Farewell Pocket Money Polishes

The sad news from this weekend is that Charlie is retiring Pocket Money Polishes to move forward with other parts of her life. I love my collection of glitter toppers from her and will treasure them all the more now. I thought I'd do a little mani to show off two of mine.

The background gradient here is Sinful Colours Cinderella to Blue by You, this also has an added change from pink shimmer to green shimmer which would not photograph!

The two PMPs are Firework and Yellow Submarine. I love Yellow Submarine the most :)

And mattified, gradients always look good mattified. Farewell Pocket Money Polish, you will be missed.

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Blue heart nail art

I recently made a list of polishes I want to swatch and one of them was Emily de Molly Turbulence, a gorgeous deep blue jelly polish filled with holographic glitters in different shapes. I paired it with a negative space heart design.

Using negative space is a great way to use a glitter polish which requires a few coats to form the base of a shape. The photo below shows what Turbulence looks like at three coats alone with top coat. When it was released it was fairly unusual for a polish to have those diamond shaped glitters in although they are a little bit more common now.

The polish I used to outline the heart shape is Nails Inc Abbey Road, a very dense holographic glitter. The below photo is blurred to show a little of the colours that reflect off this polish in the sun.

My ring finger has three coats of Colour Club Total Mystery to provide a contrast to the glitter polish. This is a beautiful blue jelly with pink shimmer.

If you are thinking about valentines day manicures this would be an awesome choice- it would work in so many colours and is super super easy if you have any type of nail art brush (or a small paint brush/toothpick etc.).

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Polished by KPT Siren's Song

Now that it's cold I wanted to retry my thermal polishes when they will actually change. This one I have and have never tried and it is Polished by KPT Siren Song, a store exclusive for Rainbow Connection. I decided to compare it to Liquid Sky Lacquer Teal it Like it is to show how the glitter makes a difference to the appearance of a thermal. So the LSL is on my ring finger and Siren Song is on all the others.

I think these polishes were made using the same pigment because the colours are the same but the glitter really makes a difference to how they look in the warm phase (above). In the cold phase the dark teal doesn't really show the glitter.

What makes these two so amazing is the holographic flash contained in the polish. Just spectacular.

I don't think Sinren's Song is available any longer- sorry about that, but you could easily mimic this look with Teal it like it is and a clear based glitter topper. The polish was really changing colours all the time and it was really interesting to watch.

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A England Dancing with Nureyev

I have been eyeing up the A England Ballerina collection for a while so when I came by Dancing with Nureyev second hand I was very excited to try it. It went on straight after my Christmas mani came off (which was Deborah Lippmann Ray of Light for the curious). I am showing you two coats with an accent nail of a sponged tip over white.

When the sun came out for a few minutes I ran around the house trying to find my camera to capture a sun shot so you could see the amazing holo contained within this polish- just look at my index and middle fingers!

This polish appears a cornflower blue with holo most of the time but after a couple of days wear I noticed that it has a violet duo chrome hidden within as well (like Ascalon). You can see it in the photo below quite clearly. And to add to the awesomeness you can still see glints of holo even in quite grey light.

I love how the holo picked up in this last photo- just gorgeous.

I am very glad I got hold of this polish and will definitely be considering others from the range shortly. The formula was excellent as is the trend with A England polishes. I will hopefully be trying this out in a full gradient very soon so look out for that :).

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17 Suede and Smitten Klaatu Swatch

I have been away for a while but I'm back with a bang with two stunning polishes. Smitten Polish Klaatu Barada Nikto (KBN from now on) is a gorgeous blue jelly polish with blue and holographic glitter running through it. 17 Suede is a limited edition polish which is a charcoal grey matte finish polish. I am showing you two coats of each, with top coat on KBN but not on Suede.

I love how these look and I love the contrast of matte and high shine, plus this is the perfect base for me to do some nail art on next week :).

Tomorrow I'm going off on a makeup tangent with some new goodies from Boots. Remember if you like the 17 polish you need to go get it asap because it is limited edition and if you fancy KBN you can get it from Rainbow Connection in the UK and from Smitten Polish elsewhere.

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Blue and Gold Skittle

This is the first skittle mani that I've done for ages! I really wanted to wear OPI Alcatraz Rocks but I have a problem with texture polishes and can only really wear them on one nail without going insane. So I put Alcatraz Rocks on my little fingers and that set my colour scheme (blue and gold) for the rest of the manicure. I used OPI Eurso Euro and NYC Full Metal Jacket for everything else, a striping tape design, tiny polka dots and a stamped nail.
I apologise for the slightly out of focus pictures- the pictures are in focus but I've had to write this post in html because blogger is being weird and it won't focus the pictures for some reason. If you hop over to my Facebook page by clicking the link in the side bar you'll be able to see the pictures in their full focussed glory :)

I love this nail art so much, I really need to take it off and do some more to get ahead for next week but I like it too much...

