HPB Presents: Glitter Jelly Strawberries

Today I am taking part in another Hobby Polish Bloggers link up, this month the theme is fruit. I think it's a great theme, seasonal and plenty of options, and am glad to be taking part again. I haven't had a proper look yet but I've had a brief glance and I have to say there are some gorgeous designs! Mine didn't go quite to plan, so I'm putting it up before I scare myself by looking at everyone elses!

I spent a lot of time deciding what to do for this theme, I was very tempted to do pineapples again, but then it occurred to me that I could use this to do glitter-jelly-sandwich nails for the first time, so I went with strawberries.

I started with a base of Cosmic Girl from Danglefoot polish, I've included a picture below though I found it hard to capture all the lovely sparkles, hence the weird lighting! Next I painted on a layer of Pen & Pink from OPI's color paints collection. It was very bright at this stage! I painted on the strawberry seeds with white, and then thought they looked too bright so out another layer of pink over the top. I do quite like the subtle effect this left. It's just about a pond mani! Finally I painted on the leaves in white, and then dabbed on some green for a mottled leafy effect.

As you can see from the pictures, the glitter didn't show through, which is a shame as I would have liked sparkly strawberries! I think the textured effect did give it something though. You can see my more successful attempts at fruit nails here: Lemons or Five a day, I've also done a few pineapple designs in the past. Please be sure to check out the other mani's for this theme (links below the pictures), there are some really stunning designs!
Colours used: Cosmic Girl - Danglefoot Polish, Pen & Pink - OPI, Alpine Snow - OPI, Turquoise Aesthetic - OPI

An InLinkz Link-up

Throwback Thursday: Cobalt Concrete

Hi everyone! Just back from voting in the EU referendum :O Now onto some nails! These are from sooo long ago, possibly nearly three years. I still remember wearing them and enjoying the vibrant colours. I wore them for a trip to visit friends in Portsmouth, and think that it contrasted nicely with the teal maxi skirt I wore - visible in the images below.

I was late on the bandwagon with concrete polish, and got this one alongside a beige (or concrete coloured!) one in a Nails Inc sale. Cobalt blue is probably my favourite colour so I had to try it in this unusual texture. I find the matte-ness of it really brings out the colour, and the colour pops against my ghostly hands! I painted Stonehenge across all my nails, and then used glitter just on the middle two. I can't say I've ever used that glitter since, but it went well with the blue anyway! Will have to see where I can fit it in next.
Colours used: Stonehenge - Nails Inc, Pembridge Gardens - Nails Inc

Stamping Sunday: Steampunk

Happy Fathers day! I'm not sure in which countries is is fathers day today, maybe just the UK? Happy Sunday is maybe more fitting! Today I am showing my first try of some new nail mail I got from Mo You London. I am on a nail polish buying ban, but that does not include stamping plates, so I ordered four to mark being halfway through the ban! The first I am showing is Steampunk Plate Collection 02, pictures below.

I decided to try them out over a gradient, and went for blue as it's my favourite! For the stamping I used Models Own limited edition polish I got a while back in TK Maxx, Burnt Toffee. It is absolutely perfect for stamping. I liked having something a bit different from the standard gold or silver. As always with Mo You London, the images are lovely and picked up really well. The only thing I would change about this mani is the strength of the background colours. The below pictures are in daylight, followed my sunlight, so you can  see the images well, but in some lights it was a bit too dark so the images weren't as clear, especially at the top of the gradient.
Colours used: Blue Moon - Barry M, Cyan - Barry M, Cobalt - Barry M, Burnt Toffee - Models Own

Monthly Indie Review: Emily de Molly

This months indie polish review is a little smaller than usual (I ordered it as part of a bulk buy, and just couldn't justify one more polish!). I'll go ahead and say straight away though that this nail polish totally deserves a whole blog post to itself!

Today I am reviewing Turbulence from Emily de Molly. I saw it on Etsy a while back, but didn't fancy the postage which was about as much as the nail polish itself! So when I saw it on Rainbow Connection I jumped at the chance!

It's a blue jelly polish, filled with an assortment of different glitter shapes. There is a fine blue glitter in there, with some larger blue glitters and diamonds, and a few multi coloured medium sized glitters.
Here you can see it in different lighting, it really seemed to maintain it's extreme shine and sparkle in all light. even in the office! The pictures don't quite to it justice. I ended up having this on for a week as I just couldn't bring myself to take it off, and I've lost count of the number of compliments I got! I was even told my a beautician at a spa I went to that it looked like professional gels. It is a truly beautiful nail polish.

It's probably worth mentioning why Dance Legends peel of glitter base is in the picture at the top. I thought it would be worth using as it can be so hard to remove chunky glitter from nails. It held amazingly well for a week, but was pretty hard to get rid of and seemed to damage the top layer of my nails. Might just stick to soaking it off next time!

Stamping Sunday: Feeling Koi

Hi everyone, happy Sunday! Today I am showing you my first attempt a creating a Koi pond manicure with my BM-725 stamping plate from Bundle Monster. I've included a picture of the stamping plate wayy down at the bottom of this post, it's a pretty one!

