31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 12 - Stripes

Stripe nails this week! Not much can be said for stripes really, they can look really good and can be done in tons of different ways.. I had an idea in my head for my stripe nails and this is how they turned out:

I used two coats of my trusty Barry M Nude, seriously guys I use this nearly every mani and it's absolutely fab. I couldn't recommend it more. Then used a paint brush to paint stripes in various shades of pink. The lightest pink is Kiko 372 - Kiko have such imaginative names.. (A quick look on the Kiko website shows that this shade is called "Nude" as well lol). The mid pink is Splash of Grenadine by Essie, the first and last Essie polish that I will ever own because they are not a cruelty free brand; something I wasn't aware of when I was in Denmark last year and got all starry eyed at the nail polish there.. It's such a nice colour too, grr Essie!! The darkest pink is China Glaze Traffic Jam which is one of the most gorgeous creme polishes ever. It glides on and is such a rich and beautiful colour <3 I got this free when I bought CG Fairy Dust in Sally's during the summer! I love a good deal!

I quite like this mani, as you see I haven't added topcoat yet so it could do with some smoothing out, and the lightest pink is possibly a little toooooo light... But otherwise I'm happy with it! Hurray!

Let's take a look at what Gemx did for her nails this week!

"This week for the stripes I cheated a little and used some Rebel Nails. I have quite a few of these from GlossyBox and I never think to try them. They are really easy to apply, just warm them up with a hairdryer, stick them in place and file off the excess and they are done! I do like how clean and neat they look and although I always feel like they are going to come off if I don't keep smoothing them down, they are really stuck on. I had several showers with them on and they haven't budged!"

I have never used nail wraps, they always seem overly expensive to me and I would always choose to buy a bottle of polish over a pack of wraps. Having said that these do look really good and I'm glad that Gem tried them out and liked them! I think I have two sets of wraps from beauty boxes that I set aside.. I tend to hang onto things for ages and not use them so maybe I'll have a go for a Christmas party or a special occasion =)

That's about it! I hope you enjoyed the post, please pop over to see Alli's Striped nails too!

-Lei

Lest We Forget

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

-Lei

(Products used: Barry M Nude, OPI DS Reflection (not CF), Rio nail art pens)

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 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 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

31 Day Nail Challenge: Week 3 - Yellow Nails

It's week three of the nail art challenge already! Morgan, Gemx and I are enjoying going through the list and I hope that you are enjoying looking at our designs!

For those of you that know me, you'll probably be aware that yellow is my favourite colour. It's bright, happy, sunny and just wonderful <3 I have loads of yellow polishes and I love them all. Yellow can be a bit of a difficult colour, lots of people don't like it because they think they can't pull it off. My theory is this. Sod it. If you like a colour, wear it and sod whether you think it suits you or not. I love to wear yellow!

Here's my mani:

Beeeeeees! I think Bees are an obvious choice for yellow. I thought about giraffes again but wanted to try something different. I have been wiggling my fingers through the air and saying "bzzzzz" hehehe

I used a nail polish called Daisy by an Australian brand Bloom. I saw this brand in the Winchester Superdrug when I was studying for my degree, I wish I'd bought more colours even though they were £8 each.. I only got a green and a yellow. The green because it reminded me of a polish I had when I was much younger, a lovely light spring green <3 and the yellow well because it was yellow and I couldn't pass it up. Ha!
I used my nail art pens for the details. I added glitter to the wings because all bees should have glittery wings

Gemx also chose to do bees but her design is very different to mine, I love the flight path of the bee I can imagine it bumbling around looking for flowers =) bzzz

Here's what Gemx had to say!

"For yellow nails I went for a bee! I used Models Own Lemon Meringue and a Topshop liner pen in black to draw the bee. I appear to have misplaced my black nail art pen, but the liner pen worked quite well, although you have to wait for it to dry and add a topcoat to make sure it stays or it will just wash off."

I love that she used liner! I used to use gel pens for my nail art before I got my nail art pens, you can use markers too but like Gemx says you must seal them with a topcoat.

So there we have it! Yellow nails!

