Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge - Animal Print

Hi Goddesses

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!   Back, back, back!  Lol, after a few weeks off to do the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge, the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge is back to be being a weekly event.

The group was set up by Claire and myself to push ourselves, develop our "talents" and come up with some cool ideas.  We now have a lot of friends who have joined us - let's see how many post today :)

This week's challenge was chosen by the lovely Zoe at  www.ocnpd.blogspot.com  - her choice was animal print.  All along I knew what I wanted to do - crack out the legendary Konad M57, take her for a dance, and use colours that you would NEVER see in nature :)

Models Own Purple Rain is from my Christmas bargain haul of 15 polishes for £50.  It went on fine, but man, why am I messier whenever I put on a dark colour?  I've gotten heaps better at colouring withn the lines, but give me a dark colour and I turn into a 3yr old again!  AND they don't clean up easy!  Lol.

I stamped using SH White On and then added some Poshe and was really really happy.  However, I am also a big believer in playing with your mani, so taking a hint from Fingers Polish Mania who is OBSESSED with them, I decided to add a funky french in the base colour (stamping hint, this is a REALLY useful technique when the stamp hasn't covered the whole nail).

In real life, I loved it more with the tips.  In the photos ?  Nah, I'm leaning the other way. Which do you prefer ?

Enjoy xx :)

Getting Girlie with Barry, his M, and his pale pinks

BARRY M – Pale Pink Skittle

Hi Goddesses

Today I have for you 3 pale pinks from Barry and his M – Baby Pink, Bright Pink and Strawberry Ice Cream.  Whilst I don’t really like this look on me, I am quite taken with this mani – there’s something about the sugary simplicity of it that just makes me smile J

Baby Pink is on the middle finger – a super girlie pastel built on a peachy (rather than white) base.  This needed 3 coats.

On the thumb and pinkie we have Bright Pink, which is more of a Bright Pale Pink. This is your classic Barbie pink – sweet, pale but intense.   This only needed 2 coats.

On the index and ring fingers is Strawberry Ice Cream.  This is very similar to Baby Pink, but probably one tone deeper.  Again, it has a cream rather than white base, which makes it more palatable.  Personally, I think real-life strawberry ice cream is darker than this – well, it always has been in the ice cream parlours I’ve bought it at!

For a bit of fun I had another dance with Konad the Barbarian and this went a LITTLE better.  Following advice, I filed my plonker a bit, and this certainly helped.  The hindrance this time was that I used Barry M Silver Foil as my stamping polish and it dried *ridiculously* fast.  Whilst it did transfer perfectly to the stamp every time, I only got it onto the nail half the time!  There really was NO time at all to look at the plonker, check you had the pattern and decide where to plonk.  So, if you’re going to use Silver Foil for stamping it’s dab, swipe, plonk, plonk.  Preferably within 0.7 seconds.

So there you go – that’s Barry’s sugary pinks.

Enjoy J  xx

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.

Barry M - Slime to the Lime Green

BARRY M – Lime Green

Hi Goddesses

Ok today starts with a 2 part quiz question –

1.    How much do I like green nail polish

2.   How well do me and Konad The Barbarian get along ?

If you answered “not at all / not much” to both these questions, you may now step away from the laptop, throw your hands up in the air and scream “so why the hell has she done a green Konad mani???!!!”

Cos it’s frickin awesome, that is why J

This is Barry M’s Lime Green which I have rechristened (S)Lime Green.  It is an AMAZING colour and you will either love it, or loathe it.

In the bottle, this looks fabulous.  So deeply pigmented, so bright, so nasty lol.  On the nail it doesn’t disappoint, *but* it is very sheer, almost jellyish, and after 3 coats, this STILL wasn’t as lush as the bottle.

This is somewhere between an apple and slime.  It really is the most unbelievable green, and I wish I’d had it for Hallowe’en.  I am not sure I would ever wear this on its own (it also didn’t do much with my skin tone) but this will make a GREAT art polish.  I also think this would look amazeballs with darker skin tones.

To liven it up, I decided to give Konad the Barbarian another spin, and whaddya know, we now seem to have a cordial, if cautious, relationship.  To everyone who recommended filing the rubber stampy thing, thank you thank you THANK YOU, it has made ALL the difference to both my stamping results and my blood pressure.

I used CG Starboard and M65 for this one.  Each nail gets progressively better, and I have deliberately posted this – mediocre though it is – to reassure everyone else going through the Konad learning curve. 

Observe on the index finger the silver the lazy Crumpet didn’t clean off from the last Konad adventure / strop.  Observe on ALL the fingers how the pattern was too small for the nail – how the HELL do you combat that ??!  there’s no WAY I can join the pattern up by stamping a nail twice, so what do you do ?  or do I just have freakishly giant nails?

I quite liked how this turned out, but the (S)Lime Green did leech a lot of the darkness out of Starboard, which is a shame, but hey ho.

But wow, ain’t these photos BEAUTIFUL?  J

To everyone else who has just started stamping, I’d love you to share your horror stories too.

Enjoy J  xx

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.