Mint Candy Apple Stamping

Mint candy apple stamped nails

I love the mint candy apple colour and I wanted to try some subtle stamping. I didn't think anything too colourful and wild would work so I went with a simple white design.

Mint Candy Apple by Essie and Konad Special Stamping polish in White

I used plate 314 from my Bundle Monster stamping set and used the small geometric design in the top right

I did two coats of Mint Candy Apple, let them dry then stamped on the design at an angle.  I used a coat of SecheVite to finish the design.

I also think this would look good with some silver stamping.
 
What do you think? What colours work with Mint Candy Apple?

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

Review: Essie Mint Candy Apple

I am aware I am a little late coming to the Essie Mint Candy Apple as it has been doing the blogging rounds for a while now.  But I am from the UK and Essie have only recently launched their collections in Boots and Superdrug.  Before that they were a little hard to get and too expensive for me to justify buying.  I have three other colours in my collection: Vanity Fairest (which I LOVE - it is a subtle pink shimmer), Not Just a Pretty Face (which is a peachy pink jelly that is nice but doesn't really suit my skin tone) and Allure (which is a great very pale pinky nude that I actually wore on my wedding day a few months ago.  Apparently Kate Middleton wore it on her wedding day too although I am not sure how correct that information is!). Anyway... it's nearly the end of the month and I noticed I had a few pennies going spare so I decided to treat myself to a new Essie and I had to go for Mint Candy Apple.

I just LOVE the Essie colours. I do occasionally find myself on their American Website just drooling over all the different colours.

I really like the formula of them too and the super wide brush makes it really easy to cover your whole nail in two strokes.

So here it is....

I love it. It's a really wearable colour.

What do you think? Are you a Mint Candy Apple fan or do you have another favourite Essie?

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

Green Roses

Green roses to celebrate the fact some things in my garden are actually growing! I used NYC Mint Macaroon for the base and stamped the roses on the top with NYC Foil Explosion in Magic Earth.

 

I want to start this post by singing the praises of the NYC Collection of nail polishes.  I got these on offer in Superdrug and I think I ended up paying about £1.79 for each of these. Not bad at all! (In fact - having just checked the Superdrug website Mint Macaroon is currently 2 for £3 and Magic Earth is £1.99 - Bargain!). I really like the formula of both of them and I was really impressed with Mint Macaroon.  It had a lovely consistency and self levelled very well to leave a really smooth finish.

 

I started off with two coats of Mint Macaroon and then used my Bundle Monster 323 plate to stamp the roses on the top in Magic Earth.  I really liked the subtle effect I got with this design.  I topped it all off with a coat of SecheVite.

What do you think about same colour stamping - do you like the subtle effect or do you like the colours to pop?

Bye for now x

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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