Guest Post - Mina from Cubbiful

Hi Goddesses

Today I am delighted to welcome Mina from Cubbiful to the blog.  She is one of my bloggers to watch in 2014, and you can follow her on Facebook by clicking here.

Her manis always make me smile - they are colourful, and full of happy.  Here she comes :)
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Hello all - I'm Mina, from Cubbiful.
First and foremost, can I just say... I'm guest posting for The Crumpet! Ahhhh :)

Those of you who've been with me for a while know how my 2013 ended in a great happy mood when I saw I was among The Crumpet's «Blogs to Watch in 2014» list.

So I guess I don't need telling you how I reacted when Debbie invited me to prepare a guest post for The Crumpet, right? 
(Still doing the happy dance - thank you so much)

What I love most about The Crumpet is how involved with the community Debbie is. 
Not only does she have a passion for anything Indie - such a great supporter of beautiful polish creators - she's also gotten the world to know so many talented bloggers  (I still remember how I got to know One Nail To Rule Them All thanks to you :)).

No surprise then that I wanted something special to rise up to the occasion.
And considering all my other guest posts had a floral theme and I didn't want to break tradition, that's what I went for :)

I think you might recognize my inspiration source - check it out:

You might have seen some manis inspired by the cherry tree flowers from this bottle - there's quite some - but the flowers I've always loved were the ones at the top of the bottle :)

I know it's not 100% on the spot but I put so much dedication to them, I can't help but love it to bits ;)

I started with two coats of Rimmel London Peppermint - my first minty polish and still the one closest to my heart :)

The slight shimmer you see is from the one coat I applied afterwards, using Kiko Turquoise Microglitter (298) - I wanted some sparkle to jazz it up :)

After it all dried, I took my acrylic paints and started mixing some colours to match those on the bottle.
I think I've somehow managed to do so, don't you?

I had to redo the flowers a second time and although they're not a faithful replica of one another, who said flowers had to be twins? ;)

One final look at the whole mani and enough with the photos!

Let me hear what you've got to say about this one ;)

You can find more of my happy colourful (and sometimes weird) creations over on Cubbiful.

You can also join Cubbiful's Facebook Page and if you're an Instagram addict (like I'm finding myself to be) here's Cubbiful's Instagram Profile.

Thank you all for letting me share this one and thank you, Debbie, most of all.

It was a pleasure and great fun to come up with this one - I hope you've liked it just as much :)

Hugs & Kissies,

Mina *

Guest post from Lindsey of Wondrously Polished

Hi Goddesses


Before we announce the winner of the March Amateur Nail Art Contest, it's time to celebrate the winner of February's Contest with Lindsey of Wondrously Polished.  Lindsey's blog is great, and I really do urge you to go and follow her - you won't be disappointed!

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First off...Wow! Thank you! Oh my gosh!! Somehow the stars aligned and I won The Crumpet's February Amateur Nail Art Contest...so that means that you lot are stuck with me for a post! ;) There were some fabulous entries along side mine, so I am especially honored, excited and nervous to get to share some nail art with you all! 

Not going to lie, I definitely stressed a bit about coming up with something worthy of being posted on The Crumpet. You guys all know how fabulous and creative Debbie is! I decided that since it is Spring here in California, I wanted to do something within that theme. I also wanted to incorporate some of my favorite aspects of nail art -- different techniques and free hand painting are my favorites. After some hard thinking, I ended up creating a stained glass insprired, simple floral look. I did these free hand over the course of several hours and I'm really loving how they came out. Hope you all like them as well!

While this is a bit time consuming, it's pretty simple to create the stained glass aspect. Below you can see how I randomly added color to my flower area. Once done, I went back in with my striping brush and some black polish to create the line work between the colors. You can also use white in lieu of the black to create a mosaic look instead.

I ended up using 8 different polishes to create this, with OPI's Skull and Glossbones and the base color. Let me know if you're curious about any of the colors in particular :) Here is the chaos that is my workspace.