For my first attempt I wanted to try a classic Koi pond pattern over black, with orange and white fish, and green plant life. For this design I used the advanced stamping technique, stamping the images onto my Uber Mat and filling them in using a dotting tool. Once dry, I filled each image with white stamping polish, this gave a background to the images that would make the colours pop even over a black background.

For the fish I used a neon orange, which I actually got for about 2 euros in a supermarket in Ibiza a few years ago. No idea what's in it but it's actually not bad! I like how vivid it makes the koi, but it was possibly a tad too bright in some lights. On another occasion I might try a less neon shade, but then that might not be bright enough, trial and error I suppose!

Colours used: Lady In Black - OPI, Midnight Green - Mo You London, Key Lime - Barry M, White Knight - Mo You London, W18 - Color Cosmetic

< So here is the stamping plate I was raving about. Most of my plates are from Mo You London so this is a little different. I really like that the images make up one big image, I love plates like that but often end up getting separated designs as they can be easier to use.

Thanks for reading! I have a few other idea for manicures I can do with this plate, and look forward to trying them out. Next attempt at the Koi pond mani to follow.... sometime!

Snake snake! Ohh it's a snake!

Snake snaaake! Tonight I am very sleepy, so I'm sharing some very lively nails! For these nails I used the OPI color paints to get a really vibrant colour. I thought they'd be good for a stripy snake as they blend well together.

I started with a white base and then used a nail art pen to draw a snake outline onto each hand. I like the shape in the picture on the top left best, though I had originally intended to do a fairly straight shape for both. Next I used a small nail art brush to paint strips in a variety of color paint colours along the snake. One dry I used a thinner brush to outline the snake, and paint on a tongue in red. I used a dotting tool for the eyes.

I like this one a lot I think it's good fun. The straight-ish snake could have been neater I think, but they were good entertainment for a while! Ssssssssss!

Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Nail Art Pen in Black - Barry M, Primarily Yellow - OPI, Chromatic Orange - OPI, Pen & Pink - OPI, Purple Perspective - OPI, Turquoise Aesthetic - OPI, Lady In Black - OPI, Red Hot Rio - OPI

Stamping Sunday: Floral Patterns & Barry M Coconut Polish

Happy Sunday everyone! I must admit I'm not looking forward to being back at work, going to be a busy week! Today I'm showing a bit of ad-hoc stamping and my belated thoughts on Barry M's coconut infusion polish. I'm currently on a nail polish buying ban (nooo!) so haven't been able to buy any of the coconut infusion polishes to try. Fortunately I was given Surfboard as a gift so have been able to try just one!

As expected, and hoped for, it includes the wide brush shape which makes it paint on smoothly, and it's nice and easy to get neat edges. Although it was pale it was nice and opaque, below is two coats. I was really impressed with the formula, it paints on well and is lovely and shiny. I like the lid colour too!

For the stamping I used a silvery rose metallic polish, which gave a very girly finish! A lot girlier than the sort of thing I usually go for. I used my Mo You London Pro Plate 06 for the patterns. I hadn't used all of them yet so enjoyed giving them a try. I particularly like the images on my middle fingers. What do you think?
Colour: Surfboard - Barry M, Kings Road - Nails Inc

The Switching Post - Jenne From Polished Pathology

Hello! Today I am excited to to be doing a blog switch with Jenne from Polished Pathology. Make sure you check out her awesome blog, and the lovely design she created below!

Blog switch with Rebecca from Claws For Thought - The Switching Post

Hey guys, Jenne here! Today I am so excited to switch with Rebecca from Claws For Thought. We decided to do a negative space mani for our switch, and I thought it would be fun to do one of my three step tutorials! Sadly, I accidentally deleted the first set of pics for this look, but you'll still get the general idea of what to do. Let's get to it!

---

For this look I used the following:

Zoya Nail Polish in Ness

Zoya Nail Polish in Dory

Zoya Nail Polish in Brynn

Zoya Nail Polish in Liv

Zoya Nail Polish in Ana (Satin)

Single straights and french tip vinyls

I don't have the french tip vinyl guide picture! GAH! That's the one I deleted. So, instead you have the finalized product of step 1. :/ From index-pinkie I used Liv - Ness - Dory - Brynn

I am quite sure there are dozens of other ways to make this easier. I don't know if there are nail vinyl forms for this shape. I don't even know that to call it. Long arrowhead? An isosceles triangle? Whatever it is, I had a certain look I wanted. I wanted satin over glossy in this shape. After you have your vinyls placed, use your satin shade (in my case it was Zoya Ana)

Remove the guides and you're done! If you're anything like me you might actually hate this mani. Not because I don't like the idea I was trying to go for, but I just don't like the feathers the straight vinyls left or that it's not 'perfect'. I see flaws more than I do the good stuff when it comes to my work. BUT, overall, I do like it and will probably try this look again in the future.

---

So, there ya have it! What do you guys think? Feel free to follow me on my blog or social media, and once again thank you for hosting me on your blog, Rebecca! <3

Polished Pathology | Facebook | Instagram