Barry M Gelly Week - They Stamp Too!! (with Cheeky Jumbo Plate 5)

Hi Goddesses

It’s Barry M Gelly Week on the blog this week to celebrate the very imminent arrival of the new Barry M Gellys to the High Street.  They are due to launch next week on the 5th, but I know some ladies have had luck picking some up already.

Today’s post uses all 3 of the 5 Gellys from the Collection – you can refresh yourself on them HERE – and is over a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

One of the hidden secrets of the Gelly polishes is that they also make great stamping polishes, so I wanted to include a mani that put that to the test and showed you how opaque they are.

I am currently a million times in love with the new Cheeky Jumbo Plates and this lovely pattern comes from Plate 5, which is all about Music.   As on most large plates, some stamps work better than others, and this one wasn’t quite perfect for me.  I struggled to get the whole pattern on the plonker, even when I tried with a Konad.

So what do you do when that happens?  You’re in love with your mani but your stamping is a little lacking.  Well on this occasion, I added a skinny French tip.  The funny thing is, it looks like it was supposed to be there!  It really rounds the mani off nicely, and grounds it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s Gelly Nail Art – I have loved each and every look, although today’s is probably my least favourite.  Which one have you loved the most ??

Have a great weekend.  Enjoy xx :)

Barry M Gelly Week - Gradient Meets Cheeky Jumbo Plate 3 (catchy lol)

Hi Goddesses

It’s Barry M Gelly Week on the blog this week to celebrate the very imminent arrival of the new Barry M Gellys to the High Street.  They are due to launch next week on the 5th, but I know some ladies have had luck picking some up already.

Today’s post uses all 5 Gellys from the Collection – you can refresh yourself on them HERE – in a rainbow gradient running from thumb to pinkie.

I do have a little sad though – I am not totally happy with the thumb, as Blue Grape has turned (an albeit cracking shade of) indigo when layered over Dragonfruit.  I wish I’d done what I did on a couple of the other nails, and painted it half and half, with some sponging down the middle.

The stamp used is from Cheeky Jumbo Plate 3 and I love it !!  I’m going to be using it a lot.  It’s so big and bold and chunky – I love it I love it I love it!

So which nails are your favourite?  I think the 2 with Key Lime really stand out – they just look amazing against the boldness of the stamp – and I also love (obviously, after yesterday) anything that’s a Mango-Dragonfruit cocktail :)

One more post to come tomorrow, where I’ll be showing you that these aren’t just glorious colours, they STAMP too.

Enjoy xx :)

Tri Polish Challenge Day 4 - Noodles!

Hi Goddesses

Today I have some super easy and super lazy nail art for you, which I’ve called Noodles.  Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did something similar HERE, but much better, obvs :)

I used KIKO 329 Pale Grey as my base and then used a thin nail art brush to do my wiggly lines.  Hint: in all forms of life, whether you’re using a pencil, a whiteboard marker or a polish brush – if you don’t think you can do it straight, deliberately do it wiggly!  Own those wiggly lines lol.

I started with the more dominant Barry M Blood Orange from the base of the nail, wiggling out to the tips.   Originally I planned thicker lines, but I liked how the colour tapered out towards the edge.   When I picked up the KIKO 339 Cornflower, I deliberately started at the edge, and worked my way back up to the root of the nail.

What I didn’t anticipate, was that the lines would blur together, and I’d end up with smudges and lilac bits.  Not that I didn’t like the effect, I did, but it wasn’t what I was aiming for, so for the remainder of the nails I used TC between colours.

And ta da!  This is so simple.   I’d like to do this in bolder colours actually – I think this is a really easy look for when you don’t want plain nails, but you haven’t got much time.

Enjoy xx

Barry M Gelly Week - Hot Hot Tribal with Mango and Dragonfruit

Hi Goddesses

Happy Hump Day!   Thank you to everyone for the awesome response to Monday’s mani of Barry M Gelly polka dots!  It’s been shared in so many places and been seen probably by more people than any other mani I’ve done, so thank you!

Whilst all that was going on, yesterday I hit 600k page views AND published my 1250th blog post.  That means I’ve done 750 in a year – whoops.  Stay tuned for the weekend when I launch a whole hoopla of changes for the blog to add to your viewing pleasure.  Not less, just better :)

So, today’s mani uses just 2 of the Gellys – Mango (the orange one) and Dragonfruit (the reddy corally one) – as well as my Barry M nail art pen.  You may remember I initially had some problems with my nail art pens.  Well, I think I’ve worked out it’s because I had them sat right next to the laptop, in front of all the heat blowing out.  I’ve kept the new ones horizontal and cooler, and so far, they are surviving life in the nail room!

One of the reasons I was excited to get the nail art pens is because I want to master tribal.  It always looks so awesome when other people do it, and although I have a LONG way to go, I am loving how this turned out.

The base has been sponged.  Each nail started off with 2 coats of Mango and then had Dragonfruit sponging.   Each nail is different, some have a top to bottom gradient, some a bottom to top, others have splodged lines, or just general randomness.  One of the things I like about these 2 polishes is how very well they play together – it’s almost impossible to tell there are 2 polishes here.

I tried to needle drag with them too – STILL not mastered that – but again, look how they moosh and merge together to make pure fire – lovely!

So, there we go, tribal on fire!  Enjoy xx :)

Barry M Gelly Week - Blue Grape, Key Lime and Guava Tape Mani

Hi Goddesses

It’s Barry M Gelly Week on the blog this week to celebrate the very imminent arrival of the new Barry M Gellys to the High Street.  They are due to launch next week on the 5th, but I know some ladies have had luck picking some up already.

Today’s post uses 3 of the 5 Gellys from the Collection – you can refresh yourself on them HERE – and is over a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

I’m a little bit obsessed with tape manis at the moment.  I’m not the only one – Nailasaurus, Manicurator, work/play/polish – they are all tape mani experts, and it’s become a bit of a mission to get my tape manis GOOOOOOD.

I'm not perfect yet, but I'm determined to get there :)  Being me, the pattern on each nail is different, but I used the same roll of tape throughout.

One of my tape mani issues is pooling, and on this mani, I had none of that – so what did I do?  Well, as you may be able to tell, this is a splodgerama.  So after painting my nails white and appling tape, I used tweezers and a small piece of make up sponge to very carefully colour my nails in.

Not only do I like the random splodge formula, but it made the tape mani much easier to execute.  The polish applied is quite sparing, but you can build it up to achieve density – and then peel it off with no puddling issues whatsoever.

This is definitely how I’m going to try my next few tape manis :)

Which nail is your favourite?  Enjoy xx :)