Lazy Swatches: Fun Lacquer Valentines Collection 2019

Hi everyone, today I have GLITTER to show you!! Glitter is always a great source of excitement for me! Fun Lacquer released a very sparkly valentines collection at the beginning of the year and I just had to treat myself after seeing some of the lovely videos of them under bright lights. There are six colours in total and I have done what I call 'lazy swatches', where I do one colour on each nail instead of each hand. I do this to try and save time as otherwise it would probably be months before I got round to blogging it!

All six shades are fine holographic glitter densely packed in a clear base, and are show below with three coats and a top coat. Scroll down to see how I got on...
Crazy In Love (little finger) - First up is this vibrant purple with a pinkish tone in  certain lights. Lovely and holo and very girly!

Lucky Girl (ring finger) - This is a bright green leaning towards teal/turquoise and intensely sparkly.

Kiss Me (middle finger) - Classic sparkly red. Not quite as glittery as the others in some lights but super sparkly in bright sunshine or artificial light.

BFF (index finger) - Bright blue holographic. Some similarities to 'How Deep Is Your Holo' from Fun Lacquer's Simply Nailogical Collection but finer glitter and slightly less green.
Love Potion (index finger) - This is a classic bright pink glitter. A rich sparkly pink.

Precious Moment (middle finger) - Pale pink/rose glitter with a hint of champagne. Classy yet also incredibly sparkly! This one came out the most sparkly of all six.

I feel as if I've been describing a box of chocolates for some reason! I didn't go into much detail on each colour as they were very similar in terms of consistency and glitter density. I was particularly impressed that I was able to do this in three coats. Normally I would expect to be sponging on this type of polish. If wearing these out and about and not just for swatches I think I would probably add one more coat, but only because I have long nails which makes my nail line more visible in bright light.

My favourite has to be Precious Moment. Normally I am more of a blues/greens/purples sort of person but this one is just so intensely glittery! I also think it's a classy shade despite all the sparkle, and a little different to what I currently have.

Will you be trying these out this year? Let me know what you think!

Norway Nail Art - Tromsø

Hey everyone! Somehow this is my first non-new year related nail art of this year! Due to work and being ill with winter bugs I had this on for two weeks and haven't had the chance to blog about it yet! I'm really pleased with this look and couldn't bring myself to take it off! (which was kind of a pain  as I had the new Fun Lacquer valentines collection to try!) I wanted to do something that captured our trip to Tromso in Norway for a long weekend in mid-December. It was a magical trip and I would highly recommend it! I did some nail art for our trip to Trondheim the previous year but it was a little more Christmassy, you can see it here. I'm enjoying the colours 

of this ones as blues, greens and glitter are definitely my kind of thing!

I decided to do different things on each hand as there were a few things I wanted to do, but kept the glitter and northern lights/mountain nails consistent on each hand as they are my favourite. On my left hand I made decals using the husky image from my Mo You London Enchanted 05 plate (see how here), and used an icey image from the same plate along with the whale tail from the Sailor 18 plate. I really love the Sailor 18 plate and can see it being used a lot more! On my right hand I used the reindeer image from the Enchanted 05 plate, ripples from Sailor 18 and a ferry image from the Sailor 01 plate (this was to represent the Hurtigruten, a cruise ship we saw and liked the name of!).

On my middle fingernails I used Magical (H) from Fun Lacquer which was a Christmas present from my parents, it is absolutely gorgeous! Might have made sense to use Northern Lights from the same collection but I think Magical (H) fits perfectly. On my thumb and ring fingernails I made decals using the mountain images from the Sailor 18 plate and the stars as well. For the northern lights effect under the stars I used a small piece of sponge and dabbed on some green polish mixed with white, followed by a brighter green. I wasn't sure how well it would work but it really did I think once it was all together! The inspiration for those nails was taken from the Mo You London website.

So, I've waffled on a bit here but for me this was a great start to 2019 in terms of my nail art! I hope you like them too :)

Colours used: Can't find my Czechbook - OPI, Magical (H) - Fun Lacquer, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, White Stamping Polish - Emily de Molly, Grey - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M, Laguna - Barry M

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! I have some new year nail art to show you and a round up of a few of my favourite nails from 2018. I was going to go for new year glitter but was keen to try out a couple of Jessica polishes my boyfriend got me for Christmas. I went for something a bit subtle as I wanted to keep the lovely blue and bronze shades visible. I used the Mo You London Festive 05 plate for the champagne glass images. I was going to colour some of it in with sharpies but left it as it is as I like the simplicity and the contrast.

So my new years resolution this year is to try and see more of my friends who don't live close to me. I also have a blog resolution each year. When looking through my blog from last year I noticed my nails look too long for me in a lot of posts! I just don't think they suit me that way. I think how I have them in the pictures below is about as long as looks good on me. So I need to remember to file!

