Nails: Technic ~ Be Dazzled

My craving for glittery nails led me to buy some more new polishes the other week. I spotted this brand, Technic, in a discount beauty shop. For 99p a bottle I thought it was worth a try.

I got a couple as I couldn't choose make my mind up what colour I wanted. This swatch is 4 coats of Technic - Be Dazzled, a copper coloured glitter in a clear jelly. It could have done with a base coat colour underneath but I don't really have anything that would match.

I don't have a lot of experience with glitter polish but I don't think I could really be disappointed with this at 99 pence! Have you tried any of the other polishes from Technic, do you think they are worth looking at again in future?

Gingerbread House and Castle

~~ Update ~~ You can see my 2012 gingerbread baking here

Here are my gingerbread creations for 2011! I made the icing too runny again, d'oh! So I couldn't do any nice piping. Maybe I'll finally have learnt my lesson next year.

I'm really starting to feel festive now and I have a real craving for mince pies. Hopefully I might have some free time next weekend to do some more baking.

Do you make your own gingerbread house at christmas? I think a lot of people seem daunted by it but it's not as difficult as you'd think, just quite time consuming. It's so rewarding though, it's definitely worth the effort.

Nails: Winter Evening

The idea behind these is that it's supposed to be snow on a winter evening, I love how it came out, so pretty. I've had a real craving for glittery nails lately.

I used some old polish I had from Asda for the base, I really love the colour but you need at least 3 coats to get good coverage, I used 4 here. Add on 2 coats of glitter and a top coat that's a lot of layers, it was a nightmare getting it all off!

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
Asda George ~ Ultra Violet
e.l.f. ~ Twinkle
Sally Hansen Mega Shine

Review: e.l.f. Royal Purple Nail Polish and Matte Finisher

So here's the first review from my recent e.l.f. haul, I must say I'm really impressed with everything I've tried out so far.

All e.l.f. nail polishes are £1.50 each and they come in a pretty big range of shades. I picked up Royal Purple as I don't actually own any other purples yet. It has a nice consistency and was easy to apply although a little thin, I found I needed 3 coats for good covereage but I think you could get away with 2 at a push.

I also tried the Matte Finisher again, I'm really loving the matte look. I'm not really sure how this compares to other matte polishes as I don't own any, it goes on easily and looks great though. However, the matte effect does seem to lessen after about a day or so of wear, do other matte top coats do this?

Pictured above I have used the e.l.f. Matte Finisher and Sally Hansen Mega Shine alternately with e.l.f. Royal Purple as the base so you can see the difference between the two finishes.

The only real negative I found was that the plastic on the inside of cap of the Matte Finisher is crumbling a bit, leaving tiny black flecks around the mouth of the bottle (pictured below). This might be an issue if I'm going to be using this over a lighter coloured polish however for the price it's not really something I'd gripe over.

All in all I'm very pleased with the products for the money that I've paid for them and have happily been recommending e.l.f. to friends. I'm definitely going to be ordering more in future, I'm excited to see what offers they come up with for their 12 days of christmas promotion that starts tomorrow, details of which will be on their facebook page.

Vulpix Cross Stitch

Oooh a non nail polish post! I've finally finished this thing, I think I started it about 5 or 6 months ago? That's actually not too bad for me...

I've always enjoyed cross stitch but since finding the Sprite Stitch forums and realising that I can stitch anything I can think of and not just the pre-packaged sets you buy it's really breathed a new life into it for me. Plus I love combining craftiness and geekiness!

If you haven't been on Sprite Stitch before you should definitely take a look, there's some great patterns, people and inspiration on there!

So now this one is done, what do you think I should stitch next? I'm open to suggestions :3

Nails: Rimmel 60 Seconds ~ 730 Silver Bullet

Just a quick snap of my nails from the weekend, a plain swatch of Rimmel 60 seconds ~ Silver Bullet, as I didn't have the time/energy to do anything more fancy.

This polish is incredibly streaky, I applied 3 coats and it still wasn't entirely even. There was quite a bit of bubbling as well. Not all that impressive up close but it did look nice from a distance!

