Saturday 31 May 2014

Nail Art Ideas Linkup - May - Tape Mani


Hi all!

After I shortened my nails I wore one of my favourite polishes for comfort. After a day I turned it into today's mani. It's a semi-fail. Push and Shove did not behave like I wanted it too with striping tape involved. You'll get to see it anyway!


The favourite and the newly acquired:
  • L.A. Girl - 3D Effects - Brilliant Blue
  • OPI - Push and Shove


I'm wearing two coats of Brilliant Blue, you can see a swatch here. I placed striping tape on my nails for a french tip with a twist (absolutely inspired by Hey, Darling Polish). I used Push and Shove to paint over the tape... this polish is finicky. I did remove the tape straight away, but the polish on top of the tape did not want to let go of the rest. Hence the wonky lines. These photos are without top coat. Top coat does change the look of Push and Shove and I didn't like it much.





♥ Brilliant Blue, it's so sparkly and deep. I will continue experimenting with Push and Shove to see how it can be used in nail art. Do you have this OPI? Does it behave for you?

Check how the others used tape down here!

Friday 30 May 2014

Golden Oldie Thursday - Lilac


Hi all!

I know I'm a day late! I had my mani done earlier in the week... but I didn't manage to edit photos etc until today. This is also the last mani of my longer nail length *pouts*. Anyhow, inspiration came from this photo on internet. Macro shots of flowers are so gorgeous! And those lilacs are so pretty!


This week's polishes:
  • NYC - 257 Lavender Cupcake
  • HEMA - 55 Holographic Purple
  • Catrice - 800 Heavy Metallilac
  • Essence - Stampy polish white


First, let's just pretend you can't see my tea bag repair attempt on my index fingernail, okay? Moving right along... two easy coats of Lavender Cupcake as a base. On my thumb and ring finger I started with painting white flowers. Next I filled them in with the holographic purple (which is not holo much) and going over it with Heavy Metallilac because I liked that colour better. I redid some white outlines before applying top coat (HK Girl as always).




Close-up of the lilacs... Heavy Metallilac is one of my favourite purples... it almost glows, so pretty.


I enjoyed wearing this mani a lot, admittedly, I wore OPI's Push and Shove on the Cinderella hand. Also my tea bag repair lasted for a day. On day two my tear tore through the tea bag (I blame all the typing at work). I am back to short nails now, and it feels so strange! They're so tiny!

Give the other ladies a peek as well!

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Tri Polish Tuesdays - May - Stars in green and purple


Hi all!

Just something simple for today. As you'll notice, I skipped red for this week. I'll be glad with new colours next week though! Also keeping the chatter short, I'm trying to fix a broken nail (index finger) with a tea bag as I'm writing up this post... I so don't want to have to go to shorties again...


From left to right:

And let's not forget MoYou London's Fairytale collection 01.



Two coats of My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base, and multiple stamping with green and purple using the stars from the bottom left corner. That's all there's to it really *winks*.





I actually like my thumb nail best, all those greens and purples do work for a strange reason!

More Tri Polish Tuesday mani's down here!

Monday 26 May 2014

FingerFood's Theme Buffet - Nature


Hi all!

This week's theme is Nature, which is very versatile. I had wanted to combine this with the  MoYou London's 10K IG challenge, but their theme for Sunday was "Movies". My favourite nature film is "Microcosmos", but that doesn't translate well to stamping considering the plates I own (would be great for freehand nail art obviously). For today the theme is Texture... curious what I did? Read on!


Today's polishes, from left to right:
  • KIKO - Sugar Mat - 638 Taupe
  • KIKO - Sugar Mat - 644 Sea Blue
  • P2 - Sand Style - 050 confidential
  • Essence - Stampy polish white
  • OPI - Don't Bossa Nova Me Around
  • Koh - 185 Coral!

And MoYou London's Sailor Collection 04. I don't use this plate much, most of my nails have grown too long for this image size.




I started with a gradient of my textured polishes of today, from Taupe to Blue Sea to Confidential... depicting the beach and ocean. I stamped with white and then coloured some of the stamps with the other colours (or mixtures). I also added a wave on my middle and ring fingers with both blue textured polishes, although it's not that visible. Trust me it's there. No top coat obviously.





I'm pretty pleased with the result. I hope you're not tired of stamping yet, I do try to change it up and not just use plain stamping though. I have a total non-stamping mani I did on Friday after my OPI/China Glaze nail mail because I was itching to use some of the new pretties... you'll see that one "soon"

Don't forget out the other pretty nature mani's!


Saturday 24 May 2014

PUEEN Cosmetics Stamping Buffet 24B set - overview

Hi all!

Yesterday you saw me use one of the PUEEN Stamping Buffet plates I bought a while back. I think they're gorgeous, and I've decided to show you all of them in one post! So be warned, this is a very picture heavy post!


This is how you receive your set, it comes in a faux leather case with 14 double sided plastic sleeves that can hold 28 plates. There are 24 plates in this set, so you could use the spare 4 sleeves for other plates of the same size. My Gals plates have the exact same size as these PUEEN ones. They're about 5,5 cm in diameter. PUEEN also sells empty cases, these small ones, but also larger ones. I'm very tempted to get them to store my Gals plates. My Gals plate sets each came in a box, but they've seen better days, plus it's not so easy to look through them.


The plates are protected by a protective layer of blue film which easily comes off.


I photographed each plate, because I like to add them to my blog posts if I used one. There's a lovely mix of designs in this set. I've included all of them, so scroll and browse through them! I've only used a few so far (I blame MoYou's challenge), but I added links to the mani's I did. I might keep this post updated as I use more and more of these plates though.







PUEEN 55 used here.












PUEEN 66 used here.







PUEEN 72 used here.


PUEEN 73 used here.

I really love these plates and I'm so glad I decided to buy this set. Compared to other brands, this set is good value for money as you get so many plates with interesting designs. You can buy PUEEN on their own website, or through Amazon (US, UK, DE, FR). And do check out their Facebook page, because they are giving sneak peeks of their new special edition set called Encore. It will be released in June and they are double-sided (etched on two sides)! Very interesting, and probably bad for my wallet *winks*.

What's your favourite plate in this set? Let me know!