On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Glitter

So October 2014 is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and as I found out last Wednesday (thanks to the wonderful Bob Plays With Polish) there is a pink nail challenge on every Wednesday this month in its honour:

My mum beat breast cancer a few years ago, and I am so thankful to the NHS for finding it so quickly and curing her - she is in complete remission after surgery and radiotherapy. I also thank every researcher and medical professional who has made the survival rate so high, having put years of their lives in to finding out more about the disease and thereby how to cure it. I am doing the Race for Life next year, but right now I am part of Go Sober for October, as between my granny's terminal cancer and working in a hospital, I know what valuable work MacMillan nurses do on the front line, caring for cancer sufferers and supporting families who are trying to nurse their own loved ones.

So while I know that this is just a mani, it's worth doing something on your nails to get people talking - to explain the reason to every curious friend, colleague or stranger that comments on how pretty in pink your nails are. Please also use the following hashtags on Instagram, so that it's easier to find everyone's photos and see just how many are taking part:

#enoctubreusamosrosa

#manirosaenoctubre

Also there is the more generic tag of #OnWednesdaysWeWearPink

In artificial light: pink glitter manicure (Nails Inc Monmouth St, Models Own Magenta Divine, Zoya Snow White) for Breast Cancer Awareness month, October 2014

In natural light (no direct sun)

The ingredients (L-R): Zoya Snow White, Model's Own Magenta Divine, Ebay gem wheel and Nails Inc Monmouth Street

It's never too late to join in, so why not join us for polka dots, ombres and flowers for the remaining Wednesdays in October? :)

October Autumn Colour Challenge: (Belated) Day 1 - Moss Green

This month, I will be taking part in Lady Loves Lacquer autumn colour challenge as often as I can.  Sadly her blog is offline at the moment, or I'd share a link and describe the challenge in more detail. I hope she's okay and is back soon!

Day 1's challenge colour was moss green, and I was excited to dust off a colour I haven't worn in over a year, but I love it for its distinctiveness - it's Nails Inc Belgrave Mews, a moss green colour with very subtle copper shimmer when it catches the light.

Nails Inc Belgrave Mews in direct sunlight

As a polish, this lives up to the usual Nails Inc standard - easy to apply, opaque and glossy in two coats, and with a shimmer that just makes me smile. No wonder NI make up 3/4 of my collection really!
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So, being me, I wanted to stamp this mani (although that's not part of the challenge itself). I chose Nails Inc Westminster (magnetic) to stamp with, as it's a lovely copper colour. In fact, when I wear it using the striped magnet, I refer to it as my 'tabby cat polish'! Despite me remembering all the magnetics as thick and opaque, I found that this was a temperamental and thin beast that required gentle scraping, but oddly enough that worked in my favour. Just as the copper shimmer in this polish is subtle and faint, so too was this stamping over the top, and it's made for a manicure that is even more pretty than it photographs, and is only really visible to other people when it catches the light.

Nails Inc Belgrave Mews stamped with Nails Inc Westminster magnetic and Pueen Encore SE02B. Taken in direct sunlight.

Nails Inc Belgrave Mews stamped with Nails Inc Westminster magnetic and Pueen Encore SE02B. Taken in indirect daylight.

All in all, I'm really pleased with this mani and these two polishes, but I wouldn't use a magnetic again without taking the time to test run it on an outgoing mani, paper, or a painted nail wheel. I'm also surprised at my last of autumnal, leafy patterns among my plates. I seem to have 90% flowers, 5% butterflies, and 5% other stuff! I really need to try and shit on my hands and not just browse Moyou and spend another fortune...

The ingredients: Nails Inc Belgrave Mews and Nails Inc Westminster (Magnetic)

Leaf pattern from Pueen Encore plate SE02B

September Challenge, Day 24: French Manicure

A very quick post during my tea break, showing how a 'zhoozhed' up a French manicure using a stamp - my favourite rose pattern from Moyou Pro XL 07.

