Day 5 of 31 Day Challenge: Blue

Credit to The Nailasaurus and Nailz Craze who have both done beautiful blue and white versions of this.

I hope this counts as blue, I needed something a little bit subtle today!

I have seen this design on The Nailasaurus's blog a while back.  I think her designs are absolutely awesome and decided to attempt one of my very own.  I did a bit of investigating and found that the plate has been designed by Natalie of Nailz Craze and you can buy them here.  So I promptly ordered one.....  It arrived so quick, was very reasonably priced and I was really pleased on first impressions.  The designs looked well etched in and it was a lot bigger than the Bundle Monster plates that I already have.  I was not disappointed... 

I used Barry M White as a base and then used Barry M Gelly Blueberry to stamp on the design.  I was quite impressed with how the Blueberry stamped, it was very opaque but that just be because it was straight onto white.  I love this design.  It reminds me of blue and white china plates.

 

 

I can't wait to try the rest of the designs.  I have had a go with the super cute Russian dolls but wasn't overly happy with my colour choices so I will have another attempt at that one. The only slight problem I encountered was that this plate is not backed with paper like my other ones, which means it can scratch a nice wooden table (ask me how I know?!!) - however this is my own silly fault and of course next time I will put a mat down before painting my nails on the coffee table!

What is your favourite stamping design?

Bye for now x

Day 4 of 31 Day Challenge: Green

 

 

I just cant leave these mint colours alone.  I totally love them.  This is my latest design continuing the mint theme.

 



I used Essie Mint Candy Apple, Barry M Gelly Greenberry and Barry M White. I also used a cheapy make-up sponge and a  small dotting tool

I painted my pinky in the BarryM Greenberry and my pointer finger in the Mint Candy Apple.  I did a gradient of the two colours on my thumb and ring finger.  I was really pleased with this gradient, I have tried several before but because these colours are so similar I found that I got a really good blend on them.  To be honest I don't think these pictures show the gradient in it's full minty wonder.  I finally did my index finger in the BarryM White and added the polka dots.

 

What do you think?  Do you go through phases of loving a particular shade or do you like to mix it up?

 

Bye for now x

Blue Stripy Tips

A different version of the red stripy tips I did.

I used Barry M White for the very tips of the nails and Barry M Gelly Blueberry for the second part of the tips.

I enjoyed the red stripy tips I did but I wasn't too impressed with the striping tape so I decided to give it a go with using just polish and I was really pleased with the results.  I used striping tape to tape off the tip of my nails and used a nail art brush to fill in the tip blue.  I waited for it to dry completely and then used more striping tape to tape off a smaller section of the tip.  I used a nail art brush to fill this in white.  I topped the whole thing off with a coat of Seche Vite and I was good to go :)

This lasted much longer than the version I did with the striping tape.

What do you think about variations on the classic French manicure?

Bye for now x

Summer Skies

I love summer and one of the things I love the best is gazing up at blue skies with fluffy white clouds.  I did this manicure by firstly doing a gradient in blue using Barry M Cobalt Blue and Barry M Gelly Blueberry (can you tell I'm a Barry M fan yet?!  :P  )  There are lots of ways to do gradients but I favour The Nailasaurus's technique of using a make up sponge and gradually building up the colours.  Surprisingly the clean up wasn't too bad.

When it was completely dry I stamped the clouds on using Konad Special Stamping Polish in White (from amazon) using plate 312 from my Bundle Monster collection. I then topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I certainly enjoyed creating these nails but I'm not sure how fond I was of wearing them.  The blues are pretty intense...

What do you think - do you like bright bold nail colours?

Bye for now x

Red Stripy Tips

I decided to do a tweak on the classic French manicure by adding a strip of red striping tape under the white tip.  This was quite an easy manicure to do and I would of been really pleased with it apart from the fact that when I added a top coat to the design the striping tape bled its colour which you can see on my pointer and pinky in the picture above.  Is this normal or do I need to invest in some better striping tape?  The tape also peeled off the next day leaving me with peely nails.  Oh dear.

I used Barry M White for the Tip, a nail art brush, striping tape I got from amazon and SecheVite top coat. 

However... it looked good for a little while and was relatively easy.  I simply taped off the top section of my nail and used a small nail art brush to paint the tip white.  I peeled the tape off after a few seconds to get a nice crisp line and then when the tip was dry I added a stripe of the red striping tape.  I finished the whole thing off with a top coat and... job done.

What do you think - are you a fan of striping tape?

Bye for now x

Review: BarryM Gelly Satsuma

My First Post! I am so excited.

After months of deliberating and contemplating I have finally set up Polished Penny - my very own little nail polish slice of the internet.  I am a little bit of a nail polish addict and I thought this would be the perfect place to share with other like minded people!  Just a simple post today while I find my feet with this blogging malarkey. 

 

 

I have had this colour in my stash for a while now and wasn't too keen to use it to begin with as it's not a colour I would normally go for (it was a gift from my lovely sister).  However, she was totally right - this colour is AWESOME! I have a few other of the BarryM Gelly's and have been generally really impressed with the formula and the sheer colour that pops out of them.

 

I think this is definitely a Summer colour - I am desperately trying to cling on to the last of the Summer even though the nights are drawing in and I can smell Autumn.   I have been really impressed with the staying power of this polish too, I took these pictures on the third day of wearing and no tip wear or chips at all.  I did use a coat of Seche Vite but this has lasted much better than some of my other polished and I have even done the washing up several times!  This of course has made me rush out to but a few more Gelly's so stay tuned for those.

Well... that's the hard bit of the first post over :D

Do you ever find out you love a polish on your nails that you don't like in the bottle?

Bye for now x