MUD Nail Stickers - Star It On 001

I have had MUD nail stickers since Woolworths released them. Since it was late November when I bought them, I thought I should try them out. They would have been wonderful to wear over the Christmas season as the design I have is 001 - Star it On. The sticker backing is clear to show a base colour. Each of the stars have a silver reflective backing so that they stand out against the base colour and are not affected by the colour choice. They always appear like white rhinestones.

For Christmas I received the gorgeous purple shimmery Illamasqua Poke. I love their delightfully wicked names. Over a PVA base I applied two coats of Poke to my nails.

After allowing the polish to dry for about 10 minutes, I started to apply the nail stickers. As I have very short nails, I was able to get two nails covered for each nail sticker. When I placed the sticker I then smoothed it down with my finger. Excess was trimmed off with a pair of nail scissors. A cardboard nail file was included with the package of nail stickers but it did not do a very good job of filing off the excess to neaten the end.

These nail stickers look great being worn. They are fairly easy to apply if you are not a perfectionist. I should note, this is the first time that I have applied nail stickers. As the backing on this particular design is clear, it is more forgiving when you make mistakes or have less than perfect application. Although the directions state that you apply these to the bare nail, I have not noticed a difference in wear between bare nail and polished nail.

On the negative side, these will annoy you if you need perfect application. The backing seems like a normal sticker and therefore difficult to get smooth and flush at the free edge. Star It On is a raised design and that may not appeal to some people either. If you plan to use a nail sticker for more than one nail you need to take into account that there is a graduation in the size of the stars from large at the base to small at the top. I think the way I have applied my stickers looks effective in having large portions on my thumb, index and middle fingers. The remaining fingers have the small portions that combine to appear graduated from large to small across my fingers.

MUD Nail stickers can be bought from Woolworths Supermarkets in Australia. The retail price is $5 for a set of 16 stickers with a nail file included. (Although they sell the set for $5.38 from Woolworths online.) They are produced by the same company that manufactures Ulta3 and I am not sure how these compare to the Ulta3 nail stickers.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...

I shared with thee an Illamasqua pretty.

When my Strumpet gave me two bottles of Illamasqua for Christmas I was overjoyed. I even had hot, little tears burning at my eyes with the emotions. Phallic and Poke were the two polishes I received and both were on my want list. Today I am sharing Phallic with you and Poke will make an appearance in a few days.

I thought I would use the Twelfth Day of Christmas to share a Christmas themed manicure with you. It is the perfect excuse as I did not manage to get the Christmas manicures I wanted to do done. I started with Chi Chi Gimme Gimme a Man and applied two coats.

To make the presents I taped a cross on my thumb and ring fingers with striping tape. Phallic was applied over the top and the tape removed. A coat of Seche Vite was laid over the top and this was used to affix the blue bows. This was the design I had in mind when I originally bought these bows.  Thankfully these look as good when completed as I had envisioned them in my mind's eye.

The stamping was done with Phallic and image plate MJ VII. I chose not to use the gift image as my nails are exceptionally short at the moment and would not show the design off to the best effect. Tape was also applied to the side of the middle finger and Phallic placed along the side.

This manicure gives me a giggle to think of the names of the polishes. How often do you get to feature Phallic with Gimme Gimme a Man?

Inspired by the Christmas Beetle

The Christmas season brings the arrival of the beautifully iridescent Christmas Beetle. I remember watching the shimmer of the shell for ages when I found the beetles in my room.

This year I have only found one beetle and took the opportunity to photograph it for you. I took many pictures as I had trouble with capturing the colour of the shell and keeping the Christmas Beetle in focus. While I was taking the pictures the beetle crawled around on my hand and bumbled with some flying.

When I first saw Pretty Serious Mummy Mush, I thought of the Christmas Beetle immediately. It has a pale gold base with pink and green shimmer. To get a good base, I used three coats as this is a polish on the sheer side. For the design I decided to do a modified version of the ladybird (ladybug/ladybeetle) manicure.

I trimmed a nail art brush to make it finer and shorter and used Ulta3 Black Satin. You can tell why I do not freehand nail art as I am simply terrible with art. Over the top of the black lines I applied Ozotic 503 for a green shimmer. It does not look right... So I had another go.

I only applied Mummy Mush to my nail because I was not intending to keep the design on my nails. Hence, that explains the lack of clean up as I just wanted to see if my second thoughts after studying the picture of the Christmas Beetle were better. I also used the same black.

