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Coral: GOT Polish Challenge

I had about three or four old corals to choose from for this week’s Golden Oldie Thursday (GOT) Polish Challenge. I chose L’Oréal Dating Coral, which is a bright coral with a very subtle shimmer to it. I needed three coats for it to be opaque, but anyone less fussy than me might get away […] Read more

GOT Polish Challenge: Chevrons: Pink, Peach and Orange Chevrons

It’s chevrons today in the Golden Oldie Thursday (GOT) Polish Challenge. I messed up completely today. Not with the manicure; I’m happy with that, even though they were rather hastily – and not very well – cleaned up. But, I messed up with the challenge. I knew I needed to do chevrons for a challenge […] Read more

Week Of Love Valentine’s Nail Art Challenge: Candy Heart Sayings

I’m taking on the Week of Love Valentine’s Nail Art Challenge. It’s all this week, so five days, culminating on Friday, which is Valentine’s Day. In the US, candy hearts seem to be actually heart shaped. In the UK we have Love Hearts, which are round and then have a raised heart shape and raised […] Read more

January’s Polish Party: January Blues: blue roses

I joined a group on Twitter who have a Polish Party once a month. We all do nail art to a theme and this time around we’re doing January Blues. I’ve done quite a lot of blue manicures recently – good thing it’s my favourite colour! I decided to be cheery about my “blues” and […] Read more

Silver and blue skittlette: L’Oréal Mystic Blue, 2True Christy and zig zags

After all the challenges I’ve been doing, I wanted to do something that was just for me on my nails. And this skittlette – or (everything but the) kitchen sink manicure – fitted the bill just perfectly. I didn’t design these nails with New Year’s Eve in mind, but with the sparkle of the textured […] Read more

L’Oréal Sweet Amethyst stamped over Wild Purple using MoYou London XL Pro plate 10

I recently splurged out on 14 L’Oréal polishes. Ordinarily, that would cost something like £70, but because these came from Fragrance Direct, they cost a bargainous £18.20. I love L’Oréal polishes. They are quite diddy at only 5ml, but the wide brush with its rounded end paints my nails wonderfully in just a couple of […] Read more

33DC Day 33: freestyle / recreate someone else’s mani

Well, this is it. It’s the very last day of the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge. Today, we can either do anything we like (freestyle) or we can recreate another manicure from the challenge. There have been so many brilliant manicures, but I really fell in love with a very simple, but really well […] Read more

33DC Day 27: A mani with 3 patterns

I really struggled with the prompt for Day 27 of the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge. I just didn’t know what to do. I considered doing a nail with three patterns on it, then repeating that across all my nails, but I only had last night to do this manicure, and that wasn’t going […] Read more

33DC Day 23: Geometric

For day 23 of the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge the theme is geometric. A few weeks ago, while watching QI, I spotted that Stephen Fry was wearing a rather nice tie that had a geometrical pattern. This challenge had not long started, and so I was on the look out for inspiration for […] Read more

33DC Day 21: Europe

So, on day 21 of the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge we travel to Europe. I grew up in the 1970s amid social and cultural reminders of Britain’s heritage of “splendid isolation”. I had a sense that we weren’t part of Europe, that it was a different place altogether, a group of seemingly unspecified […] Read more