Nails: Chalkboard

I was browsing Pinterest the other day and spotted these beauties - matte black nails with silver tips. I love the contrast between the finishes, textures and colours. Then I got hold of my first matte top coat at the weekend so decided to have a go at recreating them.

My scotch taping still leaves a lot to be desired, I think it may be that I applied the silver too thickly this time.

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
w7 ~ Black
e.l.f. Matte Finisher
Barry M Nail Effects - Foil ~ Silver
Sally Hansen Mega Shine

Is anybody else using Pinterest? I absolutely love the whole concept of it, logging on to see a wall of beautiful images and collecting all your favourite things together. I guess I am a pretty visual person, I always tend to identify people online by their user pic rather than their name, which can get pretty confusing when someone changes their picture!

If you're on Pinterest feel free to leave a link to your boards, I'd love to follow you :)

e.l.f. Haul

This is my first time buying from e.l.f. I'd read about them a while ago and joined up to their Facebook page as I'd heard they have some good discounts and offers on there and was just waiting for the right time. Well last week they were running a promotion for free shipping and a free mystery box on orders over £10. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try them out, I wouldn't have to spend too much and who isn't a sucker for free gifts!

I ordered on Wednesday morning, my parcel was posted late on Thursday and it was with me by Saturday morning. So for a grand total of only £10.50 I got all of the following:

Waterproof Eyeliner Pen ~ Black
Eyelid Primer

I was particularly impressed with the packaging for the nail polish, I had assumed I would just receive the bottles but instead they came in these nice little boxes.

Matte Finisher Clear Nail Polish
Nail Polish ~ Twinkle
Nail Polish ~ Royal Purple

After my recent acquisition of Nails Inc ~ Basil Street I'm now craving more taupe polishes, hopefully these two will satisfy me for a while.

Nail Polish ~ Smoky Brown
Nail Polish ~ Desert Haze

And here's what was in my mystery box. I was really happy with the nail polish as I actually very almost bought this one. The only thing I probably wont use at all is the eyeliner brush as I already have three!

Shimmer Eyeliner Pencil ~ Plum Passion
Nail File Set
Bamboo Flat Eyeliner Brush
Nail Polish ~ Golden Goddess

I can't wait to try everything out properly, I'll review it all here as I go. Is there any item in particular that you'd like to hear about first?

Nails: Golden Swirls

Hey all, hope you had a good weekend! Here's a quick post for the mani I was sporting for most of last week. I just did some simple stamping on top of my Nails Inc ~ Basil Street swatch from my last post.

I hate the British weather, it's so hard to get good lighting for photos now that it's getting into winter!

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
Nails Inc ~ Basil Street
Barry M Nail Effects - Foil ~ Gold
Sally Hansen Mega Shine

The design was stamped using my new stamping plate which I got from DHGate, a chinese wholesale website. I think it's a copy of a Konad plate but for less than a fifth of the price I thought it would be worth a try. I've only used this one design from it so far but I'm definitely happy with the results. I actually have some dupes of some of the designs on official Konad plates so I may do a side by side comparison at some point. If you're interested, the plate I bought is still available here - DHGate ~ Large Nail Stamping Plate

Nails: Nails Inc ~ Basil Street

This month Glamour magazine comes with a free Nails Inc polish, available in 4 different shades. I don't usually buy this kind of mag but at only £2 with the nail polish worth £11 I couldn't resist. I went for Basil Street as I don't currently have any other beige/taupe shades so took the oppertunity to try this colour out.

This is also my first polish from Nails Inc. The formula is lovely and super smooth although I felt like it needed 3 coats but that may be because it's such a pale shade. At first I wasn't sure if I liked the colour, it is very subtle, but it's grown on me. I think it makes for a very grown up looking manicure. The finish is also nice and shiney so you could probably go without a top coat if you wanted.

I will definitely be looking out for more Nails Inc polishes in the future and I actually enjoyed flicking through Glamour as well, £2 well spent I think.

Nails: Purple Polka Dots

I love to learn how to do new things. Give me some instructions to follow and I'm a happy bunny.

Here's my first attempt at dotting. In some crazy backwards world this week I managed to get the dots, if not the rest of the polish, neater on my right hand, I guess because I did that one second. I don't have any proper dotting tools yet so I just used a bobby pin.