Moyou-London's official picture of the plate (and I used the bottom row, second image in):

So, I'm not usually a fan of weird and wonderful coloured tips on French manicures - I like them traditional or not at all. Well, at least I thought I did, but having seen some lovely stamping such as Tina's here, I do feel it's an option I need to play with more in future

So, for this mani I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street as the nude pink, and Zoya Snow White for my tips. The roses were stamped with Konad white.  Sadly, I was photographing on the fly, so it's not the best lit - apologies for that!

Before stamping (with flash):

After the addition of accent roses on the ring finger:

In dappled, evening sunlight:

While I don't think I've photographed this well and you can see the day's wear on the tips, I like it a lot... in fact, I think it's a contender for my bridal manicure (given that in my head, that's always been a French manicure, perhaps with room for a subtle twist, particularly a lace-type design on the ring finger). So, I'm still not ready for overly busy or colour twists on a French mani, but I am enjoying dipping my toe in to a brand new pool for now :)

Remember to keep up to date with Tina's challenge here, and see what us fellow participants are doing here. Thanks for reading! :)

September Stamping Challenge: Day 18 – Leaves

So, I have finally managed to get another of Tina’s great suggestions on my nails, albeit on the day suggested.  Oops! With the time to do 1-2 manicures per week though, that was to be expected.

I was excited about today’s manicures as it uses one of my staple polishes – a navy with green shimmer (Nails Inc New King’s Road), it was my first time using a mini Mundo des Unas polish that I got recently from Rainbow Connection (38 – Neon Green), and it was my first time using the Pueen Encore plate SE02B (and I’m still enjoying the choice and challenge of using full image plates). This photos have been a bit rushed, so pardon the fact that clean up isn’t finished and that I haven’t oiled my cuticles yet!

The list of ingredients should come as no surprise:  

•         (OPI Matte Nail Envy as a base coat, HK Girl as top coat)
•      Nails Inc New Kings Road
•         Mundo des Unas Neon Green (38)
•      Pueen Encore SE02B

September Stamping Challenge: Day 16 - Rainbow

Apologies for my tardiness in posting, but life has been busy! I have finally done one of Tina's set manicures on the relevant say - a rainbow manicure. I just can't believe it's taken me 2 days to post it! (Voting in Scotland's Independence referendum first thing this morning has paid off by giving me more time to spare than anticipated).

So, I don't have a rainbow on my plates to make a stamping decal from as it's not really my cup of tea. I took a different approach though: to go rainbow with the colours themselves and create a skittle mani. Once I had the colours on, the plate pretty much decided itself: Moyou Tropical 02 and its exotic summer flowers just spoke to me!

The ingredients list is a bit longer than usual:
- (matte OPI Nail Envy base and HK Girl top coat)
- Nails Inc Seymour Walk (pink), Royal Botanical Gardens (powder blue), Notting Hill Carnival (yellow), Mornington Crescent (orange) and St John's Wood (heather).
-Moyou Tropical 02

(Apologies for any poor formatting - the mobile app really isn't all that great for Blogger)!

September Stamping Challenge - Day 8: Inspiration Mani (Clothing)

So, once again I looked to Tina's wonderful list for stamping inspiration, and found myself sadly lacking in dragon stamping plates. So, what did I do instead? Well, I copied the clothing I was wearing of course!

My favourite every-day top is a forest green and white patterned long t-shirt:

I also think dark greens are under-rated as a nail colour, with black and navy seeming more popular for people going for dark shades. While I had originally planned to use a Moyou plate and then use a dotting tool to add the spots, I had a look through my brand new purchase - the Pueen Encore plates, and found this pattern! Not an exact match by any means, but has 5 petal flowers including stems, foliage and some dotting.

So, here is the resulting mani. It is far from perfect: I didn't always pick up well, but find it so hard to see the white Konad polish against my white marshmallow stamper. If anyone can recommend a coloured marshmallow, please do let me know! I do like the bit of variety in which part of the image I placed where on my nails (I would have used masking/washi tape if I'd wanted the same uniform pattern and placing across my hands). Given it's my first time using these plates, and my first time using a full-image plate, I'm happy enough :) Half the fun is in the practising along the way anyway!