 Once again, thank you so very much to Debbie for giving me the opportunity to share some of my work with you all and thank you to all of you who voted for my mani! I had a fabulous time creating this and participating in the contest. I hope you enjoyed reading!

Happy Polishing,

Lindsey of Wondrously Polished

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HOURS?  She spent HOURS?  Did you hear that?  HOURS!!  Lol.   No wonder it looks so awesome.   Ah, if only I were a patient Crumpet .....

xx

Celebration 500 Guest Post - Kirsten from The Geeky Owl

Hi Goddesses

The final Guest Post from Celebration 500 comes from a really dear friend, Kirsten of Geeky Owl.

She's done a smorgasboard of awesome for me - thank you sweetheart, I loves xx :)

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Hello All! This is my first ever guest post that I have written! It’s a bit intimidated to do, especially doing one for The Crumpet! I sat and stewed for a while trying to figure out the best mani I could do for The Crumpet. I ended up coming up with two! A serious one and a not so serious mani. :)

This is my serious purple mani for The Crumpet. I used OPI Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI, which is a gorgeous purple crème with orangey/red shimmer. I then did a funky french tip using Milani Purple Gleam. Purple Gleam is a gorgeous glitter jam packed with sparkles!

Here is a swatch of OPI Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI all by its lonesome self.

Here is me showing off the lovely shimmer that accompanies OPI Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI. Isn’t’ this a polish just made for The Crumpet! I think it suits her well!

Alright, now on to my not so serious mani. I had a blast doing this one!  Hahaha!  This is my take on the different blood manis that The Crumpet has done for both her Lostathon and Potterathon weeks! Hahaha! Only The Crumpet could truly get away with a mani that portrays blood as art! Haha! :) Now, mine isn’t such a perfect blood color as The Crumpet’s, because I do not own the best blood color nail polish which is OPI Royal Rajah Ruby. I had

to make do. My base is OPI Skull & Glossbones. I then sponged one a  layer of Nina Ultra Pro in Maple Syrup topped off with Zoya Sooki. I then blotted a little more Maple Syrup for good measure. :)

I had so much fun trying different combinations to get the blood just right!

And I hope you enjoyed my manis of a serious and not so serious nature, because we all know that The Crumpet (bless her heart) is both! :)

Celebration 500 Guest Post - Aimee from Persistently Glittery

Hi Goddesses

Today I have the final 2 Guest Posts for you from Celebration 500.  As usual, I overdid things, and planned far more than could be fitted in.

Today's post is from the lovely Aimee at Persistently Glittery.  Aimee is lovely and her designs are always cool.  She's really good at mixing stamping and nail art, and just for me, she chose one of my favourite things for her Guest Post :)  

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Hello lovely! This is my post for you! I did kitties especially for you :) I know you enjoy a kitty or two.

For the kitty nails I used Zoya Kristen dotted with OPI Pink Friday, and the kitties are A-england Bridal Veil, with China Glaze White on White for the eyes.

The purple nails are Zoya Tru with Cult Nails Seduction which is a super gorgeous sheer purple jelly with lots of lovely flakie goodness going on. I stamped with Konad Special Stamping Polish in White using the bow and hearts image from Konad M84.

Thanks so much for letting me do this Debbie! It's an honour to be allowed a post on your blog. You sexy thing, you. :) xxx

Aimee x

Celebration 500 - Guest Post - Helen from Nail Newbie

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post is from a lady I LOVE.  Her name is Helen and her blog is Nail Newbie.  She shares my sense of humour and colourful language, and she's one of the few bloggers that can make me guffaw out loud.

Her laptop broke recently, so she's not been posting as much, and I really miss her lighting up my day.  Luckily for me, she found a way to do a Guest Post .... hoping you're back with us everyday soon Helly! xx

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Hello!

 

When Debbie asked me to do a guest post for her Celebration Month I knew there was only one thing I could do. We all know that our favourite Crumpet has a preference for a certain blue/red mix, and quite possibly her collection of purple polish outnumbers my entire stash – and that's no mean feat! So it had to be purple, and since Debbie is the founder of the epic stamping group on Facebook, it had to have stamping. 