I have started working on a new look for my blog here so if you have any thoughts / ideas / suggestions on the matter I'd love to hear them :) Or any other comments that you might have!

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
Boots No7 ~ Lucky Lilac
Barry M ~ Vivid Purple
Sally Hansen Mega Shine

Nails: Rimmel 60 Seconds - 850 Hard Edged

I'm kind of disapointed with this polish, it looked more like a deep, shimmery red in the bottle but came out a flat brown. Nothing exciting to see here, just a rush job so I had some colour on my nails for halloween to go with my Bioshock Splicer costume. I'm actually glad the picture came out blurry so that you can't see how bad it is!

I've been considering revamping here a little, what do you think? Do you like my colour scheme, layout, etc? Should I change it up just a bit or go for something completely different? I'd love to hear your opinions!

Nails: Green Lantern

Geek nails! I didn't really know much about the Green Lantern before the film came out this year, I'm more of an X-Men girl, but I'm always up for a superhero movie and it turns out he's pretty cool.

I tried out some cuticle remover this week too, I don't think it worked that well but I guess I'll give it another go soon. I've always been pretty grossed out by the idea of removing cuticles, especially by those special scraper tools you get for doing it, they look like a torture device to me!

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
Barry M ~ 284 Emerald Green
Unbranded White
Sally Hansen Mega Shine

Nails: Check Mint

I've learned a few things this week. First of all, it pays off to be patient and wait for some natural light to take a photograph. Also, after about 5 years of having this camera I've finally found out that it does have a macro mode, I was just looking in the wrong place for it all this time. And lastly, there is no 'trick' to having neatly painted nails, it's just something I need to practice!

I messed up a little bit on these, I used scotch tape for the design on my ring finger and I didn't realise there was some fluff stuck to the tape residue before I went to put the top coat on. D'oh!

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
17 Lasting Fix ~ Mint Choc Chip
W7 ~ Black
Sally Hansen Mega Shine
Konad Plate ~ m56

Nails: Midnight Silver

Wow, I'm still loving doing my nails. Started reading a whole ton of blogs, seeing all those gorgeous manicures and amazing techniques is really inspirational. Mine look such a mess close up but I suppose that's a good reason to practice

After reading about the new Barry M Foil Effects polish at Forever the ugly duckling, specifically how well it works as a stamping polish, I HAD to buy some. So later the same evening I busted out my Konad stamping stuff for the first time in forever and I totally agree, this stuff works perfectly.

Here's what I used
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Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro ~ Midnight Blue
Barry M Nail Effects ~ Silver
Revlon Glitter ~ Star
Sally Hansen Mega Shine
Konad Plate ~ m59

Back With Pretty Polish

Hi there blog bunnies! Long time no see. I'm afraid I've been pretty fail on the blogging front lately but I feel a come back approaching.

I'm absolutely terrible at going through phases for things. I'll be crazy into something for a while, wanting to digest everything I can get on that subject. And then all of a sudden one day it won't interest me so much any more, I'll forget about it for a while and go through a phase of something else. It doesn't mean that I've forgotten about that thing forever, after a bit of a break I'll remember and start to think about it and the cycle will start all over again.

So this week my three main obsessions are Poupee Girl, nail polish and Pinterest. What about you guys? What can you not get enough of at the moment?



I recently bought some China Glaze nail polish. I've been wanting to try this brand for ages as it's a name that seems to pop up all the time, along with O.P.I. Being the impatient person that I am I had to try it out as soon as it arrived. I can see why it's so popular, the consistency and colour are both really nice. I also tried out a technique that I saw a while ago, applying polish with a sponge. So I did a base coat of China Glaze and then sponged some sparkly No.7 polish on the tips and tried to get it to fade towards the base. I think it turned out pretty well although the effect is a bit more subtle than I anticipated.

I've also bought two more new nail polishes this week that I'm itching to try out. A shimmery dark blue/purple from Stargazer and a silver glitter polish from Revlon.

I think that will do for my first post back, keeping it short and sweet C: I've already got more posts planned though so make sure you visit again soon!