Totally Tropical

Hi everyone!
In the spirit of craving summer SO BADLY, I decided to try out my newest Konad plate M29, and stamp a design I had been wanting to try for a while. Unfortunately, I only managed a quick flash shot of this, as I headed down in the morning to do the washing up, and a) broke a nail on the light switch, and b) managed to chip it all - washing up is kryptonite for manicures!

photo with flash - sorry it's the only one!

I started with a base of Topshop Green Room, and Bloom Flamingo sands II (both my absolute favourite polishes for the summer). I bought a couple of other Topshop polishes, and they are quickly beginning to rival my, previously unfaltering, love for Barry M! The formula is great and the colour selection is so different - I hope to do a review this week!

I added yellow ovals to the nail in Miss Sporty Taxi! and stamped the pineapple image from Konad M29, very carefully, over the top of these using Konad Black Special Polish/Konad Green Special Polish (for the leaves).

For the accent nail, I sponged 17 Orange Soda and Miss Sporty Taxi! over the top of Flamingo Sands II, then stamped the hibiscus image three times using Konad Special Polish in White and Red, as well as mixing my own pastel blue from Barry M Cobalt Blue and Konad White Special Polish (to see how click here). I stamped the "Aloha!" image in Konad Black Special Polish. I then added a coat of Seche Vite after the stamping had ten minutes to dry properly, so as not to smear the image.

I absolutely love this design - especially how the accent nail and the rest of the fingers do not match each other AT ALL in colour - I'm loving the colour clash trend this summer haha! My favourite mani in a while - I only wish I could've kept it on longer! I'm eager to try some variations on the accent nail design, the sponging is really subtle, which gives a cool effect.

Let me know what you think!

xxx

The Circus Has Come To Town

Hello Everyone!
I've got a Circus themed manicure for you today - more freehand Nail Art Woooooo (or Ttoothpick Nail Art in my case at the moment!)

The Pinky and Index finger are both Jester-style Print using the image from BM16. I painted the base colour in Miss Sporty Taxi (pinky) and Barry M Spring Green (Index), and stamped using Barry M Red and Barry M Cobalt Blue.
For the Ring finger I wanted to make a Circus Tent, so I started with a base in Rimmel Tip Whitener, then taped off both the tip of the nail and "rays" from the nail bed. I then painted the whole thing in Barry M Red and removed the tape. Using the Claire's Nail Art Pen striper, I added the black detail and some vertical stripes to the bottom of the tent, in Barry M Red, with a cocktail stick.
For the Middle finger, I painted two coats of Topshop Gypsy Nights which is a black base with holo glitter and red flakies - lovely. I then started to draw an elephant using a make-shift dotting tool with Barry M Grey, highlighting with Sparkle and Fade Light Grey and detailing with Clarie's Black Nail Art Pen. Ooh and a little white tusk!

I added Barry M 3-in-1 topcoat to the whole thing, and here we are :D

I want to show you a blurry sunshine picture of Gypsy Nights as well, because it really does catch the light beautifully:

oOoOooo Rainbow.

I wish I had some time to clown around, but University work calls, boooooooooo!

Nearly the end of the week! let me know what you think :)

In other news, I have reached 100 followers :) Thank you all so much, you have no idea how much I appreciate it! You're all wonderful! I know I promised a giveaway at 50 followers, but by the time I got it all sorted, I had about 80 anyway so thought I may as well wait and celebrate this larger milestone! I have it all planned out though, so expect details tomorrow or Saturday! How exciting eh?!

THANK YOU!! xoxoxox

FOTD Green Eyed Monster

...Well, not "monster" hopefully. I used to rock this look a lot in my final years of school, I was a lot bolder with my style back then - I had pink hair for a start! I met my good childhood friend Emma for a free lunch today. I am a 'mystery diner' which means we get £40 to spend on food if we do a review afterwards! SWEET DEAL! We stuffed our faces, naturally. I was wearing a forest green dress from forever 21, and I decided to co-ordinate my make-up -

I absolutely HATE taking pictures of myself haha! here we have:-

• FACE - Benefit Erase Paste in Medium, Rimmel Stay Matte foundation in 100 Ivory, MeMeMe Blusher in Rouge (these are meant to be a dupe for the benefit blushers, and although very pigmented, this is muuuuch redder than Coralista despite looking almost identical in the box. I'll have to do a comparison one day)
• EYES - I used a very, very old 17 green eye palette. Dark forest green, light green and a yellowy gold - none of them have names. I don't think they do the exact combination anymore, but their green Eye Shadow Trio will do a treat, with a yellow gold shadow, in creating this look. Eyeliner is H&M Brown, Mascara is Max Factor False Lash Effect.
• LIPS - Topshop Lip Polish in Iced Coffee. 

Here's a couple of shots so you can see the blending on the eyes -

This look is dead easy and you can use the same technique with literally any 3 shades of you choice. I started with the medium green on the eyelid, then used the gold in the corner, blending it outwards and slightly under the eye. I then took my darker shade of green, with a smaller shadow brush, and blended this from the outside edge inwards, creating a slight taper as I went, taking it under the eye and across to about halfway. Added some eyeliner to the water line and just along the top lash line, some mascara, and voila!

This is what my hair looks like from the back today, a messy rosette with the hair from the crown:

Close you eyes to the mountain of crap on my bed...cheers!

Another easy one - take two medium sized pieces of hair from each side of the crown, bring to the back of the head and pin in a cross shape, with 2 bobby pins, so one overlaps the other (this will hold it in place better). Take the little pony bit and wrap it around your finger so it makes a twist. Form the twist into a circle and pin in place at the end and the top, weaving the bobby pin inside the rosette so it cannot be seen. Spritz with hairspray. Five minute up-do!

