Sugar-Spun Nails~

Hello!
Sorry for being away awhile, I've had work to do, and stuff going on! But I finally painted my nails again and think that they're not too bad. I finally got on the nail band wagon for the sugar-spun technique, it was harder that I thought but worth it!

And with that quick post I'm off to finish an essay off!

See you later Alligator! Amy xx

Christmas puddings! too soon?

Helloooo!
I am already in the Christmas spirit. Here in Newcastle we have a shop called Fenwick, every year they fill their large windows with a moving christmas display. Sometimes it can be terrible but this year it is awesome! It's been up around two weeks now, and when it's finished it's time for festivities to begin! Also currently it's the Newcastle Christmas market, ahhhhhhh. Excitement! It's just over a month to Christmas so Christmas nails are happening RIGHT NOW. If you want to see pictures of the windows just tell me and I'll take my camera one morning and get some, I have a small sneak peek and then the nails!

Look its the angel of the north! I'm five again.

I  don't even like Christmas pudding but I love the drip effect and I love these nails so they'll probably stay on for a while. I would like to say a quick thank you to anyone who has left comments or followed my blog, I really wasn't sure whether to start it or not, but your feedback is always so lovely.

Much Love, Amy.

Tiny Ticker nails and my past.

Hey guys, today  I have a pretty sentimental thing to talk about, and nails inspired by it. First off I want to say that these nails are for a competition/giveaway hosted by OoooogShiny, and can be found here, the aim is to "design s socially engaged manicure that supports a cause and raises awareness about an issue that you care about".

The cause

The cause I chose to represent is actually something I needed to research, I knew what I wanted to base it on, but knew of no charity in particular that supports the cause. After a short while of looking I came across the organisation tinytickers.org who are a UK based charity that "exists to improve the detection, diagnosis and care of babies with major heart problems, before birth and in the first year of life. " As soon as I heard about the contest being hosted, I knew that heart conditions in babies was the one thing I wanted to talk about, and the one major thing in my life I have gone through, with both myself and younger sibling, and fortunately we both survived.

The symbol on my nail is the logo of the charity, so simple but so meaningful and lovely, the colours pink and blue represent girls and boys, not only that though, they are the favourite colours of my brother and sister. 

My story

Although the charity supports pretty much any heart condition the one I was faced with as a child was a hole in the heart, actually two holes in the heart. Although 'hole in the heart' can cover many congenital heart diseases from mild to serious, mine was pretty high up on the scale of seriousness. I can't say what kind of CHD I had, I never really knew much about it until I looked around and researched for this, but my guess  is that it was a form of Ventricular septal defect (VSD), where is is an abnormal opening in the dividing wall between the main pumping chambers of the heart. Although it is a pretty serious case they are the most common form of CHD and can, and will, be treated with no  or few problems.

Because I was born with the problem it was fixed by the time I was one or two, I was in and out of hospital for a while until it was sorted. Of course I don't remember much being so young, and asking my parents would bring back up memories that shouldn't be brought up again, it's not a very nice subject after all. I am now twenty years old, happy and healthy, despite premature birth and a heart condition I think I'm doing just fine. My sister, who is now seventeen, also had problems as