ABC Challenge: N is for Nautical

Ahoy Sailor is the alternative title for this post ;)

In case you didn't spot my mini announcement at the end of my last post, I've joined a nail art challenge group and am participating in an ABC challenge hosted by the lovely Kimberly at Kimber's Lacquer Korner. The idea is to post a mani that features a polish/brand/technique/nail art design etc in each letter of the alphabet and this week is N (because I joined half way through! But I intend to start at 'A' after completing 'Z' if all goes well.)
I didn't really have any good polishes for 'N' so I thought I'd go with a nail art design in Nautical style.

Polishes used were: Colour Me-Colour Me White, Maybelline-Dark Denim, No 7-Siren and Colour Me-Pure Gold. I used striping tape over a white base to create the stripy sailor-eqsue look and then freehanded the details using a dotting tool.

I really like this mani, it's cheerful and fun without being overwhelming and was really easy to do-bonus! I'm loving how vibrant that red looks over a white base too.

(Ladies who are visiting me for the first time from the link up [Hello!], please let me apologise for my less than perfect pictures. I hate cleaning up and I'm also really bad at it-no matter how long I seem to spend scrubbing away at my cuticles I never seem to get crisp neat edges like so many other people and I've yet to fathom how to do this apart from learning to paint neater. I've tried really hard before to clean up and just ended up removing the sides of my manicure instead, so now I tend to leave it looking a bit rough and ready-hope this isn't too offensive on the eye!)

Right, I'm off to swash some buckles and swab some decks (check me, I have the lingo and everything...), but do check out the other awesome ladies taking part in this challenge in the link-up below.

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Blog Post Challenge 7-Dream Job

What's my dream job? To tell the truth I have no idea! When I went off to uni I had a plan for my life-I was going to complete my Biomedical Science degree and then go on to do Medicine so I could eventually work as a pathologist but this was a bit of a flawed plan. 1-I hadn't realised David Cameron would come along and make it so that I would never be able to afford to do a second degree, 2-I hadn't banked on not getting the grades required for med school and 3-(and this is probably very important!) that I am absolutely pants at anatomy. Don't get me wrong, I love it, it's really interesting, but I'm totally rubbish at it. So I basically came out of uni with a degree in a subject I'd kinda lost interest in and no future ambitions or dreams, and I'm still in that same place really. I don't know what I want to do with my life, which is a bit sad because I'd wanted to be a pathologist since I was 14! I imagine I'll end up in a lab or a hospital of some sort, because I really love science, but I have no idea at this point in time.

~Nail Art Novice~

Find the other 31BPC posts here:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six


Ooh while I'm here I thought I'd tell you that I've joined a challenge group with Kimber's Lacquer Korner doing the ABC challenge! Basically this means once a week posting a nail art design/technique/nail polish name etc etc beginning with a specific letter, one for every one of the alphabet. They're already up to 'N' so I've joined at the half way mark. I am hoping to get an N design posted in the next couple of days and obviously there will be a link up with everyone else's (I'm a few days behind due to wanting to co-ordinate nails and outfit for Rara's birthday party this week, so if everything works to plan you'll get both an N and an O post next week!)
This has no relevance to the 31BPC posts, but I just thought I'd tell you all while I remembered. Keep an eye out for those posts next week, and happy polishing!

L'Oreal Color Riche Collection-607 Rue Montmartre

I thought I'd bring you some swatches of some of the Color Riche collection by L'Oreal that I went and bought after I fell in love with Magic Croisette. I purchased them from fragrancedirect.co.uk which is an excellent site for getting awesome polishes for cheapy cheap from-the only trouble is that the colour swatches they use are really inaccurate for the colours the polishes actually are. When I was searching online for better swatches of these polishes, they were really hard to come by so I thought I'd make some of my own. I'm categorically not going to start swatching a lot of polishes on this blog, because there are enough sites out there that do that, with better pictures than I could ever take, but as these polishes seem to be rarer than a lot of others I hope you won't mind too much.

I got four colours-607-Rue Montmartre, 608-Luxembourg Garden, 604-Metropolitan and 502-Purple Disturbia but I'm going to dedicate a post to each so that I don't overwhelm you with pictures all in one go.