I made the polka dots with a brush rather than a dotting tool because it makes smaller dots than even my smallest dotting tool.

I've actually painted a set of false nails with the same design as these nails and they will be in my etsy store (Cambridge Nails) sometime next week so if you fancy having this design on your nails for a Christmas party or just every day wear please check it out. I have a few other painted nail sets available as well as my hand painted nail polish jewellery.

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33DC Art with your most used colour

The challenge today is to use the colour you have the most of to create some nail art. I have so many blue polishes- I know I have too many but I just cannot stop myself from buying them, I'm addicted! I used three different blue polishes for this; Barry M Blue Grape, My Ten Friends Space Sauce and NYC Aqua Mystic.

There are so many layers to this art but they're not really visible, I started with a base of Blue Grape topped with Space Sauce then stamped over the top with Aqua Mystic and Moyou Suki Collection Plate 09. I just chose some bits off the plate to do each nail but I like the basket weave image on this plate. I'm also super excited to use the koi image.

I then used a medium length striping brush to add in the stripes with Blue Grape. This looked so good in person, Space Sauce gave it a really nice holographic effect and it looked really complex (my boyfriend couldn't immediately work out how I had done it).

I love the complexity and simplicity of this mani :). Tomorrow I have a skittle mani to show you.

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33DC Manicure with 2 Patterns

The challenge for today was to do a manicure with two patterns, I could have cheated a little and done a different pattern different nails to produce a skittle mani. I decided instead to test my stamping skills and stamp two patterns onto each nail, one half each.

I used two patterns from my Moyou Sailor plate 4 but they're a little unbalanced as the image on the left is so much busier than the one on the right.

I'm not sure that this is something I would wear again- it definitely doesn't show that I had to stamp twice.

Oops almost forgot to tell you what amazing base colour this is- it's Whimsy by piCture pOlish- the perfect blue.

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Lacquer Lust Bow Chica Wow Wow Ruffian

I am desperately trying to work my way through my pile of untrieds and am having some success but it's definitely something I have to think about other wise I do resort to using familiar polishes. The main polish in this manicure Lacquer Lust Bow Chica Wow Wow is one of my untrieds- a deep blue holographic polish I decided to pair it with the bright pink of piCture pOlish Electric Dream in my current favourite manicure style- the ruffian.

I loved this, the sun helpfully came out for a little bit while I was wearing it so I do apologise for the background of the two sun photos, I took them on the move in case the sun went back in.

Bow Chica has a really strong holo effect but it's more of a scattered holo than a linear one- although as you can see below there is some bend to it.

I love this combination, it's really fun and very simple to do. Because it is quite plain this mani is also very easy to wear and could be dressed up or down depending on the occasion.

I'll be back tomorrow with some halloween bats :).

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The colour challenged picks my polishes

So I am jumping on the bandwagon of people who have had their significant other choose a few nail polishes for them to do some nail art with and today my lovely Stuart picked out NYC Lexington Yellow, piCture pOlish Orbit, Pocket Money Polish Yellow Submarine and OPI Taylor Blue. While I'm mentioning Taylor Blue Work, Play, Polish posted today that it's going to be sold again in November so check out the link to her blog to read about that.

I really don't use ruffian nail art enough, it's really suited to the round shape that my cuticles have. I loved the look here before I added Orbit although I do like the dark contrast on the tips.

I thought I would talk you through my thought process here: I knew that the yellow would have to go on first because it is definitely a two coater and I would struggle to get it opaque over either of the blues. I then thought it would be really cool to have a bright pop of colour be painting on the OPI as a ruffian and then putting the PMP over the top tying those colours together. I meant to use Orbit to do the ruffian on my accent nail but totally forgot so the only way I could think of to include it without throwing the whole mani off was to paint on a thin tip with it but it's quite thick and difficult to manipulate.

Not too bad really :), at one point he had both of the blues and an orange very sheer jelly polish and I was worried. I had fun doing this and it was really interesting to see what my boyfriend pulled out of my collection.

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33DC: Abstract Lines

Abstract is such a hard prompt because it is so wide- I typed it into Google and came up with a picture of some lines and thought it would be a perfect chance to try some fan brush nail art. This is not exactly what I was picturing in my head but for a first try it's not terrible.

I like the blue side of this more than I like the red side. I'm getting a bit worried that I won't have an easy new technique to try for that prompt in this challenge; if there are any techniques you'd like to see me attempt please feel free to comment and let me know.

I'm not going to tell you any of the colours I used here because I put them away before noting them down and also because you can't really tell what colours are in it anyway. I'm going to try to use a fan brush to get a vertical gradient on my nails at some point because I seem to fail doing it any other way.

It's not terrible but I don't really like this either. It lasted on my nails for about an hour before I swapped it out. Friday's challenge is animals and I already know exactly what I want to do...

