Tuesday 15 May 2012

What a week for Nail Polish Hauls!

After yesterdays excellent delivery of the gorgeous Lynnderellas, my husband obviously decided he would like a little more attention when I first walked in the door because I found today's surprise package sitting on my armchair almost an hour after I got in!

Today's beauty's are all China Glaze that I snapped up at a good price from OzSale.com.au.  I picked up 7 polishes plus 2 different quick dry products including postage for around $70 (shh, don't tell my husband, he is still reeling from how much I spent on the Lynnderellas!)

So here are some shots of the new pretties, I'm thinking that Free Love might go nicely under Cauldron Drippings on the weekend after I do my fills.


Group shot of the new additions

Awaken - Pretty shimmery silver

Below Decks - Quite a pretty mix of taupe, mauve & grey.  Nice for a change of the really  bright colours I usually wear

Wagon Trail  - Shimmery dark olive green


Atlantis - Super sparkly holo glitter in teal base (no flash)

Atlantis - Super sparkly holo glitter in teal base (with flash)


Midtown Magic - Looks to be a deep brown with a hint of gold & olive glitter in the mix.  Really looking forward to trying this out

Kiwi Cool-Ada - Flouro green that is actually less yellow in person

Free Love - Gorgeous deep orange with the hint of a gold shimmer.  I'm hoping this will be the perfect base coat to go under Lynnderella's Cauldron Drippings.

I have been having a few issues trying to get decent macro shot's of my nails (I have an excellent camera and I have no doubt that the problem is me and not the camera), so I will be doing some research before I try and take more photo's so I can be sure I am doing the nails justice.

The only thing that would make this week perfect would be if I received the items I have on order from Fab UR Nails which are some stamping plates and polishes, because you know, I don't have enough polish as it is!

Monday 14 May 2012

Lots of Lovely Lynnderellas! EEEK!

So I have been ridiculously slack at putting any posts on this blog.  Don't get me wrong, my nails are rarely without polish and I have been taking photo's I just haven't had the energy or inclination to upload them.  Then I got home from work today to find a familiar looking yellow postpak sitting on my dining room table.

Yep, my Lynnderella wishlist had finally been fulfilled and posted to me!!  Of course, my husband and boys could not understand the excitement that 8 little bottles of glittery nail polish could evoke.  So, for anyone who is  interested, here are the photo's (which don't even come CLOSE to doing them justice!)

Group Shots!

I have been waiting SOOOO long for these.  Easily 4-5 months, but it was worth it.



Now for the individual shots of my new pretties!
Very Pretty Vampire - gorgeous magenta coloured jelly with black, red & pink multi sized  glitters - with flash

Bride of Franken - This was a last minute addition to the wishlist, but could easily become a favourite.  Beautiful lavender jelly with holographic micro glitter and teal to purple shifting glitter hexagons (?) - with flash

Thank Blue - This is a clear (I think) jelly with teal & holographic micro glitter plus aqua to green glitter.  It is more green/aqua than I expected, but still stunningly pretty!

Thank Blue - No flash, shows more of the green hue

Mercury's Rainbow - I'm not sure if this is a clear or light grey jelly, full of holographic micro & regular glitter, either way it is lovely.  No flash shows the regular sized glitter well

Mercury's Rainbow - with flash demonstrates the silver tone 

Connect the Dots - Quite possibly one of THE most hyped polishes around.  It certainly doesn't disappoint and I can't wait to try it over different base coats to see the effect.  With flash

Connect the Dots - In the bottle, it looks like this is a light grey jelly, but I think it is actually clear judging by how it looks on the nail.  It is chock-a-block full of black & white bar, hexagon, multi sized glitter, topped of with a generous  dose of holo micro glitter

Love, Lace & Lilacs - Clear Jelly with white bar, square, hexagon, small round and micro glitter (with a subtle silver shimmer)

Mercurial - Clear Jelly with large silver hexagons, regular silver hexagons, lilac glitter, black squares and oodles of silver shimmery micro glitter.  With flash

Mercurial - No flash

 And now for my most awaited purchase, drum roll please.....


