12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 12-Freestyle Christmas

Well we've finally reached almost the end of December and the end of this little challenge! I'm quite sad to see it go, I've had a fantastic time doing these and shared the experience with some really lovely ladies. Originally my plan was to choose some of their manis to do on my nails today but there have been so many lovely ones that I couldn't just choose 10, and I also would not be able to do them credit at all. So instead I want to dedicate this mani to lovely ladies who have taken part alongside me-there's been over 150 fabulous designs created for the various prompts and I, for one, have really enjoyed myself. I want to say thankyou to everyone who took part with me, whether it was just once or every mani-I never thought when I had this idea in November it would have become something this great! You've all been really awesome company, and I've loved seeing so many different designs. I can't wait to see what you've all come up with for today!

My 'freestyle' mani is made up of various things I've done along the way, and I used about 30 polishes in total for it! I won't list them, most of them have been used in the other Xmas posts anyway, but if there's one you want to know for definite just ask =) Also I used this tutorial from The Little Canvas to do the reindeer.

Here we are then, my final Christmas mani of 2013:

And just because it's Christmas, and I haven't yet, here's some pics using decorations too:

I can't believe it's over! Look out for my round up coming soon, but other than that I would just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), and I will be back after the festivities have quietened down a little!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 8-Cold

Sooooo...I missed a week of the Mish Mash challenge and feel really bad about it. I keep going up to visit my boyface in Sheffield and then ending up staying longer than I anticipated and missing lots of posts-oops! So today's mani is the new Mish Mash challenge prompt which is cold (co-incidentally ended up very close to 'Hot' in the list!). I wanted something relatively simple so I picked out some 'cold' colours (Pale blue, white and silver) and went at it.
Polishes used: Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Rimmel-Serene and H&M-Silver Frost. I added some wintery tree decals from YRNails to contribute to the effect too.

I actually really like this, it's definitely 'cold' in colour but it's pretty and delicate too. Now I've got the hang of them I really like using these decals, they're such a simple way of sprucing up an other wise boring mani, I think.

I'm off camping this weekend with my fella (Lovely weather for it, ey!) so I might be a bit absent again, but will try and get some appropriately themed nails done before we leave!

See you soon, have a good weekend all!

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out the other ladies fab efforts this week:

ABC Challenge: S is for Stamping & Sea Creatures

Hello lovelies!
I've got some underwater nail art for you today for 'S' week, yay! This is only my second time stamping but I think I've already improved from the first time, with thanks to this video tutorial by soguesswhat11 on Youtube.

I started this mani with about 4 coats of H&M's Blue Glitter Nail Polish which has holographic bar glitter laced through it and is pretty unique as far as I can tell. I think it really looks like water. In real life the nail lines are much less visible than in the pics, but I think next time I'll wear it with a similar colour underneath to eliminate the need for all those layers!

I completely forgot to even try and clean up this week,
my apologies!

Then I took my stamping kit out of its drawer and hunted for some appropriate 'sea creature' images. In the end I chose the turtle and the seahorse to keep things simple. (I don't know what brand of plate these are, they were in a random set I got on Ebay!)

I stamped with Barry M-Gold Foil because I know lots of people use this for stamping and it seems to work pretty well for them, and thankfully it did for me too!

Overall I'm pretty happy-apart from some slightly off centre placements I've managed to get a good stamp image on pretty much all of my nails. I love the colour combination and the way the light hits those holo glitter strands is really cool! Sadly it doesn't seem to have much sticking power and I've got some tip wear and a couple of chips already-which to me is another reason to use a base colour under the glitter. It's very pretty and twinkly though =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out all the other wonderful 'S' manicures:

A Few Things

~PIC HEAVY POST~

Hello!
No Try Something Tuesday this week, but for good reasons (explained later, I promise), I thought I should mention a few things instead:

• Firstly you won't be seeing any of Rara's lovely nails for a while because she broke her wrist on Saturday =( She's all plastered up and feeling a bit miserable, so please send her lots of get well messages!
• I'm going to be away this weekend as I am performing in this: http://boxoffice.brightonfringe.org/event.aspx?evId=4891#container at the Brighton Fringe festival, (which you should all come and see if you live nearby =p) so won't be around to post anything from Friday-Monday. Fear not! I have got a guest post lined up for you so there's something fun to look at whilst I'm away =)
• I have now put myself on an indefinite polish ban-until I've paid all my debts off! (To friends, I mean, not student loans!) The reasons for this will become very clear shortly. And as I'm not the richest person in the world this might be for a good couple of months! (The only exception I am allowing myself to this is a white Barry M pen if I come across one, because they're SO useful for nail art, but that's IT.) Also I figure if I tell you guys then I have to stick to it, don't I?
• In other news I have a job interview tomorrow! (Hence why I haven't done the TST I had originally planned, as I need work appropriate nails) It's only for a part time job but money is money and it's better than nothing at this stage! Please keep your fingers crossed for me lovelies =)

Now onto why I decided that I needed to ban myself:

I popped into H&M yesterday to pick up their Matte top coat (I need matte black nails for my show and didn't own a matte top coat) on a recommendation from Charlie from Pocket Money Polishes. Whilst I was there a couple of other polishes happened to make their way into my hands...