Today's offering is number 607-Rue Montmartre, which is a dusky purple/grey. This is 3 coats with no top coat, with accent nails featuring all 4 colours:

Natural light, and probably the closest to its actual colour

It's a bit of a weird one this-it's too grey to be purple and too purple to be grey. In my head it's a kind of 'lavendery grey' so I put it in with the rest of my purples. You only get 5mls in these teeny bottles but for the Fragrance Direct price of £1.20 a bottle I don't mind! I definitely wouldn't pay the full price of £4.99 for such a small amount of polish though. 

Application was pretty good-they have a wide flat brush which splays out a little when you use it-I managed to cover my little finger nail with one stroke and the rest only needed two. I didn't do any clean up on these nails and I managed not to get too much on my skin, which is a bonus and shows that even Novices can use the brushes well! It was fairly opaque in two coats but I put a third on just in case. As you can see, it's really shiny and lovely when it dries and doesn't leave obvious brush strokes behind. 

Overall I do really like this polish, although I think I'm going to struggle to wear it with other colours as it's such an odd one to match. She'll have to be a stand alone girl!

What do you think of my first swatching post? Did I do OK or did I forget something important?

~Nail Art Novice~

It's British Blogger link up time-check out these ladies and their beautiful nails:

Try Something Tuesday-Splatter Mani

Hello lovelies, I'm back! I had a lovely time in Sheffield (so much so I didn't want to come home!) but my nails have suffered badly for it. Hoping to get back into the swing of blogging this week though, just with stubby nubbins!
So with no further ado, here's today's Try Something Tuesday splatter mani! This was, without doubt, the messiest thing I've ever tried to do with nail polish, but it was also quite fun and the end result has turned out pretty cool! I started with a base of Revlon-Sunshine Sparkle-a gorgeous pale yellow with silver sparkles shimmering through it, that I've wanted to wear ever since I found it in the pound shop a month or so ago. Sadly, it took me 4 coats to get it anything approaching opaque, so I'll probably layer it over a white next time I use it!

Then I splattered over the top (by blowing polish through a drinking straw) with Essie-Mojito Madness (my new absolute favourite green polish!) and Sally Hansen Complete Manicure-Himalayan Blue which have combined to make a messy splattery spring themed mani:

I think I prefer my right hand to my left because the splatter is a bit more sparse as opposed to large blobs of colour. I almost removed my left middle finger to do it again but couldn't be bothered to faff with the yellow base again. I think my left little finger and right thumb are my favourites-they both have a good even distribution of both the colours.

Overall-I really like this. It's a really messy technique and takes ages to clean up, but the effect is so random and crazy that it's worth it. Plus there are limitless combinations of colours you could use, and some of them would look AMAZING. I'll definitely be doing this again in the future!

It's good to be back =)

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Post Challenge 6-Last Random Act of Kindness

I love the whole idea of random acts of kindness-making someone's day a little brighter with something you did is wonderful, and I try and do them whenever I can. I can't really afford much right now so I'm sticking with the simpler things.

For my last random act of kindness I left a code for two free Graze boxes on a train. For those of you who don't know what Graze is, it's a service which delivers amazing healthy snacks to your door-the idea being that you can 'graze' on them to your heart's content and it's better for you than eating more traditional snacks like chocolate or crisps. They have a lot of choice of foods and they're all really tasty! In my Spring box I got a voucher for 2 free boxes and didn't know who to give it to-so I left it on a train as a random act of kindness to whoever found it.

Please excuse the quality of my phone photos!

I also have a stash of what I like to call "positive post-its"-post it notes with positive sayings on them-which I randomly put around places. I found one of these myself once, and I still carry it around in my purse with me because at the time I really needed something nice to cling on to as I was having a pretty awful time of everything. I like to hope that it might make someone feel a little better and brighten their day a bit when they find one of mine.

As one last ROAK, here's my graze code, so that any of you UK ladies who want to try out this fantastic service can get their first box absolutely free: 5K4VLXW
Just go to https://www.graze.com/uk and click on 'promotion or gift code' then enter it in to the box. You can cancel it at any time, so you won't have to buy any boxes if you don't want to, and they also deliver to work places too!

~Nail Art Novice~


Please note this post has not been sponsored or endorsed in any way by Graze or anyone associated with it, and all opinions expressed are my own.

Find the other 31BPC posts here:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five