Halloween 2013

I may not have been out celebrating Halloween this year or dressing up, but I still painted my nails Halloween style:

Pumpkin, Mummy, Mask from the film "Scream", skeleton and bloodshot eye

Jason Myers mask, cat, Frankenstein / monster, spier and web and 'Boo'
 

I created these designs a Barbara daily white nail polish from Tesco, an old black polish from 'Collection 2000', an orange stargazer polish I bought in new look, and a green 'Collection' polish and some nail art pens.

Did anyone else do any Halloween nail art?

I'm back / nails in really bad condition :(

So, it has been a while since I posted about nail polish and nail art and this has been due to a number of reasons. Firstly, I found that my nails were in really bad condition. They were breaking really short and even when they were short they were peeling so badly they peeled back about half way up the nail. They really were in bad shape.  :(  

 

This has happened to me on previous occasions and normally to fix this I would use a nail strengthener by Avon. However on this occasion, it didn't seem to be working. On the recommendation of the lovely Claire, I decided to try Nail envy by OPI. Although I heard many a good review about this particular product, it unfortunately didn't seem to work for me. :(

 

Anyone who works in a shop, such as the Spar that I work in, will know just how quickly your hands will get dirty, and I had a habit of grabbing a baby wipe from behind the till to quickly clean my hands. A colleague of mine, Bernie, mentioned that after using the wipes for a period of time, she noticed the condition of her nails was deteriorating, similar to my own. So I have since stopped using them to clean my hands and instead, nip to the bathroom to properly clean my hands.

 

The second reason for my lack of blogging as been my shift in location of work. My employer also owns a Eurospar, also in Maghera, and previous to this, I have done the odd shift in the Eurospar. Unfortunately one of the butchers took sick and was going to be off work for a number of months. Therefore since I had some training in this area, I was drafted into the butchery in her place. Therefore, with working there 6 days a week, there was only one day of the week in which to paint my nails and combined with the state of my nails, I could probably count on one hand how many times I painted my nails over the last few months. And I think I done nail art only once.

 

The state of my nails continued to get worse to the point that if anything touched them, or I needed to open a box, it actually hurt to use my nails. So, again, on the advice of the lovely Claire, I decided to try a vitamin supplement for my nails. On a trip into Tesco, I noticed they sold a hair and nails supplement and thought I might as well try it:

 



 

Before I had even completed the month's worth of tablets, I noticed a difference in my nails. I then took advantage of an offer on Tesco vitamins - 3 for 2. So I got 3 months worth of tablets for £6.00. My nails are finally beginning to grow, I can see a difference in the strength of them, they don't break as easily, they don't peel anywhere near as much as before and they have a lovely shine again, instead of looking dull and unhealthy. My nails are nearly back to their normal condition but I can definitely say I will be continuing to take this nail supplement. The transformation in my nails is fantastic. It has taken my nails approximately 2.5 months for my nails to get back into shape, that's how bad they had gotten. I really cant recommend these supplements enough.

 

These supplements can be found in most Tesco's and can be found online Here. Tesco currently have the 3 for 2 offer back on.

 

On Monday I started a new job, which will be office based work, so hopefully my nails can continue to improve and I can start to paint my nails more often and do more nail art! :)

Macmillan Cancer Support fundraising night 'A really good night in'

My friend Jenna is hosting a 'Really good night in' tomorrow night to help raise money for the Macmillan charity. Jenna has organised different activities for the evening including a quiz and a raffle. In exchange for a donation to the Macmillan charity, Jenna's guests can have their hair done by Roseene and / or their nails done b me!

In preparation for tomorrow night i had painted a few designs onto a nail art wheel to display to Jenna's guests some of the different designs i can do: 

Is anyone else hosting a 'Really good night in' to help raise money for the Macmillan Cancer support charity?

Pink pearl nail beads and Sally Hansen nail polish

A colleague from work was going on a night out recently and asked me to do their nails. I had bought pearl nail beads before Christmas but had yet to try them out, so when Adele told me her outfit was pink and blue, i thought, what better excuse to try out some of the pearl beads!

So, for the most of Adele's nails, i used Sally Hansen's' Himalayan Blue':

On Adele's thumb nail i painted the lower diagonal half silver using Rimmel's 'Your Majesty':

The following picture is the Pearl nail bead set i purchased from Primark before Christmas:

Here's a wee close up of the beads:

And finally, the following picture shows how the nails turned out: 

Aintree Grand National and Horse nail art stickers

I have mentioned these lovely ladies in previous posts, and their amazing nail art stickers. I have previously purchased some Horse nail art stickers from their website and so, at the weekend, when i was betting on the Aintree Grand National, i decided to decorate my nail with these stickers:

One of the horses i bet on, 'Tea for three' came in third! :)

Did anyone else decorate their nails for the Grand National on Saturday?

Easter chicks and bunnies

Its Good Friday and Easter Sunday is fast approaching, so I decided to paint my nails with bunnies and chicks. I painted my nails using the Avon nailwear pro+ in Pastel Pink and then using my different nail art pens, i created some bunnies and chicks.

Has anyone else been doing Easter nail art?

St.Patrick's Day nail art

I recently purchased a St.Patrick's day themed nail art stamping plate from this seller on Ebay. It only took a few days to arrive and it was here well before the estimated delivery date. At only £4.83 (plus £1.38 delivery) it was a good wee bargain! This is a picture of the plate:

Using a Barry M's Emerald Green, number 284 and Tesco's Barbara Daly in white, i painted my nails. On the green nails i then used a white stamping polish for the designs. And on the white nail polish i used the Barry M Emerald Green for the stamping design.

