Black and red flowers

Hi everyone! I've gone global! I was checking my stats on blogger and my page views had shot right up. After fainting I looked where they had come from and it was lula.pl! I hope you don't think I am showing off I am just so happy and surprised XD

Anyway I know you don't visit to listen to me so without any further ado 

I wanted to do something a little bit darker but I like to have high contrast. Things like zebra print always appeal to me because of the contrast of colours.

I used Seche Rebuild as the base coat then 1 coat of Nails Inc caramel colour (the free one with diet coke promotions last month) and then Boots No7 in Siren. The reason for using the caramel was to eliminate the visible nail line. I then used a black nail art pen to draw the flower-ish designs. Next I used a little seche vite to glue down some rhinestones. The nail art pen and rhinestones were ones I picked up on ebay. 

Thanks for visiting 

Stacie xoxox

OMG - not the nail polish XD

Models Own put me on their blog I nearly fell out of my chair at work when I saw it!  Shame my fingers are so dry at the moment!! I was telling everyone at work I was famous. To be fair though that is only 3 people XD

Oh well that made my Monday :D

Stacie xoxox

Spring Flowers

Hi everyone!
I hope you had a good weekend! I'll keep this concise because it's late and I have work tomorrow. 

I honestly did clean up around my fingers but it doesn't look like it! I used Models Own polishes
in Blooboo for the base coat, Utopia (the pink flowers), Concrete Mixer (the beige flowers), Mushroom (greyish flowers) and lemon meringue for the centres. I used Seche Rebuild and Vite as base and top coats. It's such a simple manicure to do. I used a dotting tool and did 5 dots in a circle then a yellow one in the middle.

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think I love reading your comments XD

Stacie xoxox

Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

In October 2005 I had an ultrasound and they found a large cyst. I knew they were worried because when I saw the specialist she asked someone to come and take my blood where I was sat despite the blood test area closing 30 mins previously. I was referred to the rapid access clinic and had surgery a few weeks later. I was very fortunate that it was not cancer. It has made me very aware of it though how important it is for people to be aware of the symptoms. You need to know not just for your own health but the health of the women you love.  

Quick facts about Ovarian Cancer link 

• Ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK.
• It usually affects women who have reached their menopause – about 85% of women diagnosed are over the age of 50, though it can occur in younger women.
• Most women with ovarian cancer are treated with a combination of surgery and chemotherapy.

If detected early, like breast cancer, it can be beaten. Please visit Ovacome to raise awareness, donate and find support. 

Thanks for reading

Much love, Stacie xoxox

Wild Purple Paisley

I decided to do a bit of free hand paisley on the lovely MeMeMe nail polish in Wild. I used Silver, aqua, white and black nail art pens from Ebay.
Basically I painted my nails with Seche retain stuck on the required false nails, then painted them all in Wild. It took 2 reasonable coats. I then drew random bent pear shapes in silver and filled them with the aqua colour. I dotted some black on the aqua and then dotted white around the shapes.
Ta Da!

The type design means you don't have to be too exact and you can mix up any colours you like. I don't love it like I love Cath kidston or Vintage roses but they look nice and unusual. I don't expect to see many people with nails like mine tomorrow XD
Thanks for stopping by, I'd love to know what you think and please if you have any requests let me know
Stacie xoxox

Welcome followers and Kiss False Nails

Hi Followers old and new! Lovely of you to choose my Blog. If you have any requests for nail art designs please ask. I might not be able to do it but I will try. I am working on some tutorials too.
Stacey asked yesterday how I kept my nails so nice and I replied that I faked it, well some of the time. Before I started painting my nails I never had any problems. I just filed them everyone now and again and that was it. Recently though they have been flakey and splitting and my index fingers and middle fingers have got very short. I don't know the cause but I have started using Seche Rebuild to try and build them up and wearing false nails so I can keep them all polished. The ones I have bought are Kiss 100 Full Cover Nails I got both the Active Square and Active round. They are so easy to put on (did glue my fingers together once though!) and stay stuck until you take them off.

They are very comfortable. I have worn false nails once before and taken them off before the day was over but these are great! If you follow the instructions they work well. To remove I bought an artificial nails remover pot from Boots and they come off easily.

Sorry the shorts are a bit blurry. I just can't seem to take a photo at the moment :/
As you can see one is square and one is rounded. You just put some glue on your nail and then stick the fake one on.

 I have filed them to the length I like and they look ok. Here they are painted:

Sorry the polish isn't perfect but I just wanted to stick a quick polish on to show you how the look. Going to do something a bit more interesting later ;-) The polish is the wonderful Barry M Dusty Mauve
Also I said before I would show you a NYC polish I got a few weeks ago

This polish is so runny and thin I didn't have the patience to do a whole hand. Colour is Empire State Blue. Has a bit more green and yellow in certain lights. Shame its like gnats pee or it would be a nice polish.

EDITED TO ADD: One of the best features of Kiss 100 Nails packs is that the nails do not chip! I have not had a nail polish chip will wearing it. They really are so good that I would wear them on all my fingers if it didn't mean chopping some down. XD

Models Own Concrete Mixer Checks and a Surprise!

I managed to swipe one of the new Models Own colours - concrete mixer! I love it!

I love the colour but because I am pale it washes me out a little bit so I decided to add a few more colours. I used all Models Own colours - Purple Grey, Champagne and Becca's brown.

