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.

I Am Cyborg

I have been meaning to do some electronics themed nails for ages, so yesterday I made these printed circuit board inspired false nails using genuine electronics components. I am really pleased with the way they turned out!

I used two coats of Rimmel 60 Seconds in shade Jungle Fever (Poundworld) as the base colour as it is the closest shade I have to a PCB green. I used a brass coloured metallic Vallejo acrylic model paint and a fine brush to paint the circuits. Once everything was dry, I trimmed the wire off some assorted resistors and an LED and attached them to the nail using superglue. If you want to recreate this look but don't have a big tin of electronics components like I do, resistors and LEDs are cheap and can be bought individually from online suppliers or your local Maplin or independent hobby-radio store. The total value of all the components on these nails is probably about £1.

Tip: nail glue and cheap superglue are exactly the same stuff, cyanoacrylate, but when buying from discount shops cheap superglue is often fresher than cheap nail glue (cyanoacrylate starts to get less effective 12 months after manufacture) because they sell much more of it.

I used L.A.Colors Top Coat on the nails after I'd glued on the components. Using the top coat afterwards helped disguise any areas where I'd been sloppy with the glue.

What do you think of these nails? Have you ever created nail art using unusual materials?

Surprise Polish!

Today I have a whole load of surprise polish to show you!

Most weekends Mr. Pound Store Manicure visits a local Sunday market with his parents. It's a combination of a flea market and some regular stalls and there are always a few people selling discount cosmetics. Last weekend I sent him off with a two pound coin and instructions to buy a surprise polish or two for me if any caught his eye. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but the results of this experiment were rather hit and miss!

The hit is a rich dark browny-burgundy with a lovely shimmer to it. It is from the Rimmel Underground Play Fast range, which I believe was made for the U.S. market and was never sold in the U.K., and was discontinued about five years ago. The shade is called Rave and I really like it. It applies well, dries fast and is work-appropriate without being boring. It's probably not a polish I would have picked up for myself because it is far too sensible, but I think I will get quite a lot of wear out of it.

I used this polish on some false nails and used a dotting tool with Filthy Gorgeous in shade Breeze, because who wants plain nails?

The other polish he picked up is a truly ghastly miss. Mr Pound Store Manicure is usually very good at knowing my taste so I really don't know what he was thinking with this one! It's a Maybelline Express Finish polish in shade Lemon, which is a pale yellow with a frost finish. I'm not a fan of yellow and I rarely wear it because it does not suit my pale skin at all. I also hate frost finish polishes. Not only is this polish really streaky to apply, but it just will not dry! Maybe it's because it is quite an old polish, but I have another Maybelline Express Finish polish that is about twelve years old and that still dries quickly so I don't know why this shade doesn't. Even if it did dry properly I don't think I would ever wear this polish. Yuck!

Yesterday I received an even bigger nail polish surprise. My wonderful Mother-In-Law decided to donate all her old polish to me as she no longer paints her nails. Once I'd thrown away the few polishes that had dried out I was left with 25 hardly used bottles of polish. Most of them are Avon polishes or small ColourWorks bottles that look like they came as part of gift sets, but there was also a No. 7, a L'Oreal and quite a few mystery polishes without any labels at all. I swatched all of them this afternoon and there are some really nice shades.

The most exciting thing about the selection of polishes is that I don't own anything similar to most of the shades. My Mother-In-Law has always had a more feminine style than me so her polish collection was full of pinks, reds and nudes with shimmer and pearl finishes - much more girly than the shades I buy. My favourites of the lot are a metallic golden-bronze Avon shade, appropriately called Fabulous, that looks really luxe and L'Oreal Ruby Noir, which is a dark shimmery red-purple. I'm sure that many of these polishes will get used whenever I need my nails to look more subdued and grown-up as they are almost all work-appropriate shades.

I am so grateful to my Mother-In-Law for all this polish, particularly as I have just started a temporary self-imposed ban on polish buying. I have just started trying to give up smoking so I am bribing myself with the promise of lots of polish if and when I succeed. I have put together a little goody-box containing five new drool-worthy polishes which Mr. Pound Store Polish has hidden and is only allowed to give back to me once I have been smoke free for two weeks. Once I make it to a month as a non-smoker, I have promised myself that I can use the money that I'll have saved by not buying tobacco to buy all of the Makeup Revolution nail polish collections in one glorious splurge. If the promise of a parcel containing 50 bottles of polish doesn't get me to quit, I don't know what will!

Have you tried any of the Makeup Revolution polishes yet?

The Weekly Haul - Ooooh, All The Pretty Colours!