Hmmm. Shoddy looking but I thought I would add Ozotic 503 again. This did soften the design. If I wore this out in public I am sure I would get questions as to what on earth I had on my nails.

Pretty Seriously Serious Mummy Mush

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013. I hope that the new year has started off kindly for you without too many hang overs from seeing the old year out.

I used three coats of Pretty Serious Mummy Mush for some nail art. To "upcycle" the manicure I added Darling Diva's Seriously Serious.

Seriously Serious is a purple and green version of A Christmas Story. This polish did not need to be thinned and I applied one easy layer over the top of Mummy Mush.

Darling Diva recommends not using Seriously Serious over the top of purple polish as the purple micro glitter can not be seen. I thought the pale champagne gold glass fleck multi-chrome would show both the purple and holographic green micro-glitters well. I think at some point in time I will wear it over a green such as China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald or maybe a mauve.

I will leave you with a picture that shows a little more of the holographic sparkle from the green holographic micro-glitter.

Darling Diva Apple Crisp

Time has flown over the Christmas break. It is not too long before I will need to go back to work. Until then I will continue to enjoy the antics of Mr R and Miss L.

Today I bring to you Apple Crisp from Darling Diva Polish. It is a scented polish and it slakes my desire for Femme Fatale Stolen Reindeer except for one important point. I removed the polish soon after as the scent was not my cup of tea. Although I am sure I picked up a vanilla smell, I am sure it also smelled like cinnamon as well. No, they are not bad smells but they were definitely too strong!

For my base colour I used two coats of Colour by T.B.N Raisin. This brand of polish has a strong smell but it has an interesting array of colours available for a cheap price. Raisin is a great brown and it helps to flesh out the browns in my collection.

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Look at the mix of colours in this polish. I love the addition of the different red glitters with the holographic and iridescent. My version of the polish does not appear to have as much green glitter as in the pictures from Darling Diva's listing. I do not mind one little bit as this is still visually appealing. I just wish I could stand the smell of this.

Unlike most Darling Diva Polishes, I did not need to thin this. Darling Diva does not cut the suspension base so you can add thinner to make the consistency you would like. Most of the time I find I need to add thinner because the base is too thick to apply.

Starbucks and Zebration for my 100th post!

When I looked at plate MJ VI I thought that the lady image looked familiar. At first I thought it may have been a logo for Godiva until I went into the kitchen and noticed that the logo on my Starbucks cup was the same. In my defence, I have probably had something from Starbucks less than the number of fingers on one hand. There is not an outlet locally either.

To start I stamped the Starbucks Mermaid onto the more rigid plastic of a sandwich bag using Konad Black. Ulta3 Lily White was brushed over the top. I had to try this a couple of times because I did not wait long enough for the black to dry the first time. Applying the white smeared the black to make a round grey mess. I left that to dry for another day's manicure. This is a method that I bookmarked from Polished Peripherals.

The day finally came to do my manicure and I had to select my green. None of the greens in my collection matched that of my cup. They were either too pale or too dark. Ulta3 Frog Prince is the closest I could come to the right colour. Two coats of Frog Prince went down over a PVA glue base and another layer of PVA was added to the top on my thumb to stick my mermaid onto. I allowed all of the layers to dry before adding Seche Vite.

On my index and little fingers I used Peita's Polish Zebration to carry through the black and white theme from my Starbucks Mermaid. Konad White was used for the two images on my middle and ring fingers. I thought I would add some beverages onto those fingers. The take away cup with straw was too large for my trimmed down shabby nubbins but I still think it looks good. It came from plate MJ VIII. For the coffee cup I used only the cup part of the "Coffee Addict" image. You can find it on the Fun 2 plate.

MUD Blue Moon - What is MUD polish like?

MUD - Make Up Design nail polish is a new release at Woolworths Supermarkets. Two colours stowed away into my trolley when I did the grocery shopping. Blue Moon is the first one I have tried.

The packaging makes a few claims about this polish. They claim it has high shine and does not streak. I think it fails on both accounts because the only way this polish became shiny was with the addition of a top coat. Application was streaky and required three coats to achieve the opacity in these pictures. Blue Moon's packaging claims that you only need two coats under their Tips and Tricks.

Blue Moon IS a pretty polish. If you ignore the claims on the packaging and consider it as a budget concious polish, then it is not too bad. It is a lovely shade of blue that looks good within three coats of polish. That is not overly excessive although I prefer to use two coats at the most.

