It's a Nice Day for a Royal Wedding ...

Didn't watch it, though, we done a Charlie Brooker and played Portal 2 on the Xbox instead. It became quite disorientating after a while so lovely blokey took the dog out and I did my nails in this rather fetching purple.

2True Shade 16 Swatch. A good purple.

Good purple, this is, it's three coats of 2True Shade 16 -- a polish that is nicely affordable and easily acquired from Superdrug or 2True's website. I decided to Konad it before going back to some co-op Portal 2 and it's associated squabbles as the new Bundlemonster plates arrived yesterday. First design to be used was the cute skull. Surprise.

Half of William and Kate showered with the confetti made from the bones of the proletariat.

So, yeah, this is a representation of William and Kate being showered with confetti made from the bones of the proletariat. Bride on one hand, groom on the other with the prole-bone-confetti scattered everywhere as it was deployed by a Lancaster bomber doing a fly-by. The skull design and the crossbones are from Bundlemonster plate BM225, the little crown is from BM08 and the polishes used were the Konad Special White polish and Stargazer Chrome Silver. Banging.

Now back to saving science ...

Minty Goodness

Couldn't stand the orange anymore as it kept reminding me of a 1970s Luton and picked out a bottle of Collection 2000 Hot Looks 14 Boho.

Collection 2000 Hot Looks 14 Boho Swatch

Boho is a soft minty green that's a bit frosty/metallic (depending on the light) and has a wee bit of darker greeny silvery shimmer to it. It's not my sort of colour at all but I really like it, it's relaxing and soothing.

Thought a bit of silver would look alright with it and, as the yesterday's Konad m60 plate was still on my desk saying "hello", I thought I'd say "hello" back.

Hello

The flowery paisley design on the m60 plate was selected and Stargazer Silver Chrome was used as the stamping polish. It doesn't look as good in the photo as it does IRL but when does it?

Plastic Bag

It was most sad to hear that Poly Styrene of Xray Spex died yesterday :( Today's nails are for her.

La Femme Orange Cream Swatch.

This is three coats La Femme Orange Cream, which is a brightbrightbright orange - the same colour as a Sainsbury's plastic bag, in fact. It goes on OK, it's dirt cheap and you can get it easily from eBay. I got 9 bottles of colourful cremes for £8.49, which was nice. It would have been nicer if I'd got the neons, though, a Poly Styrene manicure really needs some proper dayglo colours. Ah well.

Orange Tartan and Chains. Just needs a torn t-shirt and we're done.

I wanted to revist the old days of punk and went for some bright orange tartan nails with chains. For the tartany effect I used Konad plate m60 and Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black) (which wouldn't get on straight for love or money, but that's alright cos all the 80s punks I knew were quite scruffy anyway) and the Bundlemonster BM12 plate and Stargazer Chrome Silver was used for the chains. All it needs is some big stompy boots, a ripped t-shirt and a pint of snakebite and black to top it all off.

I Am A Glorious Tiger

The blue chrome job of the other day didn't last long due to me being rather ungainly with my hands, so I thought an Eastery colour may be in order and picked out the Nubar Purple Beach. This is another one of Nubar's wonderful duochromes with colours ranging from purple to gold to green, and I don't mind telling you that it looks fantastic.

Nubar Purple Beach Swatch. Sunlight.

Nubar Purple Beach Swatch. Shade.

Formula, brush and all that were lovely, it's just my application was a bit meh as it was applied whilst sitting on a swing lounger in the very hot sun (which was actually quite a challenge). Also, some bits have been patched up as I kept whacking my hand on a light whilst playing Dance Central (which is awesome). Ungainly, see. Pictures aren't the best either as I was wearing a cowboy hat and huge aviator shades when I took them Bo)

Today's Konad-job was inspired by a bizarre conversation about tigers. During this conversation I decided that it would be brilliant to be a tiger that was the same colour as my nails, as I'd be able to hide in gold grasses, green grasses and, errr, purple grasses. Thereafter, a Konad of glorious tiger was made.

It would own if I was a tiger and was gold and purple with black stripes.

Used the Konad m57 plate and some Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black) for the stamping as I'd got a new bottle, though something seems to have changed with the polish and it doesn't stamp as well :(

Happy Easter!

Stompy Stamps The Blues

Yesterday's giraffey-snake was removed very quickly and efficiently and replaced with some Stargazer Chrome Blue 233. This made me very happy.