I hope you enjoyed that my dears, any questions just let me know on the comments, or drop me an email :) A bit of exciting news, I will be doing a guest post for Leanne over at DoNotRefreeze in the next couple of weeks - it's a nail art tutorial, and a good one at that! :D

I'm trying to do tomorrow's Mani tonight and I'm SO uninspired. Need to have a think and a peruse of the BundleMonsters  I reckon. Only thing I know, it will be blue haha.

Take care everyone! xxxxxxx

Gleek and Gypsy Nights.

 So my housemate is fantastic. As you know, I went home for the weekend and returned this evening to 2 lovely presents from Sophie, one of my favourite people with giant hair. One was a “glee” Easter egg, complete with Mug – which I’m thrilled about, one of our favourite things to do together is drink copious amounts of tea, eat copious amounts of chocolate, and spend a copious amount of time talking about Everything and Nothing. The other present was a “knit your own boyfriend” kit....which I'm not as thrilled about....hahaha!

Rubbish phone pic...but look at the size of that mug! Cheers, Sofa!!!

 On to the Manicure!! I recently acquired an interesting polish from Topshop called “Gypsy Nights” which is quite a sheer black with holographic glitter and flakies! I snapped it up; you don’t see flakies very often over here in the polish middle ages (UK!). I applied two coats of it over two coats of Claire’s Black polish, and then added a silver stripe at the very tip of my tips with Claire’s Silver Nail Art Pen. Topped it off with Barry M topcoat, and here are the results, as best as I could capture the glitter effects! 

Shiny shinnnnyyy

 You can't see the holo glitter tooo much here, but if you look at the pinkie, you can see the iridescence of the flakies in it.

I've seen some exciting effects created with flakies by adding a matte topcoat, so i decided to matte it up with Claire's Matt topcoat (which should be spelled "matte" - really bugs me haahah - I'm a fiendish English student/grammar Nazi!). Here we are:

With Claire's matte topcoat.

I liked the effect of the matte topcoat, it did, however, dull the holographic glitter, but I like that it's a bit different. i decided to keep it like this for a couple of days before I was boooorrreeeddd!!! I went to a 21st birthday party over the weekend for one of my best friends, I've known her since she was a tiny babba, and it was lovely to see in this milestone together - love you Rachie poops. I'll post my party manicure tomorrow!

Another exciting installment - my bundlemonster plates arrived! WOO HOOOOO now I can start this Konading business properly!! Look out!!!

FOTD cinema night!

Tonight, me and my lover-ly housemates went to the cinema. In Birmingham, where we all live during term-time, there is the kitschest little cinema at the back of New Street Station called The Electric Cinema, which was the first screen in Britain! It still has alot of the original fixtures, and you can opt to sit on huuuge comfy sofas at the back (for an extra fee....some day on a special occasion maybe haha!). You can also take drinks in from the full bar, which, being students, we naturally took advantage of (red wine daaahlings, I'm not that much of a hooligan).
We had some 2-4-1 vouchers, so it only cost us a couple of quid each to see True Grit, which, I have GOT to say was absolutely fantastic - what a stunning motion picture, and such dry humour! I really cannot praise it enough, and it may end up one of my favie films of all time alongside Monsters Inc, Back to the Future and Uncle Buck hahaaa! No wonder its nominated for so many oscars!
SO! On to my FOTD. I'd just been shuffling round the flat all day doing bits of work here and there, so i started my makeup from scratch. Obviously we were only going to the cinema, so I wanted a casual look, but suitable for the night-time as we planned to visit a couple of bars after the (FANTASTIC) movie. I left my hair naturally dried an unstraightened.

In case you were curious as to the products i used, and a bit of techy talk, I started with a base of Rimmel "Stay Matte" Foundation in Ivory (100), sweeping over it lightly with Rimmel Clear Complexion Translucent powder. I then highlighted my cheekbones with Benefit's Blusher in Coralista (actually one of my prize possessions!)
For my eyes I used Benefit's Erase Paste in Medium to hide those nasty black circles, then used a No.7 eye palette on my lids. I got this for Christmas and the outer packaging has the colour info on it - i dont know the shades as of yet, but I will get my Sherlock Holmes Google Skillz out and find out for you should you like to know! :D I used the light, shimmery cream colour on my inner lid, graduating to the chocolatey shimmer, sweeping it outwards, and under the eye to create a soft smokey effect. I then used Rimmels Liquid Eyeliner in Black to line the upper lid from halfway along,  and made a small flick. I added some of Max Factor's False Lash Effect in Brown/Black and some of Topshop's Lip Polish in Iced Coffee and then I was ready to go and sit in the dark for 2 hours....lol.
Here is that troublesome No.7 palette and the eyes on their own:-

Here's a close, side-view of the smokey eye, you can see the liquid liner detail more clearly:-

 ...and here's the finished product! I look really stroppy and unimpressed - there were better photos of me, but none that quite showed the colours as accurately, especially of the lovely, corally blusher. Oh the sacrifices I will make for accurate swatches!

Just...want...to.....poke...through...laptop screen and move that strand! flkhjlhjtlkt!!!!

I know my hair is in the way of my right eye...you know when you really wish you were Mary Poppins so you could reach into the photo and just sweep that annoying bit of hair out of the way?!?!?! oOoO so frustrating!

well, Goodnight happy Bloggers, I realise this is a long'un and I appreciate you reading, I really do. I would love to hear some comments from you lovely lot, hit me up yo!

<3