To spice up the manicure I added Humble Bee. I want to do a proper manicure with effort for this heavily desired and hard to get polish. I think it pops nicely against the blue. It would have been great to get more pictures but my PVA glue based polished started popping off before I could get more pictures in the afternoon after work. I just don't have the heart to redo the manicure and it looks like overcast, miserable weather has set in.

News Flash: MUD Make Up Design at Woolworths

Do you remember how Woolworths had the Ulta3 bins in the supermarket a few months ago? Now they seem to be all gone with a few lonely baskets of polish waiting to be reduced further. In this week's catalogue for Woolworths they introduce a new cosmetics range called MUD - Make Up Design. They seem to be a very popular release because there was not much available when I did my grocery shopping last night and slipped a couple of items in.

As you can see (excuse the impatient night picture with flash), the products are individually packaged so that you do not need to worry about whether someone has opened the bottle of polish and played with it before you buy it. In the nail range, they have nail polish and nail stickers. It is a small range of colour but at least it has a daring range of colours. They do not stick with traditional pinks and reds.

Look at the nail stickers! Admittedly these were the most interesting and unique of what was available. There were only four designs available: a lace design, a pink glitter, a red base colour with white polka dots and this raised crystal star design. All of them can be easily replicated with stamping or a dotting tool apart from the stars. I have never tried nail strips before but I thought I would try these at $5.

MUD is another cosmetic range from the Heat Group. They also make Ulta3 and NYC. Woolworths are selling the 13ml polish for $3.

Living in Sin with Fairy Bread

I managed to get my hands on Australis Fairy Bread and then it languished in a box. The good news is that I took it out and put it over another untried, Chi Chi Living in Sin. Fairy Bread is a limited edition polish and I found Living in Sin on the bargain bin at Target. Both have "silly" names that attract me, especially Living in Sin.

Chi Chi describe Living in Sin as "violet with a hint of black" but I find it more purplish blue. A blackened purplish blue if you want. I was worried about the colour because I did not know how frosty it would be. It applied well but I found that the colour is completely different with and without top coat. The name of the line is failing me right now, but I know the clear topcoat colour changing properties are a feature of a collection. In this case, the colour is paler, more silvery in appearance.

After applying one coat of Living in Sin, I brushed and dabbed on a coat of Fairy Bread. I found that Fairy Bread seemed to change the colour to appear more navy.

The curling in the glitters can be seen easily in the below picture. I think that they look good in this case but I have not been a fan of curves in my glitter so far.

In this instance I think Living in Sin with Fairy Bread is a good idea. ;)

Emma Louise is Pretty Serious about her sweets.

When my box of Pretty Serious polishes arrived I took some pictures. They looked very nice but I put them aside because I have not been doing much with my shabby nubbins. The second polish I have used is the limited edition Emma Louise.

I knew Emma Louise was pretty from the pictures I had seen online. I thought I was prepared for that and the fact that Emma Louise was not as stunning on the nail. No, I was not prepared at all because when I took Emma Louise out of her box I went into a state of OMG! *drool*

Emma applied to the nail well. I used two coats and Seche Vite for the top coat. The polish is still pretty as I find most purple nail polishes are. You still have some of that delicious green glitter that shows up well in the bottle but it is hidden and scattered on the nail.

I find the golden green glass fleck seems gold or silver most of the time and I love what it brings to this polish. Scattered here and there is the purple and green hex glitter that make a grown woman go weak at the knees in the bottle. Whilst you can not really see the green easily, they do help to bring the polish together so that Emma Louise is not "just" another polish with glass fleck.

Chi Chi Fr**ken Weekend with Darling Diva Pendragon

That post title sounds so very wrong.

I went bin diving with the Strumpet the other day and we pulled out a couple of Chi Chi polishes on clearance. One of these was Fricken Weekend. Yes, I have to admit that I was very taken with the name of it. I promised to share a decant with the Strumpet and so my bank account had another deduction. Ooops.

Weekend is an unusual colour. It is almost a greenish cast gunmetal. Application was of two coats over PVA glue as I intended to apply a glitter polish over the top. When wet this polish tends to be streaky but the streaks mainly disappear once dry. How much they disappear will depend on your application.

Over the top of this I used Pendragon from Darling Diva Polish. I was attracted to the varied green and bronze glitters in this polish from the moment I saw it in etsy. The other great surprise you get as you turn your hand is the holographic effect. This is from the small gold holographic glitter in this polish. It is beautiful.

