Happy Samhain

So it's officially the end of Summer. Can't say I'm sorry, what a shit Summer it's been! So much rain!! Besides  I love the Autumn weather so much more, and the word Autumn is fab. I'm looking forward to fireworks and hot chocolates this harvest season <3

Hallowe'en, or Samhain, as I prefer because old Pagan festivals are so much cooler, is so commercialised nowadays but it hasn't lost all of its old meaning. It's traditional to dress up as something scary to ward off the evil spirits that may try to harm you as the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead becomes thinner before All Hallows Eve (Christian) or during Samhain (Pagan). This year I chose to dress up as a black cat because for the last 3 years (or 4, I don't remember) I have dressed up as a witch and I wanted to switch it up a bit.. black cat was the obvious next step lol plus I love cats.. if you hadn't already noticed >.>

Actually at the party I went to there were 2 other black cats and no witches so sods law was right again.
Unfortunately I didn't snap a picture of my costume so I can't show you, but I did enjoy having a tail.. rather more than I probably should.

Anyway I did some Hallowe'en nails today to mark the end of summer and to stop any wayward creepies getting at me whilst I try to sleep lol no ofc I don't believe in any of that.. but one cannot be too careful! So just in case, here are my nails:

 

For this I used 3 coats of Models Own Orangeade, which is a gorgeous bright orange jelly packed with gold glitter. I can see two types of gold in there, one that gives a yellow-gold glint and another than is slightly more green. Urgh I love this polish so much. Unfortunately I think MO discontinued it.. I was lucky enough to get one of the last bottles before it sold out. My friend Sandra was placing an order and I asked her to include this in it =) I was super excited when it arrived, it's sooo pretty! I used this for Hallowe'en last year as well haha! 

The spider cobwebs were super simple, just three lines with slightly curved lines joining them up. So easy. I used my nail art pens obvs, the little spider is just a blob with legs and eyes haha aww spiggy.

Anyway there we go! I hope you all have had a lovely Samhain!

-Lei

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 8 - Metallic Nails

At first I was like 'I don't know what to doooo' for this week's challenge but then I rummaged through my collection and actually I have loads of shinies! So I had too much choice... Then I remembered the Models Own Mirrorball collection that I had won in one of their Facebook competitions in the lead up to their sale and I knew I had to use at least one! So then I just had to pick a complimenting metallic colour and this is what I ended up with!

 Not exactly as nail arty as my other mani's for this challenge but I really like it. I used two coats of Cuter Pewter from the Models Own Pro range which is a pale silvery gold foil with holographic glitter particles =) and then a coat and a bit (dabbing bigger glitter bits) of Hot Stuff on the ring fingers for accent nails! Yay! The problem I find with accent nails is that once they're done I look and them and then I look at the other unglittery nails and I think that they all need sparkle... But then there wouldn't be an accent nail.. Kinda defeats the purpose..

Hot Stuff was my favourite of the Mirrorball collection in the bottle. I'm yet to try them all but I still really like it on the nails I think we're onto a winner! Let's see how hard it is to remove.... Eep. There's tons of pink glitter and some goldy holographic rhombus pieces among the shards <3 so pretty!

Gemx's nails are super shiny this week too! Here they are:

Gemx says:

"I went for a really simple look for metallic nails. One of my favourite polishes is Mac Soirée, so I just wore that. It's a lovely rose gold metallic and I just really like it! Also, I chopped my nails off, so nail art is a bit rubbish on my new short nails, there's not a lot of space anymore! However, it had to be done, I couldn't really write any more nor play any stringed instruments. I probably went a little too short for my liking though. Oh and yes that is a cat bum in the background of my picture, he was obsessed with a pigeon sat in the tree outside and wouldn't move!"

Kitty!! Oh and the nails, the nails are so shiny! Metallic nails are great for magpies like me lol the only think is that any mess really shows up so you have to clean up... Not that I bothered, it'll come off in the shower tomorrow anyway =p

I'm off to see what Alli has been doing for her super shiny nails now and suggest you check them out too! 

-Lei

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 7 - Black and White Nails

Yup it's that time again!