I've acquired quite a few new polishes in the last week. I'm not sure when I last managed to stick to my £2 weekly polish budget. Oops! As I have so much to show you this week, I've swatched everything on fake nails instead of my own fingernails. The pound shops are full of lovely polishes at the moment, so empty out your penny jar and treat yourself!

The most exciting purchases I made in the last week were three more Sally Hansen Sugar Coat polishes from Poundworld. If you love textured polishes, get to your nearest Poundworld as soon as you can! They are currently selling some unusual Sugar Coat shades I haven't seen in a pound store before, including some shimmery and glittery ones. I picked up Candy Corn which is a bright orange, Red Velvet which is a deep pinky-red raspberry shade with a shimmery finish, and Royal Icing, my favourite, which is a gorgeous cool pastel blue with holographic micro glitter. It is so sparkly and icy looking and I know that Royal Icing is going to be great for wintery nail art! Swatches are two coats of polish, as recommended on the bottles. Red Velvet and Royal Icing are both less opaque than most of the Sugar Coat shades so you might actually need to use three coats.

Candy Corn:

Red Velvet:

Royal Icing:

Both Poundland and Poundworld are also selling a lot of Rimmel 60 Seconds polishes in a wide range of shades at the moment. I picked up Jungle Fever, a forest green, from Poundworld and Captain Khaki, a dark khaki-brown from Poundland. I always find that the Rimmel 60 Seconds polishes need two coats for full opacity (even though they claim to be one-coaters on the bottle), but they do dry quickly and I love the wide, flat Rimmel brushes because they are so easy to use. Swatches are two coats.

Poundland is currently full of bottles of polish by a brand I'd never heard of called Filthy Gorgeous. After a quick google I discovered that the polishes were launched a few years ago by a company that ran Debenhams in-store beauty salons. Apparently they are professional quality polishes and were sold in Debenhams for £9 a bottle. I'm assuming the company is no longer trading as their website has vanished, their social media accounts fell silent about a year ago and there is no longer any mention of them on the Debenhams website. I picked up Breeze, a light grey shade, and it does feel like a quality polish. It's a two-coater that applies very smoothly and comes in a cute round bottle with a lace design and plectrum charm on the cap. They have other shades available too and at £1 they are a bargain. Swatch is two coats.

I also picked up a new Jess shade. Bolton Poundland has finally got a few of the shimmery and iridescent shades in stock, although they have flown off the shelves and there were only one or two bottles left by the time I found them. I picked up Hot Date, a shimmery rich red. It's less opaque than the Jess cremes and is really stinky, unlike the cremes. It really is the smelliest polish I own, but it applies smoothly and dries quickly to a lovely finish. I do hope they get another delivery of Jess polishes soon because I keep seeing such gorgeous shades swatched online and they never seem to get any of them at my local Poundland. Swatch is three coats on the left, two coats on the right.

I spent my Easter Sunday afternoon swatching and labelling all the polishes in my collection on plastic nail wheels and discovered that I own just over three and a half wheels worth of polish, which is 74 shades. It seems like such a measly amount of polish when I compare it to most nail bloggers. This can only mean that I need more polish! Bwahahaha!

How many bottles of polish do you own?

Earthy Earth Day Nails

This is the nail art I created for the Earth Day challenge on Nailpolis. It was supposed to be leaves and vines in a style inspired by Aboriginal Australian art. I quite like the nails but they didn't turn out quite the way I'd planned and I don't think they scream Earth Day. Oh well.

I used Rimmel 60 Seconds in shade Captain Khaki for the base. Poundland have a lot of Rimmel polishes in stock at the moment so I picked this shade up on Friday when I realised I didn't own any earth-tone polishes to use for my Earth Day nails.

I used a dotting tool and NYC High Line Green, Maybelline Pow Green, MUA All Nude and Technic Canary to do the designs. I used Limited Collection Matte Top Coat to finish them off.

I think the most surprising thing about this nail art is that I now own a dark khaki-brown nail polish. Yuck!

What's the ugliest shade of nail polish you own?

Going Dotty

I treated myself to a set of dotting tools from Born Pretty and here is my first attempt at using them. At first it was a little tricky to find the right amount of polish to use with the dotting tools, but once I got going these nails were so simple to do that I even managed to do my right hand to match.

I used two coats of an unnamed turquoise-leaning peppermint coloured P.S. polish from the box of four polishes I picked up from Primark last week for £2. This polish is an almost identical shade to Pool Party from the Technic Pretty Pastels range but the P.S. polish is an opaque two-coater unlike the sheer Technic polish. It has a smooth, easy to apply formula and dries to a glossy finish but it is really stinky which is something I've found with all the P.S. polishes I've tried.

I used Rimmel Lycra Pro in shade Blue Vogue (Poundworld) and MUA All Nude (£1, Superdrug) to do the dots and finished it all with Konad Special Top Coat.

