Christmas Nails #3 (and Christmas update!)



 

And here we are with my third and final set of Christmas nails.  This is Barry M Nail Effects Foils in silver (easy to apply, dries quickly) with an Etsy polish I bought called Snowball.  Snowball has various shapes and sizes of white and iridescent glitter - including white bar glitter and little pieces of snowflake glitter in there too, really cute but you do need to go fishing to find the snowflake shapes.  I topped with Seche Vite but they still felt a bit rough.  In saying that it is a lovely, festive topcoat though and I'm glad I bought it.  Plus it arrived really quickly!

 

 

Here's a little peek at some of the festive stuff going on at my house at the moment, I'm hosting and cooking Christmas dinner for the first time ever...help!

 

Candles - both are Yankee Candles and both are really cute.  I've been using Yankee tea lights in Winter Wonderland and Christmas Cookie in the angel burner. They both make the house smell really festive which I think is important, I love the Yankee scents and these are strong without being too overpowering.  Some of last years Christmas scents were quite minty which I loved too but I used them all and never got round to buying more!

Pearl - it's Pearl's first Christmas so she wasn't getting away with not getting into the festive spirit!  We bought her a Snowman (Snowpug?) outfit that she actually seems to quite like and she looks ridiculously cute in.  She's been pretty well behaved around the Christmas stuff as well.
 

Snow Fairy - it's not Christmas without Snow Fairy.  People seem to love it or hate it but I fall into the former, this is a pink sugary treat that I love buying every year.  I always mean to stock up so I can use it all year round but I never do!

Christmas Jumpers - they're everywhere this year and quite frankly, I'm ecstatic about this.  I wanted one last year but they all seemed quite expensive and not that nice.  The choice on the high street has been brilliant this year.  I bought both of these but took the cream one back even though I think it was a nicer jumper (the holly berries are little gems!) because I'm cooking Christmas dinner and thought a cream jumper was probably a terrible idea as I'm quite a messy chef, and at £50 I didn't want a ruined jumper I'd only worn once.  The red one is from Primark mens section and cost £12, plus it's cute rather than 'nice' - they had all sorts of designs and I hunted it down after seeing this post at Temporary Secretary.

Tree #1 - this is our main tree, which is in the kitchen as we've got more space.  In our living room we've got a big bay window which kind of limits the space we can use so there's nowhere for a proper big tree to go really.  So we've compromised and have...

 

 

Tree #2 - ...this little tree from Ikea with coloured lights on it.  It looks so real and we actually thought it was in the shop until we realised that the 'soil' was plastic.  Ha ha!

 

 

Tree #3 - Another one from Ikea, this little fold out tree is so cute!  I loved their Christmas stuff this year, they had some really great things including wrapping paper and decorations.

Decorations -  my light up pressies on our floating shelves, we had them on the fireplace last year but we liked some other stuff there instead and we still wanted to put them somewhere as they're really festive and warm looking.

Wreath - I tend to like more contemporary decorations for my Christmas stuff but I do love a weath on our front door as we've got a porch (but no tree in the window) so it just adds an extra touch of Christmas.  Plus we've got our original heavy door and stained glass window panels either side (1930's house) so traditional works quite well.

 

So, on that note, Merry Christmas for tomorrow - hope you have a fantastic day whatever you're doing!

Christmas Nails #2

Just a quick post with some more Christmas nails - look how short they are! I painted my nails in the car on the way out for a festive beverage (don't worry I wasn't driving!)

The glitter is Essie Beyond Cosy, a really pretty champagne glitter that's somewhere in between silver and gold. Easy to apply, dries quickly and two coats required. The glitter is dense and fine so coverage is good but it's a nightmare to remove.

The red foil is some Christmas Minx I had hanging around from a couple of years ago. It's metallic red with silver snowflakes. It's a shame my nails aren't a bit longer as you'd see more of the design!

I've got one more set of nails planned so keep an eye out!

Rihanna - Rebelle perfume

As a Rihanna fan, I really wanted to try this perfume when it first came out but I never seemed to get round to sniffing it so I was really pleased to be sent this for review by www.semichem.co.uk

Firstly, the bottle:  dressing table appeal is really something that's important to me in a perfume.  I kind of feel like if you're spending all that money on something that lasts a fair amount of time and is usually kept on show, it should look pretty.  Whilst this isn't my favourite ever perfume bottle, I'm happy to have it on display and the red design on it is definitely eye catching.

The smell of perfume is very subjective isn't it?  I tend to prefer sweet and fruity scents as opposed to anything too musky or floral and I can't quite say where I'd put this.  It's described as a fruity and floral perfume with top notes of strawberries, ripe purple plum and ginger, heart notes and cacao absolute, vanilla orchid and heliotrope followed by base notes of patchouli, coffee beans, creamy musk and amber.

Overall, I really like it and have been quite happily wearing it as a day to day perfume, the scent lasts quite a few hours.  There's a scent that comes once it's settled on my skin that I'm not 100% sure of yet which I think might be the ginger or the patchouli, it's kind of a spicy zingy undertone, but it calms down quite quickly and doesn't bother me after that.  The first time I sprayed it, I was a bit like "hmmmm..." about it but I've learned to love it!