Below are links to my top five nail art designs from 2018, in no particular order:

Untitled moon/rune nails!
Sparkling succulents 
Layered snowflakes
Mattified swans
Isambard Kingdom Brown Owl

Let me know your thoughts and and if you have any nail resolutions this year!
Colours used: Star Sapphire - Jessica, Gingersnap - Jessica, White Stamping Polish - Emily de Molly

Christmas Day Nails 2018

Merry Christmas everyone!  These are my Christmas Day nails for 2018, done in between various preparations yesterday! I started with a white base and then a couple of layers of shimmering top coat to give a wintery, snowy effect. I then used my Happy Christmas plate from Uber Chic to choose a selections of images from around the home at Christmas. most of which I stamped in black onto my Uber Mat. I then coloured them in using various Christmassy colours, including a few from the newer Cirque Colors Facets collection.

Once dry I covered with another layer of clear top coat to create decals, and once that was dry peeled them off to apply to my nails. You can see the full process here. I finished off with a quick dry top coat and hurried downstairs to drink mulled wine and watch Mole's Christmas! (a half an hour wind in the willows cartoon we watch on Christmas Eve every year). I'm pretty happy with these, they don't quite beat 2015's for me but I think they are my second fave of all my Christmas day nails, so pretty pleased!

I have had a lovely day with my family (and will go re-join them again now!) and some lovely presents including a couple of nail polishes of course. Hope you have all had a lovely day wherever you are :)
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Good Vibes - Nails Inc, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Forest Green - Mo You London, Ruby - Cirque Colors, Emerald - Cirque Colors, Sapphire - Cirque Colors, Foil Effect in Gold - Barry M, Bronze Bae - Barry M

Silent Night Nails

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I guess these are my second to last Christmas nails for the year. Might squeeze some in between Christmas and New Year and at least I have New Year nails to do! (I have plans) I wanted to do a silent night theme nail art, and also to use Sapphire from the newer Cirque Colors Facets collection polishes, it seems like the perfect blue for a starry night!

I used a clear jelly stamper to place the images on my nails in white stamping polish. Originally I had planned to do shimmering silver over the top, but I liked how it looked in white so left it as it was. On my left hand I have a manger scene and three wise men on camels, and stars on my thumb. On my right hand I have Santa's sleigh and reindeer, and various star patterns including a shooting star. Though simple to create I have enjoyed having these on and will be sad to take them off for my final Christmas nails tomorrow!
Colours used: Sapphire - Cirque Colors, White Stamping Polish - Emily de Molly
Stamping plates used: Christmas-01 - Uber chic, Festive 01 - Mo You London, BM - XL213 - Bundle Monster

Santa Gnome Nails

Three sleeps to go! Hopefully there is enough time for me to blog all my Christmas nail art too! These nails were done for our trip to Norway last weekend. I chose to do Santa gnomes as we saw lots of them in Norway last year. I would 100% recommend a pre-Christmas trip to Norway! This year we went to Tromsø which is very far north and is a fascinating and beautiful place. It felt so arctic!

I tried out Ruby from the Cirque Colors Facets collection in this nail art. It is of course beautiful! I used Santa gnome and tree images from the Uber Chic Happy Christmas plate, and the advanced stamping technique (as usual) for the  gnomes. I added trees first on my middle fingers as it seemed like to much white space otherwise. I think I should have possibly added more trees but overall I like it. I'd forgotten how lovely Cirque's Estate is too - it's sparkles in the light!
Colours used: Ruby - Cirque Colors, Floral Street - Nails Inc, Estate - Cirque Colors, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Key Lime - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M

Christmas Paper Nails

Hello all - not long till Christmas now! :D Behind with my nail blog again of course, as work has been manic, and I've also just got back from a wonderful long weekend in Norway. The next nail art I blog about will be my holiday nail art for that trip.

This nail art was experimental and I wasn't sure about it initially but liked it very much in the end! I wanted to make it look as if each of my nails had been wrapped in different Christmas wrapping paper. I also wanted to use some Christmas images on my Uber Chic Christmas plates which I wasn't sure I would otherwise use. The plates I used for this were the Happy Christmas and Christmas-01 plates.

For most nails I stamped the images directly on using a clear stamper (colours listed below the pictures), and for the ring fingers I created decals using my Uber Mat. My favourite is the on in the bottom left picture, I can picture it around my presents! The only one that didn't quite work as I'd intended was the gingerbread men. The white polish didn't show up so I had to re-do it in black.

Hope you like them!
Colours used: King Tut's Gem (Blue) - Jessica Polish, Wite Knight - Mo You London, Metallic Red (no name) - Mark by Avon, Foil Effect in Silver - Bassy M, Foil Effect in Gold - Barry M, Emerald Green - Barry M, Gold Digger - Barry M, Silver Lining - Barry M, Midnight Mischief - Barry M, Coca - Barry M