Let's Try This One Again

Blogger ate the draft of this post as well. Greedy Blogger.

ISTR banging on about Wednesday's Urban Decay Exhaust making my fingers look a bit grey, prompting me to replace the silvery-pinky-mauve with some, errrr, more grey.

An Accessorize Idol swatch, chillin' in the sun.

Accessorize Rock Star Idol is a dark, charcoal grey with a very prominent silver shimmer, nicely dark with a good bit of blinginess to it. The application was OK, maybe a bit thick and lumpy but I did only need one coat for good opacity. This would probably work nicely as a stamping polish, actually, must give that a go.

Idol is also half-price at Superdrug at present (and maybe on Accessorize's website too but I can't find it), so yay.

Did my tips again as it's my thang at the moment. Decided on one of the tip patterns on Bundlemonster plate BM17 and some Stargazer Chrome 232 (silver), stamped away, and found it hard to get the buggers straight. Tips are hard :( The interestingly-angled bits were quickly painted over with some more of the Accessorize Idol and it looked a bit better.

Can't do tips straight

Chucked a skull on an accent finger because, you know, skull. This particular design is from the skull-feste plate that is HB-05, (here it is at NailArt Und Mehr, there's some on eBay as well). This was also stamped with the Stargazer silver chrome polish.

It all got mattified during Blogger's downtime with some ELF Matte Top Coat. I like it matte, it's quite Orly Iron Butterfly. Maybe. It looked even better with two coats of the ELF matte topcoat but there are no pics of further mattness, as it was dark.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby

I like this polish, I put it on on Thursday and it's still going. Brilliant.

Ghaki

Over the next couple of days I plan to be wearing this:

OPI At Your Quebec and Call Swatch

It's Opi At Your Quebec & Call and I've no idea where it came from, it just appeared in my posh nail varnish box. As you can see it's got a nice bit o' shimmer to it but I'm not sure what colour to class this as, it looks like a khaki-gold. Ghaki, maybe? I'd never normally wear this colour but it's alright it is. Could be better, though.

Some HB plates from Nailart & Mehr arrived the same day as the new Bundlemonster plates and it was their turn for the Stompystampy treatment. I loves me some tribal so dug out plate HB43.

Tribal cover-up makes everything alright

It took me ages to pick a pattern, and in the end went for the tribal knotty design. Gave the nails a bit of a stamping with Collection 2000 Alloys 292 (gold), went over that with Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black) and now I like this colour, it's really quite \m/

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.

Thank You For Coming To Knebworth

I've been wanting to see Opeth for years and years and years but never got round to it. This year, they're coming locally to the Sonisphere Festival which is just over there *gestures vaguely*. I'm so chuffed about this that I've done Opeth nails, loosely based on their album 'Blackwater Park'. Cover is pictured on the right there, say hello, album cover!

Started off with a bit of the old Avon Matte Black As Night. I've swatched it for your viewing pleasure, though it is very boring as it's matt black. I apologise for my minging cuticles, I've been abusing them :(

It's matte and it's black -- it's Avon Matte Black as Night.

I started off by sponging the top portion of the nail with light grey acrylic paint. I applied some tiny blobs of black around the tips using a small brush, then dabbed them with a sponge. A small amount of white acrylic paint was dabbed on to the centre and blended in with a sponge. It looked pretty manky at this point, as you can see.

The next Konading part was meant to be painstakingly photographed step-by-step but I got into it a bit and completely forgot to do it.

Stamping in the sillouhettes was first. I used Superdrug MUA Shade 2 as the stamping polish and stamped on the four lines design from the Fauxnad m03 plate. These lines were meant to represent the creepy people hiding in the trees.

Next up was Fauxnad plate m43 -- there was a tree shape on there which would do. I stamped this pattern on twice, once upside down  to make it look like there were trees, though they look like bits of bamboo TBH.

Then it was time for a squiggly design on the Konad m70 plate, I used this with Superdrug MUA Shade 11 and stamped it over the black area at the bottom.

My Nails' Tribute to Blackwater Park

Up there is the end result. It doesn't look like the Blackwater Park album cover at all but I like the overall effect so I've kept it on. It's hard putting album covers on my nails, but it's bloody brilliant fun.

Cute Damien Hirst Skulls

I enjoyed yesterday's handpainting of Konading so much that I decided to do some more. It's quite relaxing, you see.

Started off with a neutral base of Superdrug MUA Shade 10, and I've no idea if it's a pearl or a frost. As with all the MUA nail products, the brush is awkward but the polish covers well enough -- thats two coats in the picture below.

Is this pearly or frosty, I can't tell.

Now for some Damien Hirst skulls. I stamped a cute skull pattern on the nails using Fauxnad plate m39 (pic). You can get this skull patten from a variety of fauxnad plates as well the proper Konad m13 plate.

The skulls' eyes were coloured in with some Barry M 66 Matt White Nail Paint, and the skulls themselves were coloured with this holo glitter that comes from ancient times -- Boots 17 Sparkly 500 Party Animal. Then I was :( because there was nothing left to colour in.

I have no idea how old that bottle of glitter polish is, but its old.


You can see the holo kicking off with flash

\m/ As Metal As Flippin' eck Nails \m/

Decided to go with some silver today so I've swatched the Saffron Colour 13.

Saffron Colour 13 Swatch. Shiny Silver.

Nice and shiny, it does the job, available from Blush Cosmetics, eBay and maybe in your local chemist, and it costs a quid for a bottle. This is good. What wasn't good was breaking my Boots boycott by purchasing a bottle of Barry M Nail Effects 311 Crackle stuff :O

Barry M Nail Effects 311. It crackles me up.

I applied different thicknesses of the crackle polish to see how it affected the final look; the index finger sported a very thick coat, middle finger was a thickish coat and the ring finger had a thin application. Can't remember what I did with the little finger, anyway I like the thin coat the best. A top coat of Rimmel Ultra Pro Matte Finish finished the job and then a nice plumber came round to fix my cold tap before my nails had dried properly and I gouged a bit out by turning off the stopcock.  Bummer.

Blingtastic Purple

I was out gathering nicotene patches yesterday and I found this stonker for the princely sum of £2.29:

Three coats of bloomin' 'eck

This is a swatch of Laura Paige 43 Limited Edition Voodoo Violet and it isn't what I expected to find in the cheapo nail polish section of the local chemist. It is fab, a purple base with purple microglitter and larger bits of holographic glitter. ISTR there being a silver version of this as well but I was quite captivated by the purple (and I only had a couple of quid spare). It also came with a free black eyeliner, which was rather \o/

It lasts well too, we had a pretty hardcore sesh of Rock  Band 3 last night, resulting in one small break and no chips. Good work!

Oooh

I layered some on over Avon Matte Black (the stuff that chips like a potato) and it looked pretty cool; the purple microglitter shows up beautifully though I'm not sure what happened to the holo glitter. This one will be staying on for a few days, it's bloody fantastic.