Origami Sea Creatures: Inspired By Paperchase

Hello everyone! This was meant to be a stamping Sunday post, but I got a little carried away yesterday and ran out of time. Feels like a Sunday to me still as we have a bank holiday today in the UK, so I've sort of lost track of the days a little! As usual it is going too fast though!

The manicure I'm showing you today was inspired by a lovely passport cover I saw online, and just had to get when shopping yesterday. Glitter and sea creatures are two great loves of mine, so I couldn't resist! I didn't quite stick to the colour scheme as you can see. I went for Eye Candy by Danglefoot Polish as I hadn't yet tried it. It is wonderfully sparkly!
Fortunately I happen to have an origami sea creature stamping plate from Mo You London (Origami Plate Collection 05) as I'm not sure how I would have attempted this otherwise! The plate has sea creatures, dinosaurs and mythical creatures on, it's basically perfect, all it needs is some cats! I used my Uber Mat to make decals to place on my nail. I used dotting tools to colour in the images which was nice and easy as I was only using one colour for each image. Before placing the images I used Foxy Paws Smooth Operator to give me a nice level surface. After trimming around the images and sticking them down I finished off with my glossy Nails Inc Kensington Caviar top coat to give it some serious shine!
Colours used: Eye Candy - Danglefoot Polish, Smooth Operator - Foxy Paws, Grey - Barry M, St James - Nails Inc, Coconut - Barry M, Seven Dials - Nails Inc, Key Lime - Barry M, Wardour Street - Nails Inc, Papaya - Barry M, Spring Greeg - Barry M, Seymour Walk - Nails Inc, Guava - Barry M

Throwback Thursday: Summer Colours ft Concrete Blue

Happy Thursday everyone! Sooo glad it's Friday tomorrow. Just a quick one today, with some bright colours to match the nice bright day we had today. Spent my lunch break reading in the park and befriended a very adorable caterpillar <3 hope this whether stays!

This one is from around two years ago, and I wore it on a day trip to Portsmouth. I am ashamed to say I haven't work either polish since! The blue is one of Nails Inc's concrete polishes, I was way behind on the concrete trend, didn't really pick it up till they were in the sales, but I couldn't miss this one as it is my favourite shade. Also picked up a concrete coloured one, but still haven't found a good way to work it into some nail art!

I found the matte/textured effect really brought out the vibrant blue. On my middle and ring fingers I used a glitter I got from a set of Nails Inc polishes over the top of the blue, I think it worked well as a summery look :)

Colours used: Stonehenge - Nails Inc, Pembridge Gardens - Nails Inc

Stamping Sunday: Psychedelic Kaleidoscope!

Good evening everyone, if you saw my blog yesterday you may recognise the gradient below. I suppose I cheated a little with this design as I just did it over the top of the gradient from yesterdays  indie polish review of Native War Paints polish. But I wanted to do it as a separate post, as I loved this design and kept it on for a little while.

For the images I used my Kaleidoscope Plate Collection 03 stamping plate from Mo You London, and Barry M's silver foil polish. The foil polishes are such a good polishes for stamping, it's a shame they don't seem to be making them any more. Absolutely love the images on the kaleidoscope stamping plate, there is so much possibility with them and they're quite intricate. At some point I will use them for advanced stamping and see if I can get it to look really manic and colourful. The three colour gradient worked well under it I think as it gave some depth to the design without it making eyes water! That's until hat holo gets out in the sun of course...
Colours used: I'm Dating A Daredevil - Native War Paints, Shot By Cupids Crossbow - Native War Paints, Office Handsome - Native War P[aints, Foil Effect Silver - Barry M

Monthly Indie Review: Native War Paints

Happy Saturday everyone! Today is my most long awaited indie polish review ever! I ordered these soo long ago, it took well over a month for them to arrive (not the sellers fault - I think it's because it came from so far away). By the time they did arrive I already had an indie review lined up for that month, so they got pushed back to now. Not quite the seasons colours anymore, but never mind, anything goes!

I saw these first on Instagram, they are the Walking Hearthrobs collection, based on the walking dead. I don't actually watch the walking dead, but the nail polishes caught my eye! I particularly loved how well they go together as a gradient, so just had to give it a go. Below are (in order) Shot by Cupids Crossbow, Officer Handsome, and I'm Dating A Daredevil. It's hard to choose a favourite, but contrary to my normal preference of blues, greens and purples, I think I might like I'm Dating A Daredevil best. Better still though is the gradient, they go so well together!