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Up! Nail Art with Indy's Indies

A new UK indie polish maker has popped up :). Indy's Indies first collection was inspired by disney films and a couple of autumn themed polishes. The one which caught my eye was the totally unique glitter topper Balloon House, inspired by the movie Up! This is a clear based polish with small circle glitters in a variety of matte colours. Rather than just doing a swatch of the polish I decided to do some nail art representing my favourite thing about the movie (other than the touching sequence where you are introduced to Ellie) Kevin!

My index and little fingers are single coats of Balloon House so you can see what it looks like alone (with added balloon tails). For my ring finger I hand placed glitter into the bunch to get the clustered effect. I then used my nail art pen to draw on the strings and the outline of Kevin on my middle finger before filling in the colours. The bubbles were my fault because I underestimated how thick the polish was and didn't leave enough time to dry between coats.

The colours used were: Essie Rock the Boat, Barry M Black nail art pen, Indy's Indies Balloon House, OPI Tomorrow Never Dies and Hi Pumpkin, NYC Lexington Yellow, Digital Nails Convergent, Elegant Touch White.

I love how this turned out and it got a few compliments as well :). I'm excited to see what else Danielle is coming up with and I hope there are some more gems like this in her future collections.

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33DC Chevron with Emily de Molly Blueprint

Today's 33 day challenge prompt is chevron. I wanted to use this polish which arrived last Saturday to do my chevrons. The base is Emily de Molly Blueprint and I hand painted on the chevrons in OPI A Woman's Prague-Ative.

Isn't it funny how sometimes you get a polish and it sits on your desk looking at you for months before you use it and sometimes you get a polish out and have to put it straight onto your nails. It was definitely a case of the latter with this one. This is two medium thickness coats, it looked very streaky on the first coat but the second evened everything up and made it totally opaque. This polish has a navy base with mixed sizes of royal blue glitter, some small purple glitter and purple shimmer. The matte photo on the bottom left best captures the purple shimmer of the polish. I used OPI matte top coat and it looks amazing matte.

For my chevron design the base was already matte so I carefully painted on the chevrons with a small nail art brush and the OPI polish and then didn't top coat the design as I wanted to keep the contrast between the matte base and the shiny, glittery chevrons.

I love these two colours together, they look and feel really autumnal. I have a nail wheel of the colours I've chosen to make up my autumn colour palette and A Woman's Prague-Ative is one of them. My aim is then to use these colours through my designs this autumn to pull my designs together.

I loved wearing this manicure, Blueprint is an amazing polish and if you like blues and purples I would strongly suggest that you check it out. I didn't know if I'd be able to freehand chevrons but it was easier than I anticipated :).

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33DC Your Oldest Untried Polish

Over the weekend I have reached over 90 followers on bloglovin with some more on gfc, twitter and facebook. I really hope you enjoy my posts and thank you for following :). Today is the 33 day challenge nail art with your oldest untried polish. Although I'm not entirely certain that this is my oldest untried (I seem to have accumulated masses of untried polishes) it came in a Llarowe mystery grab bag and is simply gorgeous. This is Nail'd It Water layered over NYC Water Street Blue as it is too sheer otherwise. It has various different shapes of glitter in blue, purple and green.

For my nail art look I added an accent nail of Pocket Money Polish Summertime (another untried) placing the heart glitters in a diagonal line across the nail. This glitter topper is beautiful but I don't think Charlie is selling it anymore-sorry! I then stamped birds from my new Bundle Monster plate set onto the rest of my nails with NYC Full Metal Jacket.
I love this bird design, it would be awesome for making nail decals. 

I'll be back tomorrow with another stamped design from the Bundle Monster plates but right now check out the other 33dc designs and the second inkslinks for UK Indie month.

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33DC Textured Gradient

I showed you Barry M Countess alone yesterday and for today I sponged another textured polish, OPI Alcatraz Rocks, over the tips of my nails then added studs from the Born Pretty Store which came in a wheel with a few different types of stud.

To apply the studs without changing the texture of the polish I used dotting tools to add a dot of clear polish where I wanted the stud then used the dotting tool while slightly tacky to pick up and place the studs. The studs are thin and lie close to the surface of my nails which I really like.

I've gone for some more arty shots that I normally do, I love the one below and the one above shows you just how thin these studs are.

I hope you like this :), tomorrow I'm going to be showing you a design I made with the awesome new bundle monster collection.

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31DC Inspired by the Supernatural

I really wanted to use this polish, the Black Cat exclusive for Rainbow Connection: Celestial Dancer, a blue jelly polish with circle, square and star shaped glitter in. To make it supernatural I added a hidden alien face on my ring finger.

Celestial Dancer is amazing! This is three coats with no undies and the deep jelly effect is awesome.

I was inspired by the little grey men aliens and I drew this on with my Barry M silver nail art pen.

So there we have it- supernatural nails, Check back tomorrow for inspired by a tutorial :)

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