley 674, Catherine Arley 673 and Catherine Arley 800, all two coats except 674 which was three. Finally cracked open my Catherine Arley's after all this time.



Stamped rainbows onto the nails using KleanColor black with plate Big SdP A.



My stamping failed me at the top of the middle finger plus a few other spots so I took a fine brush and hand painted in the lines. Not a fantastic job, but passable....from a distance!



Then I hand painted the cauldron for the pot of gold....this is why I don't do free hand art! lol! I stamped a shamrock too using XL F using A-England Saint George but it stamped fainter than I wanted so I did hand painted another coat of the polish over the design freehand.



Added a dab of Color Club Gingerbread Man for the gold.



Then decided a wanted some gold coins; used Nubar gold glitters and put them in the pot.



To prevent the faint holo from fading even more, I used a light coat of Sally Hansen Clear Hardener which is suppose to not kill the holo...not that it mattered in this case as the scattered holo is so faint to begin with. It was interesting to see that I had a little drag on the areas I hand painted....not sure why as the coat of SH was thin plus a good amount of time had passed since I had drawn in the lines.




Thanks for looking!

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Unknown a england, Big SdP A, Catherine Arley, color club, Holographic, kleancolor, nubar, OPI, SdP, skittles, St. Patricks Day, XL F

Skulls and Bows

From the moment I saw this mani on Kayla Shevonne, I knew I had to recreate it! I squealed because it was just so cute! Then I beat myself up for not having thought of it before! How I have not yet done a mani with skulls, bows and black dots is beyond me, so thank you Kayla for doing this awesome mani! If you haven't yet visited Kayla's blog, do so now! She inspires a lot of my nail designs and her tutorials are really detailed and easy to follow!

I wore this many for 4 days (doesn't happen very often) and I can see myself doing it again, even with a different base colour because it's so quick and easy, yet so cute!

I used an unnamed pink as my base colour! Stamped with Konad Black polish and BM211 and added a coat of Nubar Black Polka Dot! The bow is fimo.

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Unknown black glitter, bm211, fimo, nubar, pink

Bad Little Kitty

Before I took Nubar Mod Aqua off this morning, I had a little play around with some nail art pens from Rio Beauty. I have a few of these pens which I bought in bulk on Ebay but the Rio ones are of a higher quality and the bristles on their brushes are much better than the ones I had.

Rio do different types of these nail art pens: neon, pastel, metallic and an original set (which is the one I received). They all include 8 colours, rhinestones, nail glitter, a design chart, application brush, instructions and a step-by-step DVD which is actually very useful. I like their dual applicator bottles, as you can use both the fine brush and the detailing pen depending on which design you want to create. These sets retail for £24.99.

One of the tutorials on their DVD is how to draw little paws and you all know how much I love cats! Plus I've been meaning to do something similar to this mani for a couple of weeks now, ever since I saw it on her blog and couldn't believe how pretty it was. Can you guess whose mani I based this on? Of course you can, it's AmyGrace's Beware of the cat mani, although I replaced the little birds with paw marks as I don't have that plate.

I drew the cat with the black fine brush and the paws with the detailing pen from the set.

And here you can see what is included in each set:

*This item was sent to me for review

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Unknown black, blue, cat, nubar

Mod Aqua - For the love of pastels...

Although it's not very spring-like and it's raining here today, (so I can't use any of my new holo polishes, boooo), I can still wear a pastel and pretend that it's sunny! Sometimes I like rain (especially if I'm snuggling at home) but today is not one of those days :(

Here's Nubar Mod Aqua from their Polished Chic Collection Fall 2011:

It's a dusty and soft pastel blue, much like CG For Audrey but less bright! Why don't I pay that much attention to Nubar? They have some really special and lovely polishes and the price isn't bad compared to OPI and Essie!
I had a little trouble with the formula on this one, mine was rather thin and needed 3 coats for full opacity. It also applied a bit streaky but nothing too major for a pastel! It's still a gorgeous polish!

As you can see, I'm also experimenting with different hand positions for my pics. I need to find one that compliments my nails and the shape of my fingers! I love the hand positions the girls on THIS Brazilian blog have, so I've been trying some of them out!

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Unknown blue, nubar