Even though the dots aren't neat and perfectly placed, I've really enjoyed wearing these nails. They just look so happy! They remind me of a t-shirt I owned in the 90s that had a big blue and turquoise tie-dyed circle on the front.

What do you think? Have you tried any nail art using dotting tools?

Don't Count Your Chickens

I did this nail art for the Easter nail art competition at Nailpolis. I didn't want to go too obvious and paint chicks and bunnies on my nails so I decided to do pastel patterned nails.

To start I used Technic Pretty Pastels polishes in Pool Party (middle finger), Mr Blue Sky (little finger) and Canary (thumb and ring finger). Technic polishes are available for £1 each from Bodycare or for £1.25 from lovethymakeup.com. On my index finger I used Rimmel 60 Seconds shade Sweet Lavender (Poundworld).

On my thumb, middle and little fingers I used two coats of the pastel polish followed by a coat of Technic Black Mirror, a gorgeous glitter polish with medium and small matte black hex glitter and lots of tiny transparent holographic hex glitter that sparkles in a rainbow of colours. I added another coat of the Technic Pretty Pastels, which have a quite sheer crelly-ish formula, then finished with a second coat of Black Mirror. This gives a speckled effect that is a little bit like the Models Own Speckled Egg collection with added sparkle. On my ring and index fingers I used the pastel shades alone without the glitter.

I painted the black and white patterns using acrylic model paints. The triangle pattern was loosely inspired by the idea of broken eggshells and the pattern on my index and ring finger is based on stylised chicken feathers found in Mexican folk art.

I topped everything with Limited Collection Matte Top Coat from Marks & Spencer. I bought this yesterday using some cashback I earned through Topcashback on my Christmas shopping and had forgotten all about until now. You get a little extra money if you request your cashback in M&S vouchers and I'd been wanting to try this top coat for ages. I love the look of matte nails and although the P.S. Matte Top Coat I bought from Primark does the job for less money, it is very thick and gloopy and tends to soften all your previous layers of varnish and takes hours to redry. If the varnish underneath is more than two coats thick, your nails can remain dentable for a whole day!

This Limited Collection Matte Top Coat is not a disappointment. It applies thinly, evenly and smoothly and it dries quickly to a tough, completely matte finish. Now I can wear matte nails without having to spend a whole evening not using my hands while they dry. Even though it usually costs £3.50, I think that is a very reasonable price for the quality. The other widely available matte top coats from Essie and O.P.I. are £8-£12 a bottle, and although the Limited Collection top coat is smaller at only 8ml, it still works out better value per millilitre. The smaller bottle means it is less likely to get gloopy towards the bottom too.

I love the effect that matte top coat over holographic glitter gives, and I think these nails feel cute and Eastery, but grown-up too. Well, as grown-up as glittery pastel Easter-themed nails can be!
Do you have any Easter nail art planned?

OWLS!

This was supposed to be my "Weekly Haul" post but I got a bit carried away!

Let me start by talking about this stunning Jess glitter polish (Poundland exclusive) called Flash Harry. It is a clear base, densely packed with tiny square silver, red, green and holographic glitter (...I think. It's hard to tell). It applies evenly, is full of glitter and looks really pretty on the nails. It looks dazzling over a dark polish.

It dries slower than the Jess creme polishes, but I've found that a lot of glitter polishes stay tacky for a while and this is no different. Here I swatched one coat of it over Rimmel Blue Vogue and it looks amazing, like a galaxy of stars. It is, however, almost impossible to photograph!

Now that I had gorgeous starry nails, I thought I'd have a go at freehanding some owls on them. My younger sister has always had an obsession with owls and now lives in France so I don't get to see her very often. I thought that sending her a picture of owl nails would make her smile.

I've never done any proper freehand nail art (aside from painting a Klingon symbol on my nails at the weekend), but I do have a degree in illustration so I thought I'd put that to good use. I used acrylic model paints to paint the owls because the paints have a smooth, thin consistency which makes them easy to paint fine detail with, but are also really opaque. I topped my nails with Konad Top Coat to protect the owls. I am lucky that my husband has acrylic paints in every shade imaginable and some really thin paint brushes because his hobby is building and painting model tanks/spaceships/soldiers/robots/monsters.

If you don't have a geeky model-making husband but want to get your hands on some acrylic paints for nail art, I recommend a brand called Vallejo (their Game Color and Model Color ranges are the ones to buy) as they are great quality, available in every shade you can think of including metallics and are about £2 for a bottle that will last for years. Most independent hobby shops (the kind of places that sell Airfix kits, tiny plastic soldiers and sometimes model trains) stock these paints or you can buy them online here. You could also use Citadel brand paints which are available from branches of Games Workshop and Hobbycraft, but are more expensive. Acrylic model paints are water soluble while wet so you just need to wash your brush in water, but once they dry they become waterproof and won't smudge with top coat.