Stargazer Chrome Blue 233 Swatch. Well, hello there.

I'm a bit loved-up with these Stargazer Chromes, they're not only brilliant for stamping but they look stunning all by themselves. I left these overnight before I got the urge to ruin the lovely, metallic finish with some stamping.

The nails were stamped with the squiggly pattern on Konad plate m70 using some GCOCL blue stamping polish, which is a bit awful as it lacks opacity and dries so blooming fast and the patterns don't like transferring to the nail. They seem a bit rubbery, like acrylic paint, actually. Quite disappointed with these GCOCL polishes, but they were colourful and dirt-cheap on Fleabay and I had to see what they would do. They'd be great over light colours if the polish would only transfer from stamper to nail a bit better.

GCOCL Stamping Polishes. They're not much cop.

Back to the stamping. There was an unfortunate incident and the corner of each nail was repainted with the Stargazer Blue Chrome, which looked really good so I sponged over these corners with some Stargazer Chrome Silver 232 and it looked a bit Joshiah Wedgewood.

Squiggles, cover-up with some blue, sponge over with silver.

An accent nail was needed as all those corners looked a bit empty. I was utterly determined to not use a skull, flower, butterfly or star design and went for the bats on Bundlemonster plate BM13 but the GCOCL polish did not want to play ball. So I had to settle for one of the butterflies on Konad plate m36 instead.

Didn't want to use a butterly flip-flapping away, but I had no choice.

This is one of those designs that look really good when you're short-sighted and it's a bit dark, but looks a bit rubbish and messy when captured in midday sunlight by a camera. Yes. Going to keep it on a couple of days if possible because, as I mentioned earlier, I'm well loved-up with these Stargazer Chromes, they're ace.

Should Have Stuck With The Giraffe

Needed to take my mind off teh ills today as they completely suck and I've had enough of it and I've had to have cigarettes again, so picked out a colour at random. This Collection 2000 Hot Looks 10 Wink wasn't the best colour to pull out, TBH, it's a bit fugly.

Collection 2000 Hot Looks 10 Wink Swatch. Shakey hands = shakey application

What can I say? The bottle was the worst of the eBay specials and the colours had utterly separated -- I had to shake it for ages to get some sort of uniform colour going. I wish I hadn't, it's horrible.

I thought a tiger print would hide the minging colour, and went for Konad plate m57. It had vanished. Bummer. Unthwarted, the tips got sponged over with some Collection 2000 Alloys 292 (gold) and stamped in black with the giraffey pattern from Bundlemonster plate BM10.

Then the m57 plate turned up right in front of me on my desk, it was just sitting there, chilling. Git. It wasn't there earlier. I decided that a snakeskin thing with the fishnet pattern may work better than the giraffe look. It didn't.

WTF is this? Waaaay too many black patches.

Not 'appy with it, mate, but at least it comes off \o/

And Now For Something Completely Different

Needed a break from all those dark colours and required something really girlie and pale and pink. Something like Boots 17 High Gloss Pinking Shear.

Boots 17 High Gloss Pinking Shear Swatch

Hmmm, bit of a messy application there. Pinking Shear, as the name suggests, is a very pale pink that is sheer. It has a bit of a pearly finish which seemed to make application a bit difficult, and was far too sheer for my liking -- I had to chuck on four coats before it looked a bit more :) I was also glad that I'd whitened me tips before applying.

Wanted a simple, subtle Konad job today, involving pretty things and some glitter. The fauxnad GCOCL A01 plate stepped up and said hello and gave me flower.

Bit of Konad, bit of glitter, oooh this is quite nice actually.

I used Konad Special White polish for the stamping and went over the stamped-on flowers with some Saffron Colour 04, a glitter polish which has bits of blue, green and orange glitter in it that reminds me of fairy's wings. And there we go - girlie nails on someone who is really, really ungirlie. I really like them as well, they make a nice change :3

Hurray, it's Lovely Sonday

This is the last Lovely Sonday for a while, as I have run out of lovely naily gifts from my lovely son. He's bought me some awesome polishes, and this one - Orly Velvet Rope - has to be the most awesome of all.

Orly Velvet Rope Swatch. Hello there.