Rihanna Rebelle celebrity perfume is available from www.semichem.co.uk
 

Christmas Nails #1

I'm feeling very, very festive this year!  So what better way to express my love of Christmas than with some nail art?  My own nails are actually a bit short at the moment so I've used my favourite falsies to improve their appearance a bit (Kiss 100 Full Cover Nails - Short and Square*).  I've used Topshop nail polish in Lacquered for the base and Viva La Nails* Christmas nail stickers to get this festive look.

The nail stickers are really really cute and are probably one of the easiest nail art looks to do, you literally peel it off the backing sheet and stick on as you would any other kind of sticker.  They didn't lift either and stuck down well.  My only issue is that you can kind of tell where the sticker is around the image but maybe if I used a different colour as a background this would be better.  Plus if you're into crafty stuff or you just want to make things Christmassy, you can stick them on other things.

I was sent these stickers by Viva La Nails* as part of their regular bloggers/vloggers packs they do whereby you just pay postage (usually less than £1) and they send you some nail art bits and pieces to review.  They also have an affiliate programme too, it's worth signing up for this if you're interested in receiving the packs as they usually email out about it when they're available.  I've used Viva La Nails* quite a lot over the past few years and I've always been impressed with what I've bought, they're really helpful and deliver fast too! 

I have some more Christmas nail art planned so keep checking!

Pug Life...

Just thought I'd give you a little update on how Pearl's doing (any excuse for some photos) as she's 6 month old today. Her personality has really come out in the time we've had her and she's a total comedy dog.  She's also very cute.

The first lot of pictures have been taken with our new camera - a Panasonic Lumix.

 

 

P.S. Yes, I am a crazy old dog lady.

 

Topshop Nails in Rising Star and Panther

During my quest for a starry nail polish I found Topshop's Rising Star.  It's a clear polish with fine glitter and mini silver stars - it's definitely a layering polish and it's all pretty subtle, though it does add a fairly classy bit of glitter to jazz up a boring nail colour. You will have to go fishing for stars in there as they don't all come out easily, which also means you have to position them.  Also the stars are slightly raised so you can feel them on the nail and they can catch on things if you don't have topcoat on.  I remedied this with a thick layer of Seche Vite.

 

Panther just caught my eye, it's a glitter polish again but made up of circular black and silver glitter.  It could be used as a layering polish but can also be made dense enough to wear on it's own.  I like it more in the bottle than on, something about it just doesn't hit the spot.  With topcoat it isn't that gritty on the nail but it's a bit of a bitch to remove.

 

I'm still really impressed by Topshop make up, I think their nail polishes are some of the most interesting available on the high street and they're always bringing out something new and different.

 

Both of these are available from www.topshop.co.uk

Attack of the indies!

Well, I've gone from one extreme to the other and bought three indie polishes. Indie polishes are generally handmade nail polishes that you can't get on the high street. There are some amazing indie polishes out there! I was craving some Lynnderella polishes (especially Stars in Her Eyes or Snow Angel) but unfortunately she doesn't post to the UK.

Here's what I bought to satisfy my cravings:

Strawberry Shortcake (from WonderBeautyProducts)
This is a pale pink polish packed with different sizes of glitter in yellow, dark pink and white.  This is my favourite of the three and has been on my Etsy favourites for ages.  The tiny yellow glitter really makes this polish stand out - it could have easily just been a pale pink glitter with glitter pieces - though they're at their most visible in bright sunlight which we're not getting much of at the minute.

Stardust (from FrankenFrosting)
This is an in your face polish.  It's bright and glittery with turquoise and purple/pink glitter plus silver glitter stars. This can be layered over a polish for a bit of glitter or built up into a polish in its own right.  I love it but I'm not quite sure when I'd wear it as I don't tend to wear a lot of blues really?

New Years Celebration (from FrankenFrosting)
Gold and purple square, hexagonal and circular glitter, very pretty.  But not that unique - I think I probably could have got this elsewhere (maybe Models Own), easy to wear and easy to layer.

All of these are pretty rough and a pest to remove - even a healthy dose of top coat doesn't totally stop the gritty feeling. 

All of these polishes came from the US with a fairly quick delivery time, well packaged and the sellers were all really helpful.  I also spotted this polish on Etsy, which I wish I'd spotted earlier so I could get it in time for Christmas. - snowflake glitter!

Image: DarlingDivaPolish

Dear Santa...

I think I've been pretty good this year so if you're passing Topshop, River Island, ASOS or Ebay on your sleigh, it would be kind of nice if you picked up any of the following for me:

(L-R)

River Island Black Pointed Court Shoes - £50

River Island Over the Knee Boots - £70

Topshop Rule Bow Sandals - £50

River Island Black Quilted Riding Boots - £55

 

Topshop Military Zip Bottom Tote - £36

 

 

Topshop Star Double Stud Earrings - £4

 

ASOS Sweatshirt with Pearlised Diamond - £25

River Island Grey to the Black Graphic Print Sweatshirt - £32

ASOS Mini Bodycon Dress with Long Sleeves - £20

 

River Island Silver Sequin Trousers - £40

River Island Black 3/4 Sleeve Peplum Dress - £50

 



Korean Love Under Ear Earring - £0.99

ASOS Metal Keeper Super Skinny Belt - £4.50