This is how they turned out:

On my thumb is a leprechaun's hat and on my fingers from left to right is a pot of gold, a 4 leaf clover, a leprechaun and a horse shoe for luck.

This plate was really easy to use and the designs lifted really well from the plate. Really glad i bought it now!

Has anyone else being doing some nail art for St. Patrick's day?

Valentine nails

It's only one day until Valentine's Day! I'm single so I won't be getting up to much, however, it does give me another excuse to paint my nails :)  I used No.7's Red nail polish and then used a Claire's Accessories nail stamping plate to paint on white hearts. I have previously blogged about using the Claire's Accessories nail stamping plate here. The heart designs are another design of plate one from the set I purchased from Claire's Accessories.

Has anyone else been creating some Valentine's Day themed nail art?

Hello Kitty Phone cover

At the start of January i ordered 2 phone covers from a seller on Ebay, coming all the way from Hong Kong, the estimated delivery date was 14th Feb. My parcel arrived on Monday with only one of the covers :(  I contacted the seller and apparently one of his collegues forgot to include the other cover in my parcel. Anyways, here is a picture of my awesome new phone cover:

Has anyone else got any new phone covers lately?

Proposal for lent?

After 2 recent shopping trips resulted in a huge nail polish haul (blog post on this will follow soon), i decided that for lent this year, i'm going off nail polish.....to be more specific, i mean i'm not allowed to buy ANY nail polish! My addiction to nail polish, i blame, in part, my good friend Claire. I have bought so many recently, and i just haven't had the time to try them out. And so i reached the decision of forcing myself not to buy them during lent. And if i break my lent, i will be giving money to charity. And of course i will be doing the usual, giving up something like chocolate or sweets for lent as well. I am also considering going off alcohol for lent this year. I done this a couple of years ago and ended up losing a stone! I still went on nights out, but with having no hangovers, i actually ate properly (instead of eating junk food). 

What is everyone else going off for lent this year? 

Magnetic nail art rods

 Recently i received a little parcel in the post from my awesome big brother Aaron. It turned out to be a set of four Magnetic nail art rods:

I have previously blogged about using Barry M magnetic nail polish. So i used the Barry M magnetic nail polish and decided to use the rods that Aaron had bought me. This is how it turned out:

I don't think it turned out too badly for a first attempt. Though i will admit i do need a bit more practice at using the magnets for this kind of nail art.

Has anyone else been creating magnetic nail art using these or products similar to these magnetic rods?

Claire's Accessories nail art stamping plates

 Claire's Accessories are now selling nail art products such as Pearl manicure sets and stamping nail art kits. Before Christmas i purchased one of the pearl manicure sets and one of the stamping kits. 

I forgot to take a photo of the stamping kit in its original packaging, please forgive me. The kit consists of 3 plates, a stamper, a scraper and a special white nail polish. Each plate comes with a protective layer on top to stop them getting scraped or damaged, which needs to be removed before using them.

This is the 3 plates i got in my stamping kit:

And here is some close ups of each of the plates: 

Plate One

Plate Two

Plate Three

I painted my nails using Revlon's Matt Suede Emerald City nail polish:

And so far I have tested two of the designs on plate one; the bow and the stars. this is how they turned out:

The plates were very easy to use and the designs lifted perfectly from the plate, onto the stamper and onto my nails. There are a few different stamping kits that are sold by Claire's Accessories and i can't wait to buy the rest.

Has anyone else tried the nail art stamping kits from Claire's Accessories?

stripes

My mum got two nail polishes in one of the Christmas crackers i made her for Christmas and wanted to wear them both. So, i decided to use the No.7 colour as the base and then used the Avon Lucky Penny nail polish to do a strip. This is what she wanted me to do. I wasn't overly keen on it to be honest and neither was my brother, but its what she wanted and she liked it:

What does everyone else think of this?

Twist and Out

Following the release of the Bourjois magic nail polish remover, priced at £4.99, several other companies have released their own version of this product.

On a recent trip in a Savers chemist in Magherafelt, i noticed a product similar to the Bourjois magic nail polish remover. It was called Twist and Out:

And priced at 75p, how could i refuse to try this! I was skeptical at first, thinking, that at that price, it wouldn't be worth much, but i put my hands up and admit i was totally wrong! This has to be one of the best bargains i have bought recently! It doesn't dry out my nails like normal nail polish remover does. I even managed to convince my mum to try it and this is how her nails looked after using it:

 Instead of drying out the nails, it leaves a shine on them. The only downside to this product is it has quite a strong smell to it, so i would advise using it in a well ventilated room.

Has anyone else tried this product or a similar one?

Snowmen nail art

My mum and my aunt both have an obsession with  snowmen. So, on Christmas day, i attempted to do some snowmen on my nails. I used Models Own Blue Moon for the base colour and then using white Barbara Daly nail polish from Tesco and black and orange nail art pens, i drew the snowmen.

Did anyone else do some snowmen nail art over Christmas?

Janchristie christmas nail art stickers

I don't think i will ever stop being a fan of the lovely ladies at janchristie. i have a huge collection of their nail art stickers because they are great quality stickers, really easy to use, and of course, the stickers are pictures of cute animals! In early December, i purchased some Christmas themed nail art stickers and wore them on a night out in Derry with the girlies.

I picked the grey tabby and the robin Christmas stickers:

For the glitter on my thumb nail, i used a lovely Models own red glitter on top of a red by Collection 2000. Did anyone else purchase some Christmas nail art stickers from janchristie or anywhere else?