I decided on a gradient of three of my favourite purples: China Glaze Agent Lavender, Sally Hansen Delphinium and OPI Parlez Vous OPI? They're all slightly dusty and went really well together. Then I stamped a hearts and lines combo image from the first Bundle Monster set in Barry M Silver Foil. I hope the Crumpet approves!

 

 

I have a penchant for purple too, so loved how it came out. And the stamping hides a multitude of sins with the gradient...

 

Thank you for letting me hijack your blog Debbie! Due to technical issues (the death of my poor laptop) I'm not blogging as much as I'd like to at the moment, but please pop over and say hi at www.nail-newbie.blogspot.com – I'd love to see you!

 

Hx

Celebration 500 - Guest Post - Bee from Bee Polished

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post is from my very bestest polish friend, the gorgeous Bee from Bee Polished.

Bee is effortless when it comes to polish - she makes it all look so simple.  Also, she seems to cram 36 hours worth of stuff into each day - I don't know how she does that :)  Bee is a genuinely lovely soul, and it gives me immense pleasure and pride to be able to bring you her talents again today - enjoy xx

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These nails are a guest post for my very good friend, Debbie at The Crumpet. This month she's celebrating her 500th blog post and invited some friends to join in the celebration!!  I can't say enough wonderful things about Debbie and her blog.  It has everything you could ask for in a blog: humor, art, swatches, and best of all, a lot of heart.  I'm nowhere near five hundred posts myself so I give kudos to Debbie for sticking with it and making time to post!! We all know it can be hard sometimes!  

In honor of Debbie's milestone, I wanted to recreate one of her wonderful mani's!  It took me a LONG time to choose.  Not only are there a lot to choose from, but they're all so interesting and I wanted to choose one that I could really do justice.  Debbie did a series of these crazy cool mosiac mani's in all sorts of colors.  I chose to do the blue ones because I had most of the colors she used in the original!  I think they turned out really well and I was really sad to have to take them off!  Congrats again to Debbie on her 500th post! I can't wait to see the next 500!  :)

PS: you can see Debbie's original blue mosaic mani here: Crumpety Blue Mosaic 

 

                        Colors used: China Glaze Sea Spray, butterLONDON Victoriana, A-England Tristam, Barry M Blue Glitter, Barry M Cyan Blue, China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle

Celebration 500 Guest Post - Victoria from Manicurator

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post is from Victoria, a lovely lady I met recently through a FB group.  She also comes with a funny story.  One of my BPFF is Emma of Manicurity and a few months ago, Emma was gutted to find there was a blog called Manicurator AND that it was quite good lol.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I find Lady Manicurator herself in a FB group I joined ... oh the dilemma!  Was it disloyal to Emma to make friends with Victoria ?  Well, as I'm not 6 years old anymore, I decided to make friends :)  She also has my admiration - she's mum to twin 3 yr old boys - wow, now THAT'S a challenge :)

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Hello everyone!! I'm so happy to be sharing these manicures to help THE CRUMPET celebrate :) And what better way than with F4's purple glitter love fest. This polish is called Grape Escape and it's gorgeous. From their description: "GRAPE ESCAPE is a clear base with purple fine glitters , purple holo glitters , purple square glitters and purple satin matte hex glitters." Those "purple satin matte" hexes are light purple and such a nice unexpected addition, making this not your typical purple glitter. I decided to give you two different chock full of purple looks. 

The first is Grape Escape in a gradient of sorts over Ciate Sugar Plum, which is a lovely lavender creme. I used 3 thins coats and then 1 coat of Grape Escape using just the brush from the bottle, and another coat just on the tips. 

