Digit-al Dozen DOES - Vintage - Heavy Curtains!

Hi Goddesses

Today's vintage mani is a curtain / velvet / Victorian inspired thing.  I always love it when people do same colour stamping, and the top colour pops like embossed velvet.

I wanted to do something similar, but very textured, but I chose 2 polishes that whilst glorious in their own right, well ... I'm not sure they made such a perfect couple.

On base we have the utterly amazing "there are no words for how gorgeous you are" Alcatraz Rocks by OPI.  I have really done this polish a disservice by not wearing it until now, as it would definitely have been one of my top3 polishes of 2013.

This is perhaps the most exquisite polish OPI have released in the LONGEST time, a Liquid Sand of such complexity and majesty that neither words nor photos are enough.

The polish sits on a dark purple axis, with glitters of pink, gold, petrol - you name it, it's there.  But it's hidden.  So on the surface, it looks darkly serene, but look closer and there's a whole world of complexity at your fingertips.

I've deliberately included some blurred shots, as they give the best hint of what's going on.  Most cameras (like mine) tend to flatten out the magic when presented with a polish where there's just so much going on, but hopefully, if you puzzle all the photos together, a collage of OPI wizardry will emerge.

For the stamping I used Too Fancy Lacquer Prima Donna.   This is a silvery lilac and stamps exceptionally well.

However .... it's really hard to detect the holo over Alcatraz - it almost looks like any old silver.  You can see it bending at the corners of a few photos.  Sad to say, this is another one of those manis that just looked so much more amazing on the nail.

And this was my dilemma.  The only way I could do the holo justice would have been to add top coat, but I really thought that would send the whole thing over the edge into a blur that would cause my camera to implode.  So trust me - real life, this looked sensational.

Oh, and the stamp?  MoYou Pro Collection 03.

Digit-al Dozen DOES Vintage - Buttons

Hi Goddesses

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's manis :)  I really love this vintage theme - I could probably do a whole month of them if I tried.   But with my new inner zen, I am not going to go there :)

Today I have ended up with buttons.  I remember when I was very little, my grandmother had a huge bag of buttons I used to play with.  I used to spend hours sorting them, stringing them into necklaces, using them as money .... loved them.   And yet now, who owns a bag of buttons?

This was totally inspired by the stamping plate that is MoYou Princess 12.  It has this gorgeous button design, and I saw it, very clearly, in my head - a piece of OPI My Vampire Is Buff fabric, with vibrant pastel buttons attached.

Except that did not work.  It was awful, and as I removed the stamping, I had to redo the base - sponging on some Gale by Mentality Nail Polish to add variety.  You can see the base here (the pink and yellow are from the botched stamping attempt).

So, where to go from there but red?  Bright, and shiny as a button ho ho ho!   To be fair, the red buttons WERE always my favourites.

I think the finished mani has a lot of charm, and the sponged base adds a bit of aging.

Digit-al Dozen DOES Vintage - Roses

Hi Goddesses

And welcome to another Digit-al Dozen Week.  I am soooo excited to see what every comes up with - I think Jessica has chosen a cracker of a theme :)

So when I hear the word vintage, my mind automatically goes to roses.  Sometimes, wallpaper.  Roses on stripey wallpaper.   And so here we are :)

My base (pretty much all week lol) is OPI My Vampire is Buff, with stripes of OPI Thanks A Windmillion.  Fun fact - I did these whilst I was a little quite a lot tipsy, and they're virtually straight lol!

I then added my roses using the pink from OPI's neon mini set and a large dotting tool. I then used a small brush and Delush Polish Make Me Blush to add my petals.

I think this might have looked good with a matte top coat but I did not think of that at the time - hangs head in shame.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else is up to! xx

The Sunday Rambler 2014.2

Hi Goddesses

Here we are again, with another ramble :)  thank you to all of you who said you enjoyed it, and that you liked seeing this sort of post on the blog - that's great news!



So we start today with a bit of a dramatic announcement - for the sake of my sanity, I need to drastically reduce my blogging time.  I currently spend at least 30 to 40 hours per week on this blog, and it's too much.  It needs to be nearer 15, which means things - and I - need to change.


