Obligatory Christmassy Stuff

Well Ho Ho Ho to y'all! I did some Christmas nail art in the few moments I had to myself in the raucous Christmas season! Yeah okay so I'm posting on Boxing Day, but I know a lot of you are still celebrating the Big Day, so I wanted to share. Hope you're ready for a whole lotta green, red and gold!

More after the jump......

ABC Challenge: N

Hidey ho there, reader! I finally got a day off so I thought it was about time I post somethin' new! We're up to the letter 'N', and I (finally) settled on OPI No Room For The Blues. More over the jump!

Pink Wednesday: Simple Sparkles

Happy Wednesday, wonderful people! On Wednesdays We Wear Pink and today's Pink Wednesday mani is a little bit simple, a little bit sparkly and a whole lotta pink. 

I used two coats of Essie Flawless for my pink polish, and applied two coats of China Glaze Icicle to my accent nails. I love how silver goes with everything! On Icicle I dotted on three pink rhinestones from the BornPrettyStore - the ultimate online store for all things nail art (and they ship internationally for free!!). A coat of Seche Vite on all nails keeps everything secure.

My camera can't even handle all that sparkle!

So there's today's quick, simple and PINK mani! What are your favourite colours to pair with a glittery silver? Do you wear rhinestones on your nails or think they get in the way? Happy Wednesdays, loves! 2 days to the weekend, woo! 

Beth's Birthday Nails

Happy Saturday!! Extra extra quick post today - I'm running so late. I have a close friend's 21st party tonight, I thought it was at 7 but it's at 5 (in 3 hours) and I haven't got anything except my nails sorted!! Typical ;-) Here they are...

This is two coats of BYS Reign Supreme on index, middle and little finger with a design from plate m73 in China Glaze Icicle stamped over top. Got a new stamping silver, and it's perfect, yay! Thumbs and ring fingers are 2 coats of Icicle with flowers from plate m60 stamped in Reign Supreme with rhinestone accents. Topped off as always with Seche Vite. Click the pics to see them up close!

 

This is just something a little bit special to celebrate my wonderful friend Bethany's birthday.

That's all for now. Enjoy your weekend, babes!


- Ally xx

Bit o' Bling

Happy Sunday, lovely people! Hope you all got a chance to pop your feet up for a bit this weekend! The weather's just turned miserable again here - perfect for a lazy Sunday of movie watching. Today's mani features my favourite go-to Winter colour, OPI No Spain No Gain. It is very similar to OPI Miami Beet which I also own and didn't go a day without last Winter, but since getting NSNG, I've preferred it. It's a little warmer and a little more purple and a little... newer, I guess? I haven't worn this to death (yet!) so it's still fresh to me. 

With a little help from my rhinestone wheel and new rolls of tape, I added a bit of bling to the lovely warm base colour. I really love the contrast of silver with NSNG, but as you can see on my ring finger, the only solid silver polish I have isn't so great with the stamping so it's a bit of a fail. The stamp is BundleMonster no. 07 (a stamp I received accidentally after ordering 207...) in OPI Birthday Babe. I have a soft spot for Birthday Babe because I got it the the day before my 20th birthday, and wore it the next day to an unexpected job interview at a jewellery store, and I got the job! It takes a few coats for me to get it streak-free and properly opaque so I knew it wouldn't stamp well, but I had to try!

You can see that I had tape across the tip of my accent fingers, but I didn't love it when I woke up this morning so I picked it off. There was something just a bit too random about the placement. From a distance you can't see the gap where the tape was, and another top coat pretty much made it disappear, so no harm done. 

And a random art-y macro shot for good measure. I only just noticed it shows perfectly where I took a chunk out of the base colour with my scissors while snipping the tape to size. Oops! Ah well, I still think it's pretty gorgeous. What girl doesn't enjoy a bit of glitz from time to time? Personally I'm addicted to it - you can blame my mother for my love of all things shiny!


Well, whaddaya think? If any of you know a really good saturated / dense silver that could stand up to stamping, please let me know in the comments. I'd love your feedback, you lovely people! Thanks for stopping by =]


- Ally xx

Rock Starlette

Hello lovely people! Sorry I don't post anything yesterday - Mondays are a busy day as far as lecturers and assignments go! And today's is a tad late because I've had a massive migraine all day today =( complete with vision loss and vomiting and all the fun stuff, so I had to wait 'til everything settled down before snapping pics. 


Here in New Zealand, May is NZ Music Month so with not that many days left in the month, I thought I should do at least one musical themed mani! I'm part of the cast of Hairspray that is opening in Wellington in August and we're in the full throes of rehearsal at the moment - this mani went down a treat with all the lovely ladies (and gents...) who are singin' and dancin' their hearts out in preparation! Without further ado...

 I started with four thin coats of OPI My Pointe Exactly from the NYC Ballet collection. Ballet + music kinda go hand in hand, no? I'm not usually a grey nails kinda gal but I absolutely LOVE this grey sheer creme-y jelly - it's everything you could want in a polish. I added two coats of Pirouette My Whistle from the same collection on my index, middle and pinky fingers to add some glitz n' glam, and because it's such a stunning glitter. Layered over My Pointe Exactly, the silver micro glitter fades into the grey creme and the white hexes catch the light like you wouldn't believe. Perfection in glitter form. 

On my ring fingers I used a small dotting tool and BYS Black Satin to free-hand a couple of quavers (or quarter notes for you Americans) and accented them with small black rhinestones. After adding the gems I realised they were a bit surplus to requirements as the pattern look exactly the same but still, any excuse for more bling!

On my thumbs I did clefs - treble on my left and bass on the right. 

I did the treble clef first then thought 'there's no way I can do that with my left hand!' so opted for the simpler design of the bass clef on my right thumb.

I really like the simplicity of this mani - I've been wearing it since Sunday night, and not only because I haven't really had time to change it! A little bit sad to see it go, but onwards! Looking forward to what tomorrow has to offer! Thanks for checkin' in, babes =D


- Ally xx