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

-Leishasaurus

PS Ignore the red bump on my index finger, I burned myself whilst making lunch the other day.. the toastie was worth it.

Jubilee Nail Art

Heey everybody!

"Heey Dr Nick!"

Today I have for you my attempt at a Jubilee manicure! I'm not overly patriotic, but I do love England for its history and scenery =) so I thought I'd get into the spirit of things the only way I know how!

This manicure took just over half an hour, which was lucky as I was going to a BBQ (in the rain) shortly after. The bf played D3 whilst I painted =)

I made a few errors with this, firstly I did the flag from memory and didn't leave gaps between the red + and the red x, which was a bit of a rookie error tbh.. Also I meant to do both of the flags on my ring fingers but I did the sponging first and managed to sponge the ring finger on my left hand without thinking lol 

I'm still pretty pleased with this! I love the way the gradient looks against the white and I like the flags despite the error! (oops)

I also attempted to do Jubilee eye shadow but I don't really like it haha, still here it is!

I'm much more comfortable with nail art >.<

What do you think?

Let me know!

-Leishasaurus

PS. Here is a pic of my friend's cat Lucian who was overseeing proceedings at the BBQ

Safari Nail Art

So my giraffes chipped and I had to remove them.. it was very sad, their faces looked like they were melting. Today I have replaced them, but instead of one critter (I couldn't decide) my brother suggested doing a whole safari of animals, a different one for each nail! So, without further ado, here it is!

On my left (dominant) hand:

Lion, Zebra, Leopard, Flamingo, Hippo

On my right hand:

Elephant, Giraffe, Crocodile, Monkey, Rhino

I'm not going to lie, these were tricky and they took ages but I'm really pleased with how they've turned out! I used so many colours doing these, my bed was covered in bottles haha but the main brands were Models Own, Barry M and Rimmel. I don't buy Rimmel any more though, as it's not cruelty free. Also, weirdly, I think I did better at painting my left hand than my right! 

Anyway, I feel a lot more myself now that my fingers are covered in critters =) just don't ask me to pick a favourite >.<

-Leisha

Giraffes!

Ok final post of the day I promise! I just wanted to show you my nails =)

Check out my instagram prowess! Also, GIRAFFES!! 
I used Models Own Beth's Blue as the background colour and my nail art pens for the rest. The brown colour is Barry M Mushroom =)

I managed to stab the ring-finger giraffe in the face with some black.. it looks like he's crying.. they're starting to chip now which makes me sad..

-Leishasaurus

I'm back!

Heylo, sorry for the lack of postage.. It's totally inexcusable I know but I've had my final exams and have moved back home now, it's just been rather hectic and my pc hasn't been set up properly.. then it was my birthday.. blah blah.. but I'm back now! Never fear!


Oh and I got a 2:1 for my History degree =D! Go me! 


I've been good and have taken pictures of each mani as I've done them =) so I have pictures for you to peruse through! I've also acquired several new polishes - lots of American brands that I've not owned or tried before and that I now absolutely adore haha eBay is my friend! Ooo also! My yellow-orange gradient mani got featured on the Model's Own Weekly Blog Wrap! I was sooooo chuffed about this! I had that giddy feeling in my tummy haha!


Right well here are my recent manicures =) each one has lasted nearly a week which is why there aren't so many of them! Hope you like! 

Sorry about my shoddy application and awful cuticles.. especially for the green and orange ones, I was ill at the time and did my nails in bed lol.. anyway, what do you think? I'm loving the Serena Williams Grape Set Match (the bottom pics) which I currently have on! The colour is amazing, glitter, duochrome, the works! The black mani I had for my birthday and forgot to take pics until it was all chipped haha oops.. but it was Sloane Square by Nails Inc over a black base coat! It looked fab! I've got lots of pics of polished that I've bought recently but I think I'll put that in a separate post because this one is already quite picture heavy.. so I'll just finish by saying once again that I'm sorry for leaving it so long between posts..


Here are some dino shortbread cookies that my friend Carrie's mum baked for my birthday, she included an icing kit so that I could decorate them! My very own Leishasaurus <3

Until next time!


-Leisha.