Ooooh, this is two coats of nice. Velvet Rope is a good, vivid glass-flecked purple that'll absolutely knock your socks off, I absolutely love this colour. And what better way to express my love than popping a bit of Konading on there ...

Orly Velvet Rope with some flowers and squiggles.

It all came out a bit wonky as I had to kinda stamp backwards IYSWIM. Used Stargazer Chrome Silver as the stamping polish and Fauxnad GCOCL G15 because I like the florals. It's the weirdest thing, actually, I'm not a flower-person at all, though I quite like lilies, but for some reason I really like having flowers on my nails. Must be getting old ...

Red Tribal Nails. Again!?

Fancy some red this weekend, so I'm going to grab me some Boots 17 Fast Finish Knockout Red and paint my nails with it.

Boots Fast Finish Knockout Red Swatch. Looks /very/ bright in that pic.

I'm not the greatest fan of these Boots 17 Fast Finishes -- don't get me wrong, the colours are fantastic, it's just the application. They seem to go a bit streaky, but that may be due to my general nail n00bness.

Some top-coat and Konad will iron out all those naily problems.

Yes, red tribal nails again. I can't help it, I love tribal patterns, they go so well with red.

This particular tribal pattern comes from Chez-Delaney plate T31. First I stamped the pattern with some Konad Special Silver polish (which ain't all that, TBH, but it works with this plate) and lightly brushed over it with a bit of random silver glitter polish. I stamped over all that with the same tribal pattern, this time with Konad Special Black polish, and it didn't look completely awful. Hurray!

I'm going to get a grip and be really brave next time I dig out the tribals and do it over a colour that isn't red.

Camping in the Woods with a Pretend MP5

I thought I'd have another go at the eBay Collection 2000 lottery, and picked out this one.

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Catwalk Swatch

It's Collection 2000 Hot Looks 9 Catwalk, and it's a most marvellous green. It's a bit of a dirty metallic green, good if you need to camouflage your nails in the woods for paintballing, and it's got a stonking bit of shimmer to it as well. Actually very chuffed with this colour, it came out much better than expected and I just wore the colour, pure, on its own for a day. Then, obviously, it got the Konad treatment.

Also got some new Fauxnad plates as well -- these are GCOCL G plates and were also an eBay aquisition (plates are here). The numbering differed from the ones in the listing but they're the same plates with some gorgeous floral designs on, as well as the obligitary Hello Kitty design.

Not sure about those gold flowers ...

I liked the look of plate G15 and decided on the central flower design. This got stamped on with Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black), then the flower part was stamped again, this time using Collection 2000 Alloys 292 (Gold). The rest of the nails just got a gold flower and the centres of the flowers were dotted with Orly Winter Wonderland. Unfortunately, they looked a bit messy -- maybe I should have understamped them with some black, or done the full nail stamp, I don't know.

Still looks pretty badass though, despite being 'not right'.

Space Balloons

I got a load of random old Collection 2000 Hot Looks polishes of eBay the other week. Some of them are really quite scary and some of them are quite nice. Couture is one of the ones that is quite nice -- it's a dusky pink with a bit of a shimmer.

Collection 2000 Hot Looks 2 Couture Swatch. It's actually a bit pinker and more shimmery.

As today is the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight I thought some balloons going to space would be cool. I sponged over the Hot Looks Couture with some 2True Shade 13 (purple) to create a twilighty sky, painted some Saffron Colour 06 glitter over the tips and stamped over it all with the weird balloon tree thingee pattern on Bundlemonster plate BM06.

Balloons going to space.

It didn't come out the way I planned but I'm so knackered at the moment I don't care. Yeah. I want me bed.

Another Lovely Sonday

Hello there new followers, and old Nail Bling readers. Hope you're liking the new place :) The furniture's still being moved about a bit and I keep forgetting to label posts ...

Last week, the lovely son got us some nice polishes for Mother's Day -- Boots 17 Crackle, Orly Witch's Blue and Orly Velvet Rope. Bloody fine choices as well, I was well pleased with them :) This Lovely Sonday* I'm going to wear the Orly Witch's Blue to sooth my prickly soul.

Orly Witch's Blue Swatch. Deliciousy blue.

Mmmmm, this is a nice bright blue with quite a shimmer to it -- fine choice lovely son! Excuse the messy application,  I'm a little 'delicate' today, over-caffeinated and my hands are all a-quiver. Best try and patch up the dodgy patches with some flakies and Konad, oh yeah.

