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
Today is all about Christmas traditions for the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts Christmas Winter Challenge. There was so much I could have taken as inspiration for this prompt: Christmas trees, decorations, Christmas jumpers, mistletoe, gifts … the list could go on tenfold. I decided to go with holly. I love holly. I love the wonderfully shaped […] Read more
So with one challenge just finishing up, I’m now starting another. There were three Christmas nail art challenges being run by UK groups or individuals. I finally plumped for the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts Christmas Winter Challenge as it started the latest and I couldn’t cope with starting too much earlier while still trying to do […] Read more
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
I am managing to keep up OK with the manicures for the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge. Most of the time I am painting three manicures at the weekend, in preparation for the coming week. This manicure though I prepared almost a month ago, in between Day 3 and Day 4 . I was […] Read more
I saw a post by Jessica of Be Happy And Buy Polish encouraging nails bloggers to commemorate Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month on 15th October with a manicure. Like Jessica, I too have lost two pregnancies, one at 6 weeks and another at 10 weeks. I had to endure the awful pain and grief […] Read more
I wasn’t sure what to do with today’s prompt in the Crumpet’s Nail Tarts 33 Day Challenge. For me, “Indian” is more about the sub-continent of India than Native American Indians because I’ve travelled in India a couple of times. So I did at least get that far, but then I got a bit stuck. […] Read more
In another first, I’ve attempted to stamp French tips today. It’s not my best work, but then I don’t know many people who can get the French tips to stamp well. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) I stamped using Essie Nothing Else Metals and Cheeky plate CH23 to stamp the stars over […] Read more
Inspired by the name of the summer 2013 collection – L’Été Papillon, meaning summer butterfly (or is it butterfly summer?) – I decided to try out some butterfly nails for the first time. After applying two coats of Azuré, I sponged on Bel-Argus towards the tips of my nails. I had thought that this lovely […] Read more
This is an incredibly subtle stamping. Perhaps too subtle. I was going to use Barry M Plum, but did a swerve at the last minute and picked up Eternal Beauty, the purple holographic Color Club polish from this year’s new collection. You can’t really see the holographicness (is that a word?) in the photo, but […] Read more