Can I just say now that I LOVE my nails this week? I've been excited for this part of the challenge since it started and have been planning this design for ages. You may have notice that I have a bit of a thing for animals lol well this week is no exception. Here are my nails!

 BADGERS. Freaking BADGERS! Urgh I love these snuffly creatures <3

For this mani I used Barry M Nude to even out my nail tone for the bits showing, then Stargazer 118 which is a tipex white. It was actually pretty gloopy, I've had this baby for about 10 years so that's not surprising but once I'd added some Seche Restore it was useable again =) I used this to vaguely plot out a badgery-type shape and then used my black nail pen for the stripes and their little snuffly noses <3 the eyes are the black and the white nail pen.

My stupid topcoat dragged the black all over the place even though I was super careful and dabbed it on! Grr. So I had to go over them in some places with my white nail pen.. it's noticeable to me but probably not to other people at a glance.. It bugs me. Will try a new top coat soon.

Anyway yay badgers!! Here are some cute badgers that I pilfered from google.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I recently actually bought a super cute badger jumper from Dorothy Perkins. I went in there looking for some boots but saw the jumper and couldn't leave without it. 

I looks a lot less.. bright? In real life. It's a neutral beigey colour. The badger is so adorable, he has white fluffy bits and a bead for his eye and lots of sequins to make him sparkle <3 so cute. The jumper is in stock in all sizes on the website for £30 and I totally recommend it. It's a loose knit so you'll want something underneath. The only complaint I have is that there isn't a little badger bum on the back, he stops at the side seam so no little tail or anything =( boo.

Here are my nails with my jumper LOL

So what did Gemx do for her black and white nails? 

Here's what she had to say!

"I went for two tone black and white nails. I didn't want to use a opaque white because the ones I have tend to look a little streaky and Tipp-ex like so I used a sheer white. I used three coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! and put on a topcoat. Then when that was dry I taped off my nails diagonally and added one coat of Filthy Gorgeous in Twilight. This is now my favourite black! It's shiny and opaque in one coat and really easy to work with. I then added another topcoat. I really liked this so I didn't add anything else to it and with so many coats of polish it is lasting really well!"

I totally love these! How classy do they look? The black by Filthy Gorgeous is amazing, it's literally one coat. So opaque! When I first tried it I was amazed. Totally worth a go if you're looking for an awesome black! 

So there we go! I wonder what Alli has done for her black and white nails? 

-Lei

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 6 - Violet Nails

So Gemx, Alli and I all agreed that violet meant purple, because violet is pretty specific in terms of shade.. and obviously it's purple. The other challenges weren't Crimson, Tangerine, Ochre, Veridian and Cornflower were they?? No. So it's purple and not violet, damnit.
I don't know what it is about autumn but I always want to paint my nails light. I think it's my way of rebelling against fashion trends because autumn usually means dark colours.. I don't mind dark colours, but I have to be in a certain mood to wear them, especially on my nails.
So here is what I chose to wear for this weeks challenge.

Can I just say I suck at stamping? I can never get the images to go where I want them to! Most of these adorable little bunnies are off centre.. I stamped them twice, once in white which I then filled in and then once in black over the top. I used my nail art pens for the stamping because the polish in them is quite opaque and thick. The stamping plate is Konad S10:

S10 is pretty much my favourite stamping plate. Ever. 

The base is Models Own Pro Lavender Blue. It's a very pretty shade, I often find purples a bit too much on the pink side so it's nice to have a blue leaning one. I had to thin it down a bit as last time I used this it hadn't dried 14 hours later so I removed it. The thinning seemed to work as it dried pretty quickly thanks to the thinner coats, of which I used two.

The sparkles are Nails Inc Electric Lane, a holographic topcoat. I love this, it's pretty similar to fairy dust but I think the glitter is a little finer.. I'll have to do a comparison sometime! I did two costs to make it extra sparkly, in a diagonal line across my tips.