I had brilliant customer service from Darling Diva Polish. She was very patient as I decided what I wanted in my mini bottles. I did have a worry that I may not have been able to get everything in a mini bottle as some of the larger glitters will not fit through the neck of the 5 ml bottle. Thankfully all of the polishes I wanted did.

Awesome Aussie August: Farewell Winter - Ozotic 509

Today is officially the last day of Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. How I wish that this means that the first of September would be magically warm to usher in Spring. It will most likely continue being chilly on and off for a while yet.

For my base I used three coats of Ozotic 509. Of course the sun hid for the day since I used a holographic polish. I had to resort to taking my pictures in the house.

So I took a picture in the kitchen with the flash...

In the bathroom directly under the heat light.

I had always planned on using Ozotic 509 for the base of a Winter manicure. Originally I was going to stamp with my spectraflaired blue holographic franken. I decided against it because I thought that might be too holographic. Is there any such thing? Konad Dark Blue was used to provide a contrast between the holographic awesomeness and the stamping.

The snowflake design is from Bundle Monster's image plate BM-323. This seems to be one of my favourite plates because it has so many good designs. I did try stamping with a contrast of a dark silver. With the light hitting the holographic goodness on my nails you can not notice the mess that I made on my thumb. I stamped with Nails Inc. Cleopatra's Kiss over the top of my Konad Dark Blue. On my ring finger I stamped first with Cleopatra's Kiss and then with Konad Dark Blue. You can not see it unless you look hard and up very close on my ring finger.

Last of all I took a picture in the shade so you can see the design and some of the mess I made on my thumb with my over-stamping. Excuse the shoddy clean up. I did not intend on keeping this manicure on when I had finished because of the thumb nail and the chipping on my right hand.

Goodbye Winter and hello Spring. Sorry Winter, I am not sad to see you go!

Awesome Aussie August: Satin Seasonal 01 and 03

This post will be light on words as it is being brought to you by a headache. Yes, I am dedicated to you and want to get this done.

When I saw the lovely purple of Satin Seasonal Nail Enamel 01, I had to add it to my little Satin collection. I am sure I have something like this already but I adore purple. In the same bargain bin dig I found Satin Seasonal Nail Enamel 03. AHA! These would look great together.

Satin Seasonal Nail Enamel 03

Sadly, I did not get a single good picture of Seasonal 01. This polish has a pretty shimmer and I could see red and blue particles in the dry polish. The only places you will see this colour by itself is on my thumb in the above picture and this blurry picture below.

I did manage to get a few pictures of the combination of 01 and 03. Satin Seasonal Nail Enamel 03 is a glorious glitter top coat with holographic hex and bar glitters. I am sure that there is colour changing regular glitter in there along with aqua and purple.

This was much more attractive in person. You have heard me say before that my camera won't capture all of the colour and holographic goodness.

And one last picture to share. This picture was taken in the shade to try to show the glitters better.

Awesome Aussie August: Peita's Polish Aussie Bee

I am a sucker for anything bee related. When I saw Aussie Bee in Peita's etsy store, I had to make an order.

My base colour is Ulta3 Honolulu. Although I have added some thinner, it is still thick and applies awkwardly. I had to use three coats to get a decent appearance. The colour of my manicure owes its colour to Honolulu rather than to the yellow jelly base. Looking at the base I did not believe I would get a good look on my nubbins applying it by itself.

Honolulu is the best opaque yellow that I currently have. If I had a more lemon yellow, that would have fit with Aussie Bee a lot better. Aussie Bee applied well for a glitter and the pictures show one coat. Seche Vite was used as a top coat.

Awesome Aussie August: Peita's Polish Little Princess on Satin.

This will be a very short post as I only obtained one good picture.

I used a base of PVA glue. I have been experimenting using this and I am currently working on a post about my experiences using it as a base coat. Then I applied three coats of Satin Nail Enamel 6. In the bottle it seems as though it would be a pink foil. It is a lovely pink colour and Miss L has claimed it.

Over the top of Satin 6, I applied two coats of Little Princess from Peita's Polish. This is a pink holographic glitter top coat. Using two coats gave the polish plenty of sparkle to stare at and as usual my camera refused to pick up all of the action.

All in all, a very girly manicure.

Awesome Aussie August: Satin Nail Enamel 10 Gradient

Here we go with the imaginative names again. I have another Satin nail polish for you and this one is Nail Enamel 10. It is almost a smurf blue with a magenta shimmer. That shimmer is apparent in the bottle but harder to see on the nail and impossible to capture on camera.

