My first water marble AKA Birthday Nails

So last month it was my 23rd birthday. I decided to do something different on my nails that I'd never tried before and had wanted to do for a while. Water marbling! I've read that a lot of bloggers found it hard to get it to work for them at first but I got lucky with the colours I'd chosen and it worked first time. (Subsequent attempts have been failures haha)

The colours I used were all from China Glaze - I'd read that they tend to work well for water marbling. They were For Audrey, Electric Beat and Blue Year's Eve.It took me two hours to finish but it was worth it :) Only two nails weren't as nice because I smudged them when pulling them out of the water.

If you want to see some brilliant tutorials for different designs, please look at Colette's blog My Simple Little Pleasures and check out her YouTube page. She is so talented at marbling and you will learn so much from her. She also deserves more followers and subscribers.

Jennifer xx

Konad Stamping - Blue and Gold Swirls

I decided to pull my Konad Stamps out again as I hadn't used them for a while. I also wanted to use one of my new China Glaze colours from their Holiday line. I decided to pop into Superdrug to pick up the two new Barry M foil effect polishes as I thought they would work well for stamping. From what I have seen, foil finish polishes seem to work really nicely for this. Oh I am glad I did because they are perfect stamping polishes and also can be used for painting nails so no need to buy the silver or gold Konad stamping polishes which are actually rubbish and not very opaque. I was so pleased with how this came out, it was really quick to do the stamping. I quite like how none of the stamps are in the same position and I'm also pleased at how neat my painting has gotten since I started this blog :)

What I used:
OPI Nail Envy x2 coats (this is my regular base)
China Glaze Blue Years Eve x2 coats
Seche Vite x1 coat (to aid drying before stamping)
Barry M 320 (gold foil) for stamping
Konad image plate M64
Seche Vite x1 coat

I wore this manicure for a whole week before starting to get small chips. China Glaze's polishes always seem to last really well on my nails. I also love this colour and highly recommend it. I purchased my bottle from transdesign.com for $2.99, absolute bargain!

Jennifer x

Bonfire Night Nails

I hope everyone enjoyed Bonfire Night. I love it, it is one of my favourite times of the year. Being British, the 5th November is an important historical date for us. To celebrate, my boyfriend and I went to a firework display which we have been going to for three years running. It is in Edenbridge Town, in Kent and they put on a fantastic show. They hold a procession down the high street with bands and floats. People dress up and all of the local children who take part seem to enjoy themselves so much. After the procession everyone makes their way to a nearby playing field where the fireworks will be held. There are stalls selling burgers, hotdogs, candy floss, toffee apples and hot drinks plus a teacup ride and fairground game for the littleuns. On the other side of the field stand two huge wooden figures, one of Guy Fawkes and the other of that year's 'celebrity Guy'. This year was the turn of Manchester City player Mario Balotelli, the footballer who managed to set fire to his bathroom with a rogue firework during a party... haha! After they have set fire to each Guy, the fireworks start and they are fantastic and enormous. I love going there.

As it was a special day, I decided to do a special manicure to go with it. I wanted to paint fireworks on my nails and this is what I came up with.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Hope you enjoy whatever you're doing tonight. I don't celebrate Halloween but wanted to do some Halloween makeup. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this and I don't have any products such as liquid latex or spirit gum etc to do anything really creative so had to make do with what I had in my makeup collection. As per usual, I leave everything to the last minute and ended up doing this last night. I didn't know what I wanted to turn myself into and ended up making it up as I went along. I think it looks a little bit zombish although could have done with some more cuts and veins and rot haha - maybe next year.

I already had my makeup on from the day, my eyeshadow was very neutral in skin tones with a tiny bit of shimmer. This was mostly covered up. Because I didn't want it to look perfect, I just added more on top of what I already had on.

What I used:

• White eyeshadow (MAC Gesso) applied all over with a small foundation brush, packed onto my skin and 'scrubbed' in to get it to look a little patchy. I couldn't find a very light foundation to use cheaply yesterday so made do with eyeshadow but you could use a light foundation instead.

• Taupe-grey eyeshadow as a contour on a round eyeshadow brush to sketch out the shape and then blend downwards. Soften with a fluffy contouring brush. I used MAC Copperplate through my cheekbones, around the top of the nose to add shadow and depth to the eyes and along the jaw bone.

• Brown-red eyeshadow under the eyes to make them look sore, I used MAC Folie. I also used this colour in areas where I wanted my skin to look bruised.

• Grey eyeshadow under the eyes and on the lids to make them appear deeper set. I used MAC Scene.

• Matte black eyeshadow all over the lid and underneath for a dead and smudged makeup appearance.

• Reddish plum purple eyeshadow, I used the one from Sleek's PPQ palette to use around the bruised areas to darken and deepen the look of the bruises, I also used it in areas around the mouth and also smudged the excess on the brush around the nose to make my skin look blotchy.

• MAC Cream O Spice lipliner all over lips, use something brownish.

• For the blood I used MAC's Kissable Lip Colours in Love Peck and Strut Your Stuff. Fake blood would be ideal, liquid and gel based would give the best effect.

I also did a Halloween nail design.

I already had the base colours on for this, they are one of the new Nails Inc Gossip Girl kits (the Lily set). It is a deep plum black creme finish with a flake polish on top which flashes red-orange-green. I added China Glaze's Ghoulish Glow (glow in the dark nail polish) over the top of all fingers except the ring fingers. I used Illamasqua Gamma (neon orange) for the pumpkin and OPI Jade is the New Black (medium green creme) for the stalk and swirly leaves. I then added the face in China Glaze Liquid Leather (black creme).

I wasn't able to get a photo of the polish glowing in the dark, my camera just wouldn't pick it up, I probably need to figure out the correct settings. It is subtle but does glow. It needs to be in the light for a while to 'charge', it will eventually fade out and not glow, just like children's glow in the dark stars do. It also mutes the colour down but I like it for this as it makes it a swampy greenish colour.

Enjoy your Halloween!

Jennifer xx

I love cupcakes :D

After seeing a few cupcake manicures around the blogsphere I decided to do my own. I've had quite a few compliments already on it at work today although a lot of them think I have too much time on my hands... I think this took me around 30-40 minutes in total.



Colours used:
Nubar Yellow Primrose (cake)
Nubar Blue Hydrangea (blue cake cases)
Nubar Purple Aster (lilac cake cases)
Leighton Denny All About Me (pink cake cases)
Leighton Denny Heiress (purple case stripes)
China Glaze Snow Globe (glitter frosting)
Rio nail pens from the original set (red for cherries, blue for blue case stripes and purple-pink for pink cake stripes and over the purple stripes.)



Do you like them? I really enjoyed doing them :)

Jennifer xx

My first Konad-ing attempt!

I bloody love Konad! It was so much fun to do this and I was actually really pleased with how it turned out. I missed a few bits while transfering it onto my nail but I don't think it is too bad for a first attempt. I used China Glaze FYI for the base colour then stamped using the leopard design from image plate M57. I filled in the spots with OPI Funky Dunkey (purple) and OPI Who The Shrek Are You? (lime green).

What do you think?

- Jennifer