I'm not burning out, but it does feel a little like a treadmill, but mainly one of my own making.  I give myself a lot of pressure - a million challenges, a million groups, Mount Untried - and it's all too much.  Far too much.



Then there's the days where I don't feel I give my daughter enough time, the days where it would nice to just stay in bed and read, and the days when I just want to sit and watch 11 series of a program on Netflix - there must be a way to have it all, yes?


So, I am still going to continue to blog, but differently.  Basically, I'm ripping up the bucket list and starting again.  I want to sit down in the nail room on a Saturday morning and think "ooooh, what do I want to blog about this week?"  and do it.  Not have to schedule a billion posts, or feel I have to swatch a load of polishes.  (That "ooooh" is very important).



Now, don't get me wrong, I am still going to review polishes for the people I love, but I am no longer going to swatch every polish I buy.  I've just bought OPI Brazil - previously that would have gone in my "to swatch" pile, now "some" of them will go in my "ooh this might be interesting for nail art" pile - some others you may never see on the blog.


And of course, that also means a massive destash (good news for the UK girls). I have bought a lot of polishes purely because I thought they would be good blog material - NOT because I genuinely loved them, so that's going to change too.



So what can you expect?  Who knows lol.  The only thing I am committed to is the Digital Dozen, and those 5 posts will be the immovable centre of my month.   I will probably reduce how many other posts I do, but hopefully they'll be more interesting as a result, because I "want" to do them.   I really enjoy my "thought pieces" (the more writerly things I do), and maybe this will give me more time for that.


For a while, you won't notice, as I'm going to be busy emptying the vault.  I want it GONE.  It feels like a prison, and I want it gone, so that spontaneity is the only option.



In other news .....  I've been buying a lot of stuff lol.  This is some of what's on the way - 
Delush Polish
Lilypad Lacquer
OPI Brazil
Morgan Taylor
Digital Nails
Indigo Bananas
Darling Diva - The White Witch Collection
Painted Sabotage
Celestial Lacquer


Don't worry - it's all GOOD, and it's going to be much more fun :)

ILNP - Northern Lights

Hi Goddesses

Today's ILNP polish is Northern Lights.  It's a polish I "want" to like - but I'm not really sure if I do.

Like many of you, I am drawn to duochromes, and whilst I have successfully avoided purchasing some of the shades I know don't suit me, this is one of the types I'm still on the fence about.

Whilst not a true duochrome, Northern Lights is one colour (navy-ish) with heavy hints / shimmer of another (teal).  It's a lovely shade, and captures the light beautifully.  As I said though, not sure how "me" it is.

For the stamping, I turned to this checkerboard pattern from Pueen2.   Bit meh about this too!

I wanted the beauty of Northern Lights to show through the pattern, but tbh, I think the stamping just deadens it :(  And is it me, or does it make the polish look less blue?

Guest Post - Ashley from Smashley Sparkles

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post is from one of my lovelies friends, and Digital Dozen alumni, Ashley from Smashley Sparkles.  We share a love of purple, cats and nail art, but luckily she hasn't done nail art of purple cats lol.

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Hi guys!  Ashley from Smashley Sparkles, here.  A lot of you may know that Debbie and I are pretty good friends, so of course I was going to help her out with a guest post when she said she needed them!  I feel like this mani is very Crumpet, and I'm not sure what it is about it, but it just felt like something Debbie would love.

What I've done is made some stamping decals for my index and middle fingers.  I used Bundle Monster BM-410 plate, which has some retro looking square pattern on it.  Then I filled in the squares with Kiko polishes, Nr. 333, Nr. 343, and Nr. 336.  Once the decals were all dry, I chose to apply them over a bare nail.  I did use one coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Digital Hydration base coat so they had something to stick to.  My other fingers were all two coats of the same Kiko polishes.  I was really happy with how this turned out, and I'm already planning more stamping decal manis which make use of negative nail space.  Hope you guys enjoyed it too!

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