January - Blues and Sparkle

January tends to be grey and miserable, so it's always nice to have pretty nails to brighten the month up.

I'd asked for some MoYou goodies for Christmas, so I decided to use them for my first  design for the month.

Ciaté Regatta was the perfect base for my MoYou Silver Dust stamping with SciFi Plate number 08.  I was a little disappointed that I managed to smudge my stamping when I added my top coat, but I was still happy with my design overall.

I love darker colours in the colder months, and hadn't used OPI Black Cherry Chutney for a while so thought I'd do a simple manicure with a glitter accent nail.  This colour is such a gorgeous deep purple red, and is perfect for a gothic look.  You can't see how pretty In True Stefani Fashion is in this photo, but trust me when I tell you, all the different shapes and sizes of the glitter really catch the light.

Despite the previous manicure to this one, and loving darker colours for winter, I've got a rather important even coming up in a few weeks time so want to steer clear of the darker shades for a bit to avoid any staining.  Bearing this in mind I decided to go for Heather from the Barry M Silk collection.  It's such a pretty and delicate colour on its own with a beautiful shimmer, but I couldn't resit adding a coat of NYC Lights, Camera, Glitter.  It has to be one of my all time favourite glitters and I have used it over many different base colours and haven't found a combination that I didn't like.  My mum looked for a new bottle of this one, as she likes it too, but couldn't find it in Superdrug, so I headed to Amazon, and bought three bottles to be sure we didn't run out any time soon!

I still can't decide whether my final design for the month was a nail fail or not.  I wanted to do a bit of a different kind of ombré across the nails rather than on all nails, so I chose Models Own Beth's Blue and Grape Juice.  I think the colours complimented each other and gave the ombré look, but I'm just not sure it's what I had in mind.  I added some little love hearts with Jacava Lavender Court to finish off the look.

My favourite this month has to be my sparkly Lights, Camera, Glitter, nails.  I can't resit sparkle and shine, so it just ticked all the right boxes.

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Polish Party: Glitter and Gems - Purple Galaxy Nail Art... and Giveaway

Hi all,

August seems to have flown by, so once again it's Polish Party time.  This month the vote was for glitter and/or gems.  If you follow me or have visited here before you'll know I love a bit of sparkle.

Now, I know I'm late to join in with the galaxy nails craze, but I've recently been enjoying spotting the ISS on it's orbits that have passed over the UK, and also seeing the super moon (although there was no cape in site!).  I was also inspired to give them a go when I saw the pastel galaxy nails that sophiedoesnails posted on Instagram a couple of days ago.

I used quite a few different polishes for this design and it took a while to do because of all the layers, but I am really pleased with how they turned out.

I started with a base of Laka in number 25.  I went to Westfield and they have a express manicure stand on the ground floor with lots of pretty colours to choose from, so thought I needed to try it out.  I used two coats, as the first was a little streaky, but it goes on really smoothly.  The brush is very small in comparison to others that I am used to using, but this does mean that you can paint it on very carefully preventing cuticles from being flooded with polish.  It's a beautiful deep purple with a shimmer finish.  The photo shows all the purples a little more blue than in person, but it's so tricky to get purples right.

After that I used NYC Lights-Camera-Glitter for my first layer of stars.  To create the milky way glow in the middle of my nails I used a make up sponge to carefully add layers of Models Own Snow White, Sinful Colours Fig, and Laka 25 until I was happy with the shape and colour.  To top this off and make it extra sparkly I added a few coats of Jessica Starlet, just to the milky way area on each nail.  The main stars in the foreground were added using my Barry M nail art pen in white.

Just to show you the true sparkle and colours I took a quick picture on my phone outside and a quick video so you get the full effect...

I hope you like my purple galaxy for this months theme.  Make sure you take a look at what the others girls do by following the links below.  Don't forget to check out my giveaway at the bottom of this post

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Don't miss the giveaway

Today was a very exciting day... I hit 600 followers on Twitter.  So in light of that I thought I would be fun to host a giveaway!!

To enter all you will need to do is

• Follow me on Twitter
• Retweet the giveaway tweet that will be pinned to the top of my profile
• Use the hashtag #pinkglows600

The winner will receive the following

• 1x Models Own - Gumballs (See it here)
• 1x Barry M Matte- Rhossili
• 1x Essence - It's Raining Men (See it used here and here)
• 1x Essence - Party Never Ends
• 1x Barry M - Nail Art Pen in Black
• 1x Models Own Artstix Nail Beads in Gold Fizz
• 1x Nail Embellishment Wheel
• 1x Pack of Nail Polish Remover Pads
• 1x Pink Gem Glass Nail File
• 1x Pack of 20 Manicure Sticks

The giveaway will be open to UK residents only due to posting.  Giveaway closes on 04 September 2014 at 7pm (GMT).

Good luck x

Snowflake Nail Art

Hello all,

I have done my first festive nails! Yay!  I love doing these snowflakes and this has become a sort of tradition now as I have done a variation of this design for the last few years.

I think these are the best ones I have done so far as I love the extra layer of sparkle I added.  I think this gives this design something a bit extra!  I started with two coats of Models Own Top Turquoise, then used a coat of NYC New York Colour in Lights-Camera-Glitter.  Then it was on to the snowflakes.  I used Models Own Snow White for these.  I used a striper brush from another polish for the star like bits of the snowflakes and then my dotting tool for the ends.

It's a really simple design which is why I like doing it.  The picture unfortunately does not do this glitter justice as you can't really see all the particles.  There are small bits of silver glitter and large glitter particles in blue and pink.  I think it really adds to the design making it look really frosty and wintry.  Hmmmm... now I've just got to decide what to do next!