I would like to present Cauldron Drippings.  This is by far the polish I was the keenest to get my hands on.  I am a self confessed Halloween Junkie and this polish reminds me of nothing more than Halloween!  No flash

Cauldron Drippings - This is an orange jelly base packed full of everything!  There is orange micro glitter, bar, hexagons, squares, small round and that is just what I could see in orange!!  There is also green squares, small round & maybe hexagons.  Gold holo bar, small round and I'm pretty sure I spotted a hexagon as well.  Purple squares, small round and possibly hexagons.  I think I also saw a few black squares and some small white rounds as well.!

Cauldron Drippings - When the Lynnderella site was still up and running and available for everyone to view (I get a message to tell me I haven't been invited to see the site when I try now!), there was a description something along the lines of being everything that was left in the bottom of the pot!

Cauldron Drippings Without flash - you can pick out the purple, green & black in these ones




I couldn't help myself and I had to sample some of the polishes straight away, so the toe nails got a mix and the ring finger on my right hand got Bride of Franken and on my left it is Thank Blue. There are no photo's of this because it is over Layla Butterfly effect which is over a less than ideal purple gradient.  The overall result wasn't great, but I got to experience the finish, which is talked about a lot.  I topped the glitters with one coat of Out the Door, because I don't have any Seche Vite at the moment.  It certainly isn't glassy smooth, but 2 coats should do the trick and it certainly wasn't as bad as I expected after reading some of the reviews.  Maybe the formula has been improved?



All of the above descriptions are from my observations and no doubt when I get them out in the sun tomorrow I will see even more details!   It is a real shame that the Lynnderella site is no longer available as it seemed like a bit of a treasure hunt to go off and find all the listed glitters in each polish, but I understand and respect her reasons for closing it down or at least limiting the audience.  It would be terrible to have something that you started because you loved it being torn apart by jealous and impatient people.


To anyone reading, hopefully I will be posting some of my many photo's again soon.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Prophecy Fulfilled

Lately I have been using and getting really good results with Creative's Moxie monomer paired with their Perfect Colour sculpting polymer.  I have had minimal lifting and find that now I have become used to the how fast it sets I am doing my fills in much less time.  However, I recently had an index nail lift about 1/2 the way off, unfortunately while I was away from home and had no glue handy to tide me over to carrying out a proper repair.  Eventually it got the better of me and I peeled it off completely.  I kept thinking to myself "I really should fix this before my natural nail tears."  And then this happened:
Rummaging in the drawer minus an enhancement...


will lead to this...

After I cut it down.
It was that short that I had to create a free edge with acrylic so I could put a form under it to re-create the length to match the others!

It's not all doom and gloom though, after I repaired and completed my fills, I polished them up to submit an entry into a comp over at morenailpolish.blogspot.com.au, where I'm now in the draw to win some Lynderella polishes.

These are the photo's of the mani I submitted:
Cherries stamped in Natio Ruby with the stems highlighted by hand with Chi Chi  Show me the Money and the leaves hand highlighted with Rimmel Green Grass.



Sunday 11 March 2012

Black & Grey Stamping

Recently I was due to travel to a rather conservative conference for my "day job", for which I was planning on wearing something rather subdued and had already painted them a pretty mid silver by Essie, Fair Game.   But I had recently received my stamping kit (which was really reasonably priced from http://www.bornprettystore.com ) as well  as the matte polish I had also ordered, Suede Ink.  I'm not really sure what brand this polish is, but I think they refer to it as "New Magic" on the site.  Either way, it is quite a nice matte with silver flecks.
As I hadn't really had much of a play with the stamping gear I decided to put some designs in black over the silver.  I tried with a few blacks initially, but they just weren't opaque enough, but this matte was perfect, topped off with the silver flecks really showing up with a gloss top coat over the top ( I know how backwards that sounds to use a matte and then put a shiny top coat on, but it worked great!).


Not a great shot.  Essie Fair Game & New Magic Ink Suede

Now please keep in mind, I haven't had a huge amount of practising with these new tools and enthusiasm can only take one so far!  So, without further ado, here are the shots of the finished product, and yes, I also need to work on the capturing of the images to better showcase the nails!

Nice shot of the thumb

Crown & butterflies (one of the butterflies has lost a bit of her wing, because I didn't realise just how FAST you have to work when stamping

Nice overall shot