Some shots below of the polishes in sunlight so you can see them in their holographic glory! Couldn't capture I'm Dating A Daredevil quite as well as the other unfortunately. I will 100% be wearing these as a gradient again, they're so bright and fun, the colours kind of remind me of kids parties in the 90's when I was small!
So would I buy more from the same brand? Sadly the answer is no, because it took such a long time to arrive, and I was contacting the seller beginning to wonder if they would arrive at all, don't want to go through that palava again! To be honest I don't think I'll order direct from the US again, no ones fault I think it's just too much hassle. Will stick to buying my US polishes from Rainbow Connection. However, I certainly don't regret getting these ones, I love them now that they are here!

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think :)

Shimmering Leaves

Hi nail world! Tonight I'm showing you a design I love, using one of my all time favourite nail polishes, a new (to me) indie polish and one of my beloved Mo You stamping plates. The colour on the left here is Baker Street from Nails Inc, and I am on  my second bottle! This is the first colour I got from Nails Inc some years ago, and I still adore it. I ended up getting a back up as part of a multi buy set in a sale, and it's a good job I did! It's such a lovely colour and paints on really nicely.


I used my Mo You Tropical Plate Collection 06 plate for the leaf pattern, and stamped it onto my Uber Chic mat. Once dry I used a dotting too to fill in all the leaves with a gorgeous silvery white shimmer from A England, Morgan Le Fay. I haven't used the colour alone yet, or over a plain colour, but look forward to trying it eventually! After painting some more clear polish onto the images and letting them dry I peeled them off and placed them on my nails.

I used scissors and a clean up brush to clean round the edges, added my favourite top coat (Nails Inc's Kensington Caviar) et voilà! I really like the simplicity of this design and think it makes a sophisticated looking mani (if I do say so myself!). What do you think?

Colours used: Baker Street - Nails Inc, Black Knight - Mo You, Morgan Le Fay - A England

ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia Awareness Day Nails

Hello nail world! Today is ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia awareness day, and I am taking part in a nail art link-up organised by Becca at A Certain Becca Nails. I must admit I knew little about these conditions, but have done my research, and am proud to be wearing the official colours in support of those who suffer from them.

The colours associated with this day are purple and blue, so I used these (alongside a bit of green that snuck in!) to try dry brushing for the first time. I think it worked reasonably well, but came out better on my left hand, as you can see below. The right hand looks a bit faded. I've seen that a symbol associated with this day is a butterfly, so decided to use my Mo You Kitty Collection 12 stamping plate for some gold outlines of butterfly wings. Unfortunately the wing patterns are a bit wider than my nails, so it looks more like a sort of paint splatter effect... I think it worked better when I used them for advanced stamping, as the different colours on the wing patterns made them a little more obvious.

Overall though I like this design (just not as a butterfly design!), and am pleased to be taking part in this link up. Please check out the other designs in the link up at the bottom of this post. They put me to shame! TTFN
Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Guava - Barry M, Cobalt Blue, Barry M, Raspberry - Barry M, Gold Foil Effect - Barry M

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping Sunday: Smoosh Nail Sunday

Hi nail world! Tonight I am showing you Last weekends manicure, I wanted to save it for a Sunday but last weekend I was spending the bank holiday with my boyfriends family by Stourhead national trust house, so didn't have time. Does mean this manicure brings back fond memories though! I've been doing Stamping Sundays for a little while, and have also seen other bloggers doing 'smoosh nail Sundays' so thought I'd give it a try.

I was going for an ocean theme so started with a pale green, and then three shades of blue for the pattern. I painted splodges of each blue onto a stamper, and pressed it lightly onto each nail a few times, moving it around as I did so to get the mottled effect. Most of the time I needed to re-colour the stamper between each nail so there was enough polish to move around. I think the right hand turned out better than the left one, and there were a couple of nails that didn't go so well, but for the most part I rather like this mani.

I used my Bundle Monster BM - 510 stamping plate to stamp some sea themed designs over the top in white to finish off. I particularly like the treasure map pattern and the seaweed. I will definitely try this effect again, it's nice and easy and there's plenty of room for mistakes that don't look like mistakes!

Colours used: Mint Green - Barry M, Blue Moon - Barry M, Blueberry - Barry M, Cobalt - Barry M, White Knight - Mo You

Throwback Thursday: Retro Tones

Happy Thursday everyone! I'm so glad it's Friday tomorrow! Today I have a design to show you from somewhere between two and three years ago, so please excuse all the clutter in the background. I was sat on my sisters bedroom windowsill with a bit of a hangover when I did these! Fond memories!

This colour combination is quite different that the sort of thing I normally go for, or ever have gone for, but I quite like it. I started with a neutral base. and then  used striping tape to create the triangle shapes. I finished off using a dotting tool to put a little black dot on the tip of each triangle. I think they look a little like party hats!

Colours used: Basil Street - Nails Inc, Antique Coral - Natural Collection, New York Noir - Nails Inc