The second look, I started with 2 coats of SpaRitual Heliotrope which is from their new Summer Pigment collection. Gorgeous. Painted the accent nail with Grape Escape and on the other nails, I just dotted on the Grape :) 

Hope you enjoyed this post, brought to you by the color purple :)

XO, Victoria

Celebration 500 - Guest Post Roisin from Cuti-CLUE

Hi Goddesses

Today we have a DOUBLE GUEST POST from Roisin, of Cuti-CLUE-les, someone who became a friend recently through the Purple Crumpet Fairy nail art group.   Her nail art is absolutely stunning, she's always brimming with ideas, hence why just 1 mani wouldn't do.   Enjoy xx

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Hey all!

I am so happy that Debbie let me guest post today! I've been a huge fan of her blog for ages so it is such an honor to post here :)

As this is a momentous occasion- Debbie's 500th post!-She asked me to choose one of the following for my post: 1)a recreation of one of her previous manicure's 2)something with purple in it that she would like to try or a celebration manicure to mark her 500th post. I have to admit I spent a while thinking up manicure looks (I even have a little nail art book with my drawings in it haha). In the end I decided to try something completely new for me but something Debbie has already mastered and in the colour that Debbie loves the most :)

I started off with a basecoat of Stargazer 114. Then I layered on two coats of Catrice Lucky in Lilac.

Then I picked out three of my favourite purples.I went for the "Sugar spun" technique where you put a drop of polish onto a page or piece of plastic, leave it to dry a bit and then use a dotting tool or something similar to it to dip in the polish and drag it across the nail. My lines are a bit messy but I am really happy with the way it turned out, especially for a first attempt! My polish didn't go stringy so I cheated and just dragged my dotting tool across my nail :P  

Here is a close up of my thumb to show the different polishes used.From tip to base: Catrice Dirty Berry, Barry M Berry ice cream and Catrice Heavy Metalilac 

I really like this technique. It's a great way to combine both colours from the same family ie purples and colours that are totally opposite for a more interesting look. I am not a huge purple fan (swatches made me buy these :P ) but I really like this combination. In future I would use Barry m Berry ice cream as my base because it is my favourite but I think Heavy Metalilac and Dirty Berry are perfect for the "sugar Spun" technique :)

Thanks so much for letting me loose on your blog Debbie! It was so much fun to try out a new nail art technique and use colours I haven't worn for a while (if at all :P )

Huge congrats on reaching 500 posts, hopefully you have many more in store :D  Hope both you and your readers enjoyed my post!

Cuti-CLUE-les

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Hey all!

I am so happy that Debbie let me guest post today! I've been a huge fan of her blog for ages so it is such an honor to post here :)

As this is a momentous occasion- Debbie's 500th post!-She asked me to choose one of the following for my post: 1)a recreation of one of her previous manicure's 2)something with purple in it that she would like to try or a celebration manicure to mark her 500th post. I have to admit I spent a while thinking up manicure looks (I even have a little nail art book with my drawings in it haha). In the end I decided to try something completely new for me but something Debbie has already mastered and in the colour that Debbie loves the most :)

So I started off with one coat of Stargazer 114 as my basecoat. Then painted on two coats of Catrice Sing: Hey! dirty-lilah which is a gorgeous almost grey lilac polish. I ended up doing three coats. I was to excited and didn't let it dry enough so it dragged on the second coat :P

After the base colour dried I placed my metallic purple striping tape diagonally on my nail.  I bought this on ebay and it works perfectly!

For the segments I used three of my favourite purple polishes. From base to tip I have 2 coats of Catrice Dirty Berry, 2 coats of Barry m Berry Ice cream and 2 coats of Catrice Heavy Metallilac.

Finally I added on a layer of Essence quick dry topcoat to make the lines more crisp ( I haven't mastered the perfect striping tape line yet :P ) You can leave the striping tape on if you prefer. I liked to show the original basecoat colour so it tied in more with the overall manicure look but that;t just my preference :) Also the tape I used was identical to Catrice Heavy metallilac so you wouldn't have noticed it anyway

You can mix it up and use different colours in the segments and if you are more skilled with tape than I am (that won't be hard haha) you can divide the nail into more than three segments giving it a more mosaic look! The possibilities are endless with this manicure.