Lasti time I did this design I used MO Beth's Blue and CG Fairy Dust and I seem to remember the contrast between the creme and the glitter being more noticeable.. Maybe it's that Lavender Blue is a bit paler and that Electric Lane is finer... Or a combination of the two.. Either way it's not really visible unless up close.. Which is fine tbh. What's more annoying is that in my ill state I managed to smudge the black stamps with the topcoat. And more annoying than that is the random chip in the middle of my middle finger nails on my left hand. I mean, how!? It's been less than 24 hours since I finished painting them and there's a chip!? Grr! So my apologies for that, I didn't have daylight left to take pics in by the time I got back to repair the damage.

As for Gemx's nails, well here's what she did!

 And here's what she had to say:
"For the violet challenge I wasn't sure what to do. I probably have more purple based polish than anything else, but I tend to wear them on there own without any modification. When I went to London with Leisha she showed me the best holo polishes I'd seen at Make Up Store and I picked up a purple holo called Britta. I've worn it the last fewdays and it's lovely, so I used Britta as the accent nail. I used Illamasqua Faux Pas on the rest of my nails. It's a lovely dark purple with a rubbery finish. I then added some flicked with a silver striper (Andrea Fulerton) on top Faux Pas. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I quite like it anyway! I definitely need more Make Up Store holos! :) The first picture shows what the holo Britta really looks like, where as the second one is more true to the actual colour of Faux Pas."

I love Make Up Store. I discovered it on a trip to Sweden around this time last year and brought back 3 gorgeous holographic polishes with me. I would have bought more too except I'd just started a new job and hadn't been paid lol
I totally recommend a trip to Carnaby St or to Westfield in Shepherd's Bush if you're ever in London to visit the Make Up Store shops as these are the only 2 in England. The polishes are £11 each but the quality is amazing and there are so many different colours and finishes.

I love the contrast between the rubbery Illamasqua and the shiny holo/stripes. I think this mani is super cute and that holo is just stunning.

Make sure you see what Alli has done too!
That's it for now, I hope you're all well and not ill like me.. Bleh.

-Lei.

PS Willow is fine atm, she's had some samples sent off so I'm waiting to hear back but the vet thinks its a cyst.. It really hope she's right. Fingers and toes are crossed.

Willow Worries

No nail art today I'm afraid, I'm so freaking ill it's unreal. I had a cold literally 2 weeks ago, got over it last week and yesterday I woke up with another. This time of year sucks for colds. I don't think I've actually been this blocked up for a long time, usually if I lay on my side I can breathe out of one nostril but last night omg I couldn't at all. It was a lip balm + open mouth jobby urgh I hope I didn't snore >.<
Anyway I'm posting not to share overly snotty details with you, but because I realise that I don't post enough.. I attribute this to the fact that I only actually paint my nails once a week now and because of the challenge it's always themed.. So I don't have any other nail pics to show you =( so I need to blog about something else.

This is something that is weighing on my mind a lot at the moment, it's about my beautiful kitty cat willow.
She has a lump on her neck, a fairly substantial one that's solid to the touch. It doesn't seem to hurt her but it's right on her throat. I can move it around so it's in a the skin I think..
Obviously this worries me. My friends keep telling me it's probably an abscess and will be easy to remove etc and it's nothing to worry about but I can't help but worry. It might seem silly to those of you without cats/pets but Willow is such a massive part of my life. She is always there for me. I can't even put into words how much she means to me and if anything were to happen to her... It's best we don't go there, I'm already getting upset.

She is the sweetest cat in the world, she's never once clawed at me or hissed at me, she's just a gentle soul.
So of course my mind immediately jumps to the conclusion that it's cancer and that I'm going to lose her. Needless to say I'm terrified. She's booked into the vets for Saturday morning and I'm so scared about what they're going to say. She's such a scaredy cat that I have no idea how I'm going to coax her out to get her in the box lol and I know she'll hate it..

I keep having nightmares that they had to cut her neck open and that she bled to death. They're pretty graphic nightmares too so combined with the cold I've had very minimal sleep.
Anyway that's what's going on with me right now, please cross your fingers for me at 9am on Saturday.

-Lei

PS, Just so you know Willow isn't in any discomfort or anything, in fact she seems quite happy so don't worry about her being in pain or anything x

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 5 - Blue Nails

I can't believe it's already week 5 of the nail challenge! It just goes to show how time flies!
I thought I was going to love this week a lot more than I actually do. I adore blue nails and have several different shades of blue in my stash. The nail art I chose though was very fiddly, but I was determined to see it through and I did manage to do what I wanted.. I just don't love it as much as I thought.. maybe it's just the pictures that I don't love, it was so hard to capture them!
(EDIT I took some better pictures and I like this nail art a whole lot more! YAY!)
Here are my nails!