Looks a bit mermaidy, or like the scales of a really awesome dragon.

A couple of coats of the Nfu.Oh 52 flakies were applied, vainly admired for a while, and then stamped over with the scale pattern on Konad m57. A spot of top coat went on and, for about the millionth time this week, I wished the camera was a bit better so it could pick up all the fabulous as it all looks a bit flat; roll on next month when I get a new one. Hopefully, touch wood, and all that.

*Sadly marred by a minor skirmish about cleaning the sink properly.

Paint it Black

I'm a disaster sandwich today. So far, I've spilt things, broken a thumbnail, lost things, dropped things and literally melted off the top layer of my desk with acetone. Also completely wrecked this Gosh Black Passion job wot I started on last night.

Gosh 533 Black Passion before it got ruined.

I know I had black nails the other day but I just couldn't say no to the silver shimmer over the black -- you can just about make out the shimmer in the photo. Colour is nice, application is nice, can't moan about this polish at all.

I only Konaded a couple of nails as they looked OK that way, and I wasn't too sure what to put on the others, so they got left alone -- a first! Used Gosh 549 Holographic as a stamping polish and the star full nail design on Bundlemonster plate BM21. Some of the stars were coloured in with more Gosh 549 Holographic, and the main star got an outer glow of NYC Starry Silver Glitter.

Some mental holo going on there.

:( Was seriously more bummed out about ruining my nails than melting the desk TBH, but was quickly cheered up by Deez Nailz linking here, thanks muchly missus! :)

A Winter Wonderland in April

I've worn Orly Winter Wonderland quite a few times now, but never got the opportunity to swatch it until today. So here it is.

Orly Winter Wonderland Swatch

I'm a bit of a fan of this white and silver shimmer, it's all glistening and shimmering and it's not my normal colour but I loves it. It is a bit sheer for my liking and four coats were needed to get a good opaque thang going.

Kept it pure for a while, then went for a spot of Konad.

Blue Butterflies and Flowers. It was hard to get a pic of this.

I used Fauxnad plate m02 for the butterflies, Konad m57 for the flowers and shaded it all with Orly Lunar Eclipse. Quite pleased with how it all ended up, actually -- shall try and keep it on for more than 24 hours as some sort of challenge!

Swit Swoo

It's a beautiful sunny day today, there are people wandering around in shorts and flip-flops and I want to wear Nubar Indigo Illusion, cos it's sexy.

Nubar Indigo Illusion Swatch. Too sexy for this post?

I especially love this duochrome -- it changes from grey to pink to green (depending on the light) and it also sports a good pink shimmer, oh it's lovely. I spent a bit of time in the sun waggling my fingers, admiring the colours.

I had to Konad it, but how? I had some Stargazer Pink Chrome that went with the pink, and a rummage through my plates yielded the leafy pattern on the Bundlemonster BM11 plate.

Nubar Indigo Illusion and BM11

I was going for something a bit more subtle, but I'm not a very subtle person.

Deep Red and Shimmery, Honest

Needed something red and shimmery to match my red, glittery plugs — Boots 17 Fast Finish Dazzling Ruby fit the bill quite nicely. It’s a deep, red shimmer and it’s very nice, actually. I went for three coats then took pix.
I couldn’t get a good photo of this one and had to adjust the colours in Photoshop to get it to look less orange, which is why the picture looks a bit odd. That, and my lack of photographing skill. You can’t see the shimmer all that well either, but it is there in real life, and it is fab.

Boots 17 Fast Finish Ruby Dazzle Swatch

I Konaded the tips using a tribal pattern on Bundlemonster BM07 and some Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (it has nearly run out!). I dotted the centre of the pattern with some more black and went over it with a rosy coloured glitter. It looks silver. Couldn’t get rid of the orange tint in this picture at all, so imagine it a bit pinker.

Tribal Tips and Glitter.

Gorgeous polish, it’s just a damn shame that I can’t get pictures that do it any justice :(

Missing One Smash Gate @ Downtown Paradise

We’ve got some seriously grey weather going on at the mo, so a sunny bright colour was required. And this BYS Mystery yellow from the BYS Chrome Pack is sunny, bright and, errrr, very yellow. It might be BYS Bottle Blonde No 180, then again, it might not. I do try to help.