I really hope you enjoyed this post! I really love the looks you can get with striping tape and I'm sure I'll be using it a lot in the future.Major thanks to Debbie for letting me have a go on her blog :D I can't believe she has reached 500 posts already :O Hopefully she has many more up her sleeve to keep us entertained in the future :)

Cuti-CLUE-les

Celebration 500 - Guest Post Louise from Painted Nails and Baking Scales

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post comes from another British blogger, and one I have only gotten to know recently - Lou from Painted Nails and Baking Scales.

I have to say, I LOVE the mani she's done (purple based of course) and it fits PERFECTLY with this being Disney Week on the Superheroes and Villains Challenge.  Take it away Lou!

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Goodness, 500 posts! What a brilliant achievement. Hello, I’m Lou and I can be found over on Painted Nails & Baking Scales. But today I’ve written this blogpost for the Lovely Crumpet to help celebrate her milestone. Well we all know

Crumpet loves a bit of nail art AND a bit of purple. Being a bit of a nail art virgin I’ve gone for something safe by anyone’s nail art standards. However, I did use some lovely polishes, so here we go!

First off, I started with the lovely Space Odyssey from NARS. This was released as their limited edition Fashion Night Out polish in late 2011. You can still pick it up if it catches your eye. It’s a super sparkly silver stunner and goes on like a dream….. *swoon*

Now, here comes the nail art! I used my dotting tool to create a series of dots in various places as you can see here. The polish here is by Essence and is called Passion for Fashion. It’s a nice vivid purple cream and I can’t wait to use it again.

Then, because you can never have too much glitter or sparkle on your nails, comes the finishing touch. I’m sure a lot of you have heard about all the great indie nail polish makers, and here is one for you. This is Ursula, from Once Upon a Polish, a fab black and purple mixed shape glitter mix. (yes, that is Ursula from The Little Mermaid). I blobbed a bit one and moved it about until I was happy with it. Love all those glitter pieces, amazeballs!!

So that’s all from me, here is to another 500 fabulous Crumpet posts!!

Celebration 500 Guest Post - Sarah from Spellbinding Nails

Hi Goddesses

Another guest post today from a "special" friend.  I like to tease her and call her Stamping Sarah because she is a stamping goddess / ninja / Goliath.

Her blog is Spellbinding Nails and I truly think she has helped take stamping to a whole new level.  It's not just what she stamps, but what she stamps it OVER - her bases are works of art on their own.  Plus, she's incredibly generous with her knowledge (and inside scoop on when new plates will be released).

I love what she's done so much - thank you Sarah, it's wonderful xx :)

Hey Guys!

The Crumpet kindly asked me to be a part of her awesome 500th Celebration Month - How could I say no to this awesome lady!

I love The Crumpet's passion for all things Polish related! - She unlocks a lot of people's passions and skills through 'Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge' , 'Adventures in stamping' & 'Monkey see Monkey do Mondays ' - And I'm glad to have her as a friend!

Here is my manicure that I came up with - Inspired by The Crumpet =D.

For this Manicured I used :

- La Femme Beauty - Lilac Cream.

- Beauty UK - Lilac Girl.

 - B.O Nail Polish - Glitter Star Silver Color Nail Polish.

- Rimmel London - 5 in 1 Nail Care

- Mash Nail Art Polish for Stamping - Black.

- Mash Nail Art Polish for Stamping - White.

- HB15.

To create the base ( See Below) of my manicure i used:

- I applied two coats of Beauty UK's Lilac Girl to my thumb and Ring finger.

- I then applied two coats of La Femme Beauty's Lilac Cream to my Index, 

Middle and Pinky.

- I then applied one coat of B.O Nail Polish's Glitter Star Silver Nail Polish to 

each nail - followed by one coat of Rimmel London's 5 in 1 Nail Care.

Here is a picture of the HB15 image plate that I used to 

create my manicure. It can be purchased from Here.

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Thanks for stopping By!

Hugs!

xoxox