Steampunk Nails with a hint of danger!

Hi everyone, hope you are having or have had a lovely weekend! I had a yummy takeaway pizza for tea so am feeling pretty good about that... but have kept feeling a bit under the weather lately and can't seem to shake it. Must be a January thing. So the inspiration for this look was a lovely lady who comments on my blog posts (thank you! :) ) who said she'd love to see some steampunk nail art from me after I mentioned it in a previous blog post. So, here it is. I had good fun with this one!

So on three of my nails on each hand I painted my nails black, and then used the Steampunk 02 plate from Mo You London to apply the steampunk images in gold. On my thumb and ring finger nails I used Candlelight from ILNP, which I was drawn to after seeing one of their Instagram posts and I really like it! Good subtle shimmer and perfectly wintery.

So the next bit of this nail art is where it get's interesting... In my nail art box I have some little steampunk nail accessories which have been lurking around for some time after I bought them from She Sells Seashells. Unfortunately they are no longer trading but I do still have quite a lot of stuff from them. So on my ring finger and thumb nails I stuck the little trinkets down with clear polish, and it soon became clear they were pretty 3D and would need something stronger! So I did two separate layers of gel top coat to hold it all in place, and one layer on my other nails too so they had the same consistency.

So the overall verdict is I loved the way these looked! It's a good wintery colour scheme and something a bit fun and different. However I only kept them on for about 24 hours as despite all the gel there were a lot of rough or sharp edges, which besides catching on everything actually cut my finger at one point! (ridiculous I know! :D). I'm so glad I did these though, and sometimes it is fun to have short lived nail art as it gives me an excuse to do more!
Colours used: Lady In Black - OPI, Candlelight - ILNP, Foil Effect In Gold - Barry M, Steampunk Nail Accessories - She Sells Seashells

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