I hope you like this manicure. I don't think it will set the world on fire but I think it would be a great way to wear nail art if you have to be smart at the office. I will post another combination tomorrow. I'm loving checks at the moment!
The surprise is that I have written a guest post tutorial for DoNotRefreeze make sure you click  here tomorrow to see what I've been up to XD

Stacie xoxox

MeMeMe Wild and NYC Starry Silver Glitter

What a hectic week! Lots going on. I will try to a nail art post tomorrow if I find time. I have been doing some swatches of my polish collection when I am trying out designs so I thought I would share them. They aren' the best swatches I realised when I was editing the photos. I will endeavour to clean up around my nails before photos in the future! XD
First is MeMeMe Wild I bought this in Superdrug in Milton Keynes a few weeks ago. The first think I will say about it is that it has a very square flat brush. This took me a few tries to get it near the cuticles. If you have normal sized hands it might be hard.

Because it is big flat and square it made it quite difficult to use. Other than that it covered opaque in 2 medium coats and was ok. I didn't wear it so I can't comment on its durability.

Its a nice purple and it cost under £5. It reminded me of China Glaze Grape Pop which is why I bought it. The nail shot is the most colour accurate.
I also bought NYC Starry Silver Glitter on the same trip as they were selling it for 99p. I believe it is going to be discontinued so that is why. I painted it over Wild and this is what it looks like.

It's pretty enough. Dense enough glitter and normal brush. Again didn't wear it so can't comment on durability.
One polish is never enough :D
Stacie xoxox

Practice

To practice I bought a massive box of Royal Nail tips which are longer than most peoples nails let alone tips! Anyway I thought these would be perfect to practice nail art ideas on. I thought I would show you some of the ideas that I probably won't use as a manicure.

As you can see the they are all questionable in their own way but practice makes perfect!
I also had an idea today

I just need to work on a way to improve it. It's a promising idea though.
Stacie xoxox 

Punk-ish

Sooo I asked what you wanted to see and Emily suggested something a little more edgy so I went for punk! I hope you like it.

Now for some details

Little finger on left hand and Middle finger on right hand: China Glaze in Cheers To You with Barry M Nail Paint in Instant Nail Effects.

Middle finger on left hand and thumb of right hand base coat of Barry M Nail Paint in Black then China Glaze Cheers to you 'dry' brushed on top. I did this using a very short bristled brush which is quite stiff then just pick up a small amount of polish and dab it on the nail. You have to wait for the base coat to dry first though or it will mess it up. On the thumb I then added some Andrea Fulerton Nail Boutique stickers a skull and cross bone from one pack and a chain from another pack. I think they are £2 each from superdrug. You get 17 lengths on the chains and about 20 stickers on the skulls one (don't know exactly because I've used some before I counted).

The little finger of the right hand is just Barry M black with a chain sticker on (as above)

Index finger of the right hand I painted black and then drew a skull and cross bones in Models Own Snow White. I also dry brushed some near the top because it looked a bit lost with just the skull and cross bones on it.

Thumb on my left hand I painted black (barry m) and then painted some chains on in a union jack formation in China Glaze Cheers to you.

Both Ring fingers I painted in George at Asda in Superhero and then painted on some tartan style stripes in No7 Stay Perfect in Totally Teal and a yellow nail art pen (cheap ones from Ebay)

And finally my index finger of the right hand. I painted the base colour of Models Own True Blue (possibly my favourite colour ever) and then did the design in red and white nail art pens.

When I finished I decided that the 3 colourful nails stood out too much so I crackle glazed them too!

I hope you like my latest nails. It was a nice change from my normal cute nails, well I they're still cute but they're not girly. I had fun creating them
I used Seche rebuild and Seche Vite as the base and top coats.
Stacie xoxox

Andrea Fulerton Gemstone Overcoat

Hiya!
Quick post got this on a shopping trip last week. Its Andrea Fulerton Gemstone overcoat. She has produced a line of cool products for superdrug including nail art pens and 3 in polishes. You can see the whole range here
The Gemstone Overcoat cost £5.10 for I don't know! I threw the box away. The website says it cost £9.27 for 10ml so I guess it is 5.5ml in the bottle. It has got writing on the bottle itself but it is next to impossible to see because it is silver and that does not show up against the polish. This first picture was taken with my ipod touch in daylight so isn't the best resolution but shows the sparkle and colour well.

Today I kept looking at my nails they looked like fire! I used this over polish over Barry M in Raspberry which is quite a dark raspberry red. I love the look of it.
A couple more shots which don't really show the fire but do show the colour of Barry M polish

So I looked at these photos and thought 'If I was reading this blog I'd want to know what it looked like over other colours' so guess what I did XD
Here's a pic of the colours before I added the top coat or should I say overcoat. I haven't cleaned them up really because I'll be taking it straight off and on to the next project! The colours are Collection 2000 Fast Dry Hot Looks in Dynasty on little finger, Next *the clothes shop!* Get the look for Runway in Blue, Models Own in True Blue (my favourite colour ever!), Barry M in Black and Barry M in Grey.

I took lots of photos and this one is the best out of the bunch. I think it's clear that this looks best on dark polishes black being the best if you want it to stand out. On the pink and pale blue it was hard to see the topcoat in certain angles it just looked blotchy and not a special topcoat.
Stacie xoxox

Pastel multicolour stripes

I wanted to do some stripes with lots of colours I liked. Really simple to do just need a striper brush and a steady hand. I started with the middle stripe and then one each side until the nail was full. I learnt by the second hand that a nice bead at the end of the striper brush will give a nice finish. If you look at the pictures below you can see the difference in the ring finger. This is because I smudged it and had to redo that finger!

I also went to the cinema with my nieces today and afterward we stopped off at Claire's accessories and got these beauties

I love them!
What kind of manicure would you like me to try next? Let me know in comments.
Stacie xoxox