I'm a bit (a lot) of a geek and a gamer.. So I chose to do World of Warcraft nails =3
There are two factions (teams) in WoW, Alliance and Horde. Horde is red, Alliance is blue so I chose to do the Alliance symbol, which is a gold lion face on a blue background. Here is the original symbol:

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out but the design doesn't stand out against the blue as much as I would have liked. They look a whole lot better in person too, the shine from the topcoat really takes away from the design in the pictures. Also, the topcoat kind of ruined my favourite one lol never mind, I'll deal!
The technique I used for this was tricky. I painted my whole nail with No7 Pool Side Blue, then painted 10 nail shaped blobs onto a sheet of plastic (I used the shrink wrap from a CD). When this was dry I used a small paintbrush to paint out the lion design onto the blue blobs on the plastic using Barry M Gold Foil. This was tricky, it's not an easy design!! Once they were totally dry I peeled them off the plastic, trimmed them so that they would fit on my nails and stuck them down using a thin layer of blue. The whole thing was so fiddly and complicated but I never would have been able to do this design on my left hand otherwise. I sealed it all with topcoat to stop it coming loose.
Here are the designs on the plastic before I transferred them! Pretty clever huh!

Gemx decided to go for a glittery sea blue! Here's her design and what she had to say:

"I wanted to go for a 'under the sea' look for the blue challenge. I love blue polish and my favourite is Orly Halley's Comet, it's a duochrome with flecks of gold, green and blue. I used one coat of Halley's Comet and added a coat of Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe which is blue based with green and blue glitter. I really like them both together, you can still pick up the duochrome underneath Across the Universe in the light."

I had my hands on Across the Universe but put it back... needless to say I'm regretting my decision! What a gorgeous combination! I love how the glitter is totally encapsulated by the blue <3

That's it for this week, I hope you liked the blue theme! Make sure you check out Alli's design too! Next week is Violet Nails so stay tuned!

-Leishasaurus

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 4 - Green Nails

It's already week 4 in the nail art challenge that Morgan, Gemx and myself are doing together. Time flies! The obvious choice for green nails in my eyes was dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs. I thought for a while about doing Yoshi, everyone's favourite dinosaur! But I forgot to take my red nail art pen with me to my bf's for the weekend so I had to rethink. This is what I came up with!

Super Mario 1up Mushrooms! YAY! I used two coats of China Glaze Gaga for Green from my birthday haul, and my nail art pens for the details. I totally geeked out whilst doing these. Ok well no I was watching Downton Abbey on Sky+ lol but inside I was geeking out. I'm such a Nintendo fangirl and love the whole Mario/Yoshi franchise. Did you know that Kirby celebrated his 25th birthday only a few days ago? Happy Birthday you pink ball of joy! <3

Anyway. Enough of that. I now have 2 more lives than my cat, though my brother asked if I should count my actual life because he said "you haven't got one". *sad face*

Gemx and I met up in London yesterday for a mammoth nail varnish buying session. It went well. I'll do a post on that very soon! She was telling me about the green nails she did and how she wanted to redo them but didn't have time. They look fine to me though! Here is her green manicure!

Here's what Gemx has to say! 

"Here are my green nails! I had a hard time thinking of a green theme,but I've been meaning to try this green glitter polish for ages, so I decided this was the time to try it! I first used a coat of Nails Inc (London Nights) which is a great one coat black and one coat of Filthy Gorgeous Rock Star (Tarnished Gold) over the top. Tarnished gold is definitely a misleading name, it looks pretty green to me, but it's a really nice dense glitter with small and large glitter bits."

I have this same glitter polish and it definitely looks much more limey than the picture shows here! It's so pretty!

So there we have greeeeen nails! These were super fun to do and not too hard either yay! Plus my bf really liked them too =)

Let me know what you think and be sure to check out Morgan's green nails too!

-Leishasaurus