I applied three coats of this to make it opaque. The previous two coats were patchy and I could have possibly gone with another coat. I did not bother since I knew I was going to add more polish with a gradient.

Satin Nail Enamel 21 was seen previously as the blue base colour of my Australian Flag manicure. I fell in love with the look of that polish. When the bottles of the two colours were placed together, I knew that they would work. I did not think that the shimmer would interfere. It didn't but, I was not to know that it would barely show on the nail.

My gradients are sponged on with a make up sponge. A large bag was bought at the supermarket but you can find them almost anywhere. The fine effect that the make up sponge gives to the gradient is the style that I prefer. Admittedly, I have never tried a gradient with a larger holed sponge.

Isn't this so pretty? I could have almost used it for a nautical scene. The difference in the colours is more noticeable in reality.

When I first posted about Satin polish I mentioned that they had a website that did not work. In my travels over the internet I found a working site from the brand. Here you can buy and take advantage of their three for the price of two offer. It also looks as though all of their polishes are toluene, formaldehyde, camphor and dibutyl phthalate free. The down side is that there is little information around to give you an idea of what you are buying. You need to guess at the colours you want from the screen and hope for the best. Is it a shimmer, glitter or creme? All I know is that they are $2.50 each and $4.95 for their classic range.

Awesome Aussie August: Acknowledgement of Country

At the start of every school parade at Mr R and Miss L's school, they have an Acknowledgement of Country. It is used before meetings and other gatherings to recognise the Indigenous people as custodians of our land. When members of the Indigenous community are able to start the event, they will "Welcome (the attendees) to Country".

I want to share with you my small tribute to these people who have lived on this land for thousands of years and hold it close in their hearts and spirits.

This manicure did not turn out how I wanted it to. I wanted to use Australian nail polishes in black, red and yellow but none of the red and black Australian (made or owned) polishes would co-operate even with the addition of thinner. A re-think was required. Here is what I decided to continue fitting in with the colours of the Australian Aboriginal Flag.

Black: Colour Club Revvvolution. Black symbolises the Indigenous people of Australia. For me, the sparkles of the holographic will bring the Dreamtime with the Rainbow Serpent into my manicure.
Red: Rimmel Hot Rock. This polish is perfectly named to represent the red earth. It is a red jelly with gold glass flecks.
Yellow: BYS The Right Bright and Ulta3 Honolulu. These two yellows are to embody the sun. The Right Bright is a jellyish polish touted as a "Neon" on the bottle and Honolulu is a standard yellow creme.

Now onto the details of the manicure. Let us start with my thumb. The Australian Aboriginal Flag is represented on my thumb. In Australia this design is copyrighted by Harold Thomas who designed the flag in 1971.

Over a base coat I applied two coats of Hot Rock and then a coat to Seche Vite. When it was dry I taped off half of my thumb to apply a generous coat of Revvvolution. After ripping off the tape I applied yet another coat of Seche Vite. I applied Honolulu with a dotting tool and tried to make it large enough to look right. Honolulu was used as it was the more opaque of the yellow polishes.

My sun is not very round and I should have applied another coat of Hot Rock. Still, I think you can recognise what the design is supposed to be if you are familiar with the flag.

Now for my regular fingers. All of them except my ring finger have a base colour of Color Club Worth the Risque. This was so that the holographic could add sparkle and interest through the watermarbling. I had originally intended to watermarble all of my fingers and have the flag on my thumb. Something was not right and the polish would not co-operate. I am still a watermarbling novice. The polish would not spread and so I changed the Australian red and black I was using because they were too thick. I had to use BYS The Right Bright for my watermarbling and even then I added some thinner to it. For some reason the polishes had trouble spreading. Sometimes they would and at others they would not.

On my index finger I did some kind of toothpick drag. Over the base colour I added a stripe of Revvvolution, The Right Bright and Hot Rock and then scraped across my nail with a toothpick left over from my watermarbling attempts.

My middle and little fingers were treated to watermarbling. It was frustrating and very messy but the outcomes are nice even if not as bold as I was hoping for. My favourite part of the design is on the middle finger where there is a concentrated band of yellow, red and black.

Last of all, my favourite design of all of my fingers. The design is easy and you probably do not need me to describe what I have done. Over a base colour of Revvvolution I have dotted Worth the Risque, Hot Rock and Honolulu. I used a dotting tool to create this design meant to evoke dot painting, one of the most famous styles of contemporary Aboriginal Art.

It may not have finished as I had planned but I do think it is an attractive manicure as a tribute.