L-R: H&M Matte Top Coat, H&M Glitter-Blue,
H&M-Silver Frost

(I realise now I've uploaded this picture that you can't actually see what Silver Frost is-it's a silver glitter topper with small hexes and microglitter in a clear base.)
I'd wanted the Blue glitter since I saw it used on Fairly Charming's blog with underwater themed nail art on it-it's the perfect 'water' colour and really different to anything I've seen anywhere else! I'm not 100% sold on the bar glitter toppers that are popular at the mo, I can't help but think they look a bit hairy, but this is really lovely! All of these polishes were £1.99 so I reckon I got a bargain really!

Then I had to go and get my watch battery changed, and the little stall was right outside a new beauty store I'd not been in before. I went in solely with the intention of asking if they had any acetone (they didn't) but then my eye was caught by the polishes and I was lost.

Top Row L-R: Revlon-Blue Lagoon, La Femme Beauty Unnamed x2,
Revlon-Emerald City
Bottom Row L-R: Cairuo-Green Tea 22, Cairuo-Blueberry 16,
Cairuo-Blueberry 19

Those Cairuo's say they're 12mls on the front, but they're definitely not! They're about the same size as the smaller Rimmel bottles, which are 8ml. They're nice colours though, and were cheap so can't complain (even if I can't pronounce the name!). Geordie Nails has some swatches of two of these shades up at the mo. These were all £1 apart from the Revlons which were £2.50 I think.

Here's a close up shot of those pretty glitters, I'm so sad they don't have names though! (As far as I can tell they don't even have numbers!)

The one on the left has purple microglitters with turquoise and gold small hexes, and the one on the right has green and blue microglitters with hexes in red, pink, yellow and blue. 

Then when I arrived at home worn out with my day's shopping I discovered I had a package from Fragrance Direct with my new OPIs in-I couldn't resist when I saw them up there for only £3.99! They've got most of the Texas and Holland collections, with a few others.

L-R I Don't Give A Rotterdam, I Juggle...Men, I Have A Herring
Problem, Thanks a Windmillion

I've wanted Windmillion for ages now, it's a lovely shade of green. I couldn't choose between Rotterdam and Herring Problem so got both, and Juggle Men is a pretty iridescent shimmer topper which I think will look awesome over darker colours! 

Finally, after all that, I knew I had to do a post with them all in. But THEN when I woke up this morning I'd received some Awesome nail mail from Above the Curve with my beautiful new indies in, so I thought I'd add those too. For those who don't know ATC you should check them out, they make some really beautiful glitters and holos, and $1 from every bottle of polish is donated to a charity that helped the founder when she was younger.

L-R: Mother Earth, Field of Tulips

Can you believe that this is my FIRST EVER holo polish? I'd wanted one for ages and never really could afford one, or find sites that shipped them to the UK so I treated myself when ATC had a sale on a few weeks ago. It's a beautiful browny/coppery coloured holo with the full rainbow effect and I love it! It's what I am going to wear to my interview tomorrow because it's neutral enough to be work appropriate but still incredible!
As for Field of Tulips? I don't understand why I can't find any swatches of this floating around the blogsphere, it's so pretty! In the photo the glitters have settled where it was lying during transport but on the nail it has all those colours in a pale minty green base and it's lovely! I took a couple of swatch shots to show you them better too.

Field of Tulips, 3 coats

Mother Earth, 2 coats

So yes. I definitely am no longer allowed to buy polishes, especially as I have another 3 on their way to me in the post, Royal Mail permitting! I dread to think how much I've spent on polishes this month-Fragrance Direct have had a lot of it, so they're going to wonder what's happened to their profits over the next few months! But it's something I definitely need to do because I really don't have the money to spend on them, and I can't really warrant it when I owe lots of people lots of money. 

So that's you all caught up! I'm gonna head off now, but will try and get another post up before I leave on Friday!

~Nail Art Novice~