Christmas Wrapping Nails - Cheers To The Holidays

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a lovely weekend :) I'm feeling super Christmassy this weekend, we had my boyfriends parents over for lunch and then they helped us put a work surface up in the garage. Then we went for a wintery walk and shop, and put the tree and decorations up. I'm really enjoying the warm festive feels!

As usual I'm behind with my nail blogging, so I've already moved onto another design, but I'm enjoying revisiting this one already as I was quite pleased with it! I used Cheers To The Holidays from Fun Lacquer again for my main work Christmas party, as it's a lovely bright party colour without being sparkly, and my dress was already sparkly. After the party I didn't want to take it off so tried out my new Festive 06 stamping plate from Mo You London over the top.

On my index and little finger nails I used this lovely Christmas star pattern which reminds me of the decorative ribbons you put on presents. On my middle fingers I used gold and silver, though the gold isn't that visible at the edges, and for the ring finger and thumb nails I used the advance stamping technique (you can see how here). So I pretty much ended up practising a variety of stamping techniques. I struggled to take this nail art off as I do rather like it, but there are too many nail ideas and not enough time! I also like how my nail shape is looking at the moment - so all in all this was a winner!
Colours used: Cheers To The Holidays - Fun Lacquer, Bright Lights - Barry M, Rain On Me - Barry M, Emerald Green - Barry M, Sparkling Ruby - Barry M

Barry M Liquid Chrome

Hello nail world! I'm back after almost a month of limited nail art and blogging (there are some swatches on my Claws For Thought Instagram) due to moving house, with some pretty poor quality pictures I'm afraid! It will probably be this way for the next few posts as I get used to my new set up. Today's is worst of all, as the pictures are taken against a variety of window sills and walls!

I wanted to try out Barry M's Liquid Chrome polishes and see how close they are to mirror chrome, and most importantly, whether they would be good back ups for my foil effect polishes I use for stamping. I picked up the gold and silver back ups but couldn't leave out the other two!

Clockwise from top left we have Razzle Dazzle, Glow Crazy, Bright Lights and Rain On Me. These could all be one coaters if applied the right way, but I used two coats for the swatches to help tidy up any visible brush strokes. As expected with this type of polish you need a smooth surface for them to look their best, as imperfections will show up quite clearly. If you look closely at the purple you'll see some little bumps on the middle finger nail (now buffed away).
I found these easy to apply and as always enjoyed the wider brush Barry M use now. Even though I nearly didn't get it Razzle Dazzle has ended up as my favourite! I don't normally go for pinks but this isn't a very pink pink! They are of course not as shiny as mirror chrome, to get that you'll need chrome powder for the best results. However these are a great set of super shiny metallics that are great for Christmas party season.
Above are my stamping attempts with the liquid chrome polishes. I paired them up and stamped them over each other. Glow crazy was the best but Razzle Dazzle was pretty good too. Bright lights and Rain On Me weren't great over each other, they kind of just looked a bit more like each other. It looks pretty close up but I couldn't get any good pictures to demonstrate that. I think these will show up better on other colours, but am not sure if they're quite as good as the foil effect polishes of Barry M's past! Almost, but not quite.