The main ingredients were:
-Nails Inc Emerald Street
-Konad White stamping polish
-Pueen Encore plate SE03B
-(OPI Matte Nail Envy and HK Girl as base and topper)

Thanks again for looking :) Don't forget to check up on Tina's progress here, or see what my fellow participants are up too as well (listed here).

September Stamping Challenge: Day 1 - National Symbols

So, I am taking part in the lovely Miss Tina's stamping challenge this September (Tina's September Challenge), as often as I can (sadly not daily). I don't have huge variety in my plates yet, and I pretty much live in flower and butterfly manicures, so can't stick to this fabulous guide Tina has come up with. So, I'll try and do some from Tina's list, and some of my own as time and my imagination allow.

So, today's manicure is a floral one, but the theme is one of Nationality (not mine, might I add) - in fact, it's Malaysian in origin. So, how did an Irish girl living in Scotland dream this one up?

Well, on Sunday night, I watched the Edinburgh End of Festival Fireworks and concert. The finale was played out to Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture (the Scottish Chamber Orchestra did an amazing job, as the the pyrotechnics team). I have listened to this piece of music countless times over the years, but never before had the hints of La Marseillaise, France's national anthem, stood out so well before, as the fireworks reflected the colour and formation of the French flag. So, while watching these fireworks with my friends from China, Malaysia, Indian and England, National Colours and symbols came to mind. When it came up that the national flower of Malaysia was the hibiscus, and the flag was mostly red and white (with some blue and gold too), my mind was made up!

Hibiscus Flower

Malaysian Flag

So, here's the list of ingredients that went in to my manicure (left to right):
-OPI Matte Nail Envy base coat
-Nails Inc Greenwich Market polish
-Konad White stamping polish
-HK Girl top coat
-Stamper and scraper kit from China (marshmallow)
-Moyou Pro XL 13 (top row, 4th image from left)

(I should say that, unless stated otherwise, all my manis on this blog use Nail Envy as a base, HK Girl as my topper, and this marshmallow stamper and plastic scraper as my tools).

So, here is the finished article. Sadly there wasn't great sunlight to catch the full beauty of it, and I'm still learning about placement, but I for one think it's pretty, as do my OH and several strangers so far!

Thanks for taking a look! Feel free to leave a comment so that I see your blog too :)

My Name is Debs, and I Am a Stampaholic...

... and PROUD!

I have been meaning to restart blogging for so long, but have finally found something that I enjoy enough to inspire me - nail stamping! The road has been rocky at times (wrong plates, wrong stamper, wrong polishes, you name it), but once I got over the beginners bumps, I fell totally in love. I'm going to try more of a little and often approach, but here's a few photos to get this thing started :)

This was the first stamping job I have done that I felt truly happy with, so was my break-through of sorts. The only things that displeased me was the green turning my crisp white to a yellow when top coated though - d'oh! This was achieved with my Chinese marshmallow stamper from Ebay, Moyou Pro Plate XL 12, Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street and Konad White. (All manis here are top coated with Seche Vite).

Below was done with Moyou Pro XL Plates 07 and 12, and polishes Nails Inc Morning Crescent, Zoya Snow White, and Konad White (stamping polish).

During September, I'm going to take part in a challenge with Miss Tina (albeit not every day - duty calls and all that)! The details are all here: Miss Tina's September Stamping Challenge So, I'll be taking different themes and inspirations, and coming up with stamping manis accordingly. I can't wait, as I already pick up so much inspiration when out and about and looking at people's handiwork online. The mani below I did last week, and was inspired by a long and boring trip to DFS to look at sofas!

Zoya Richelle, Konad White and Moyou Pro XL 12.

So, thanks for reading, and I hope you join me over the coming weeks to see what's new :) Feel free to direct me to your blogs too - I love a bit of inspiration! Clubbing together to do Twin Manicures (where we become copy cats of one another) is always fun too.