BYS Mystery Yellow Swatch. Four /good/ coats.

Fantastic colour but a bit horrible to apply. It was a bit too sheer for my liking that needed four rather healthy coats to reach opacity, and it went on a bit streaky. I’m not sure why it was in a so-called Chrome pack, as it’s a creme. Oddness.

I wasn’t too happy with the finish and reached out for the stamper …

I hadn’t given any of the Bundlemonster full nail designs a go yet, BM20 was today’s choice, accompanied by the long-suffering Superdrug MUA Shade 02 (black). Blimey, these designs are small — I feel like I’ve got MASSIVE man hands now. I had to try and double stamp on most of my fingers, which is really hard to do with straight lines. I messed up a few nails and quickly repaired them by stamping on the Fauxnad m42 (Konad m28) skull in black, then the Konad Special White polish.

These are inspired by those crash gates in Burnout Paradise, they are.

I coloured in the eyes and removed the eyepatch with some white acrylic paint and skulls saved the day again! I’m kinda wishing that I’d only stamped one nail as all these stripes are a bit much, they do my nut in a bit when I move my fingers.

Goldfingahs!

I got given a Boots 17 gift box a while back and hadn't worn any of them for my giving-up smoking plan. Until now.

Nightshade was my first pick, mainly because it was black. The bottle makes it look as though there's a very dark bluey-green sheen to it, but I've not really noticed it on the nails.

Boots 17 Fast Finish Nightshade Swatch

My lovely son got me some Boots 17 Crackle Top Coat for Mother's Day that was begging to be put on over all that shiny black. This went on fairly thickly with some diagonal brush strokes.

Nice Crack

I don't normally wear gold at all -- I can't even remember the last time I wore it, so gold fingers was a bit of a :0 for me. Quite like it, though,and I've not Konaded it. Shock! Thanks muchly, lovely son, you rock!

Bling-a-bling-blang my blang-a-long-ling-long

Still haven't heard from BYS about the mystery chrome pack, but I'm still going to wear it. Going for the dark pinky-red today.

BYS Chrome Pack Dark Pink Swatch

The colour comes out really bright on my camera for some reason, it should be a bit more subdued than that. It's not all that chromey either TBH but it's a nice enough colour. Not really the sort of colour I have on my nails. Hair, yes, but not the nails.

I needed glitter, lots of glitter.

I'm useless at taking pix of glitter

Saffron Colour 09 was the perfect glitter for the pinky-red base, the colours matched almost perfectly. I put on two coats then started getting a bit twitchy for the Konad. Oh, 'ere we go ...

I initially resisted my newest addiction by sponging the nail tips in the BYS dark pinky-red, and it all looked really, really good. I know this because I kept looking at it, thinking, "ooh, that looks nice". However, the camera disagreed and reluctantly squeezed out the blurry glitter pic on the left.

I Konaded it eventually, using the stars on Bundlemonster plate BM14 and some Stargazer Chrome Silver 232 polish, which is the bollocks for stamping with, the silver comes out beautifully -- it's much better than the Konad Special Silver polish, in fact. It's also very reasonably priced and available from Stargazer or eBay, wahey!

All blinged up for the weekend.

Slightly Better Denim Nails

I've had a go at doing denim nails before, but the pictures were embarrassingly bad so I'm trying again with a better camera.

I started out with three coats of Constance Carroll 332 Blue Candy, which is still a nice light silvery blue and a good base for the denim. Here's a better pic than last time.

Constance Carroll Blue Candy Swatch. Again.

I found a paintbrush with stiffish bristles and stippled over the base with Superdrug MUA Shade 1. A small amount of white acrylic paint was gently sponged over the dark blue, then more of the Blue Candy was sponged over the top. I squished the layers of colour down with my fingers to smooth it out a bit and got a bit messy.

Apply dark blue, the some white, then some more light blue. Messy.

Not a lot of Konad Abuse today, just a quickie on each ring finger. Today's Konading Combo is Bundlemonster BM08 and some Konad White Special Polish. The centre of the flower was filled with Saffron Colour 13 (silver) and the petals were quickly shaded with some Orly Winter Wonderland.

Slightly Better Denim Nails

I originally applied a matte top coat but it made the blues look really dull so I put some clear nail varnish over the top to give it a satiny effect. Looked OK after that, and matched me jeans, yay.