Cupcakes

Over at Nailpolis a new cupcake badge has just been launched and this inspired me to indulge my sweet tooth and make some cupcake nails. I have a major weakness for cake and I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to lick these sugary nails!

For the bases I used three coats of Rimmel 60 Seconds in shade Sweet Lavender (Poundworld), which is the pinky lilac, and N.Y.C In a New York Minute in the very appropriately named shade Cupcakes And Latte (£1, Bolton Market), which is the minty green. Both of these shades scream fancy cupcake frosting to me!

I painted the little cupcake details using a fine paintbrush and some acrylic paints for the cake cases and the frosting was done with nail polish and a dotting tool. I added some matte white caviar bead sprinkles and deep pink caviar bead 'cherries' on the frosting of each little cake. I painted the big cupcake using Sinful Colors Snow Me White and pale blue acrylic paint for the case and Rimmel Sweet Lavender, Sinful Colors Snow Me White and MUA Frozen Yoghurt for the frosting swirls.

I used a mix of matte pastel, gold and silver caviar beads for sprinkles and placed them onto a coat of clear nail polish (L.A.Colors Voltage) using a cocktail stick dipped in polish. I topped everything with Limited Collection Matte Top Coat (Marks and Spencer).

What do you think of these sweet treats? I don't know about you, but I'm craving cake now.

The Lacquer Legion Challenge - Garden

I love these nails! They are so happy and summery.

I used false nails again for this nail art, but my natural nails are almost back to full health after a few weeks of using nothing but cuticle oil and Sally Hansen Maximum Growth on them. I'm not sure it makes them grow any faster, but it does seem to improve the condition and prevent dryness and splitting (my main nail issues).

The prompt for this month's Lacquer Legion Challenge was "Garden". I loved this prompt and had no trouble finding inspiration as my own tiny garden is currently a riot of colourful flowers and interesting creepy crawlies.

I used a few polishes for the bases of the nails. The lime green is Constance Carroll in Neon Green, which is not really a true neon and is often available in discount stores for about 50p a bottle. The froggy green is N.Y.C High Line Green, usually available in 2 for £2.49 deals in Superdrug. Unfortunately it is one of those polishes that goes gloopy and difficult to work with after being open for six months. The blue is Cool Blue from the Maybelline Color Show range (£2.99 but often available in 3 for 2 deals at Boots).

I painted grass on some of the nails using the green polishes and a striping brush, plus Jungle Fever, a forest green from the Rimmel 60 seconds range. The clouds were done using a dotting tool and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. The beetles were done using a large dotting tool and a Miss Sporty Metal Flip polish in shade Fiery Blaze, which is a purple to olivey gold duochrome polish that I love and don't wear often enough (£3 for 2 at Superdrug). I drew the details on the beetles with a fine black waterproof indian ink art pen. I don't recommend this though as it turns out it isn't very top coat proof!

I used some matte caviar beads I bought on ebay a few months ago. This is the first time I've used them and they are great. As they don't have a metallic coating there is no way the colour can fade or bleed with top coat and they remind me of sugar sprinkles on cakes. I used L.A.Colors clear polish (shade name Voltage) and placed the caviar beads using a wooden cocktail stick dipped in a little polish. I added a fimo butterfly from my wheel of fimo butterflies from Poundland. Everything was topped with a thick coat of L.A.Colors Top Coat and left to harden overnight (thank goodness for false nails!).

What do you think? Did you do any garden themed art for the Lacquer Legion Challenge this month?

Numbers

Just a quick post for some quick and simple nails. I've been training to be a volunteer at a science museum and today was my final training day before I am let loose on the visitors. I've decided I'll wear science and engineering themed nails whenever I'm volunteering so I thought I'd start that tradition today. A while ago I used some Born Pretty loyalty points to buy this QA9 stamping plate featuring letters and numbers (it only ended up costing me three pence!) so I went with a mathematical theme.

I used  two coats of Maybelline Color Show in shade Cool Blue (usually available in 3 for 2 deals at Boots) for the background and stamped the nails using blue Konad Special Polish. On my ring fingers I used two coats of Party Time Blue by N.Y.C., which is a deep blue jelly with red, blue and holographic silver glitter, over one coat of Cool Blue. I finished the nails with Limited Collection Matte Top Coat (Marks & Spencer).

I also have a 10% discount code for Born Pretty to share with you. If enough people use this code I will be sent some nail art goodies to review, so next time you are buying nail art supplies please take advantage of the discount by entering this code when you check out: PUNDX31

The Weekly Haul - N.Y.C.

This week my new purchases came from the Beauty Bargains stall at Bolton Market. My attention was draw to the basket of N.Y.C. polishes for £1 and I found a lovely glitter jelly from the Expert Last range called Party Time Blue. It has medium sized blue hex glitter and lots of small red and holographic silver square glitter in a rich blue jelly base. It is really glossy and in real life it is much more sparkly and the flecks of red glitter really pop.

I also picked up an N.Y.C. Foil Explosion polish in Magic Earth, which is a metallic silvery sage green. I love the Foil Explosion polishes because they are great for stamping and excellent value even when they are full price, so I was really excited to find this one for half what I usually pay!

You'll only have to put up with my badly lit photos for another few posts because I have a light tent on the way!

Although the two polishes are are not an obvious combination to put together I really liked the way they looked next to each other when I took them out of the bag. I used three coats of Party Time Blue on all of my nails, except my ring finger on which I used two coats of Magic Earth.

I stamped over my thumb and middle finger using Magic Earth and this QA65 Born Pretty stamping plate which I bought when it was $0.99. On my ring finger I used Konad Blue Special Polish for the stamping and I like the inverted colours effect this gave.

It's not my most elaborate nail art but I've enjoyed wearing it and I'm very pleased with these bargain polishes. Have you found any good polish bargains on market stalls recently?