I really enjoyed painting these nails and I will definitely be doing more freehand nail art in future now I know how much fun it is!
Twit-twoo, twit-twoo, what do you think of these nails?

The Lacquer Legion - Lucky Heather

The Lacquer Legion is a monthly nail art challenge and this is the first time I have taken part. The theme for March is "Lucky".

I took my inspiration for this nail art from heather. According to folklore the heather plant brings good luck and white heather is luckiest of all (hence the accent nail), plus Heather is my middle name so it seemed rather appropriate. There was a perfect heather-like design on the P48 plate that came with one of the Allura nail stamping sets I picked up last week at Poundland.

I used three coats of MUA All Nude, a warm creamy white shade (£1 from Superdrug) then sponged on a gradient with Rimmel Sweet Lavender (£1 from Poundworld) on most of my nails. I stamped the heather design three times on each gradient nail using MUA Frozen Yoghurt (which looks nothing like the colour shown on the website). I finished all my gradient nails with a coat of P.S. Matte Top Coat (£1 from Primark). I was really impressed that the matte top coat didn't smudge the stamping at all. For my accent nail I used two coats of a purple Primark P.S. polish (£2 for a set of 4) and stamped once with white Konad Special Polish followed by a coat of Konad Special Top Coat.

I'm really pleased with the way these nails look. They have a romantic, vintage feel to them. They remind me of the windswept purple moorland near my home.

After I'd already been wearing these nails for 24 hours I then spent two hours gardening, weeding, digging in compost and potting up plants with my bare hands. Even after a vigorous scrub with a nail brush the nails still looked perfect - not a chip in sight! I'm so impressed with the quality of all of these polishes and I've found that MUA polishes in particular seem to be almost unchippable.

We'll Gather Lilacs in the Spring

This is definitely my most feminine manicure to date, and after I'd done it I realised that I own a summer top in a very similar colour and design, so why not photograph my nails against it!

I started with a gradient, with Rimmel 60 Seconds in shade Sweet Lavender (Poundworld) at the base of the nail merging into Frozen Yoghurt by MUA at the tips. I'm rather in love with this MUA shade, and for £1 a bottle at Superdrug it is an excellent value polish.

I used Cheeky Jumbo plate N and white Konad Special Polish for the stamping, and on the accent nail I used a coat of Chit Chat glitter in Violet (Poundland). It's all topped off with a coat of Konad Special Top Coat, which dries quickly to a hard glossy finish and doesn't smudge the stamping when it is applied.

These nails make me feel like spring is on the way! What do you think?

Midnight in Morocco

After being so impressed with the Born Pretty stamping plate I used for my last manicure I decided to try out one of the designs from QA65, the other plate I bought.

I picked up a bottle of Rimmel Lycra Pro in Poundworld last week thinking it was a black polish, but getting it out in the sunlight and reading the label I realised that it was Blue Vogue, a rich midnight blue. I decided to use it as a base for this manicure and it's fantastic - perfect coverage in one coat, quick drying and super glossy.

I chose a stamp design which reminds me of Islamic tiles and made me think of the photos my parents brought back from their holiday in Morocco. I used NYC Foil Explosion in Aqua Mystic (often available as a 2 for £2.49 deal at Superdrug) which is a fantastic polish for stamping. Just as with the last Born Pretty plate I tried, the stamps came out perfectly. This plate was only $0.99, an absolute bargain, so I have a feeling I'll be treating myself to a few more Born Pretty stamping plates in the future.

The only problem I have found with the Born Pretty stamping plates is the designs are quite small. My nails are quite short and narrow and the designs just cover my finger nails, but my thumb nail is slightly too wide. Instead I used some silver diamond shaped glequins (a name I have borrowed from The Nailasaurus to describe sparkles that are too big to be glitter and too small to be sequins) from this set (#4) to make a star shape on my thumb nail.
I topped everything with a coat of Konad Special Topcoat, but unfortunately I didn't wait for my base coat to dry enough on my thumb, so the glequins shifted and the base colour dragged over the glequins a bit. Oops!

I also managed to catch the ends of my nails before they were fully dry so there are a few little wrinkles on my index and ring fingers. The moral of this story is don't drink a massive mug of tea while you are painting your nails - nature will call before your polish dries!

The shine on the topcoat makes it a bit difficult to see what is going on with my nails, so here are a couple of close up shots of my thumb and fingers without the direct lighting. The dark blue is a pain to clean up if you make a mistake, so of course I managed to get it all over my cuticles!

I love this pattern and colour combination, although I'm not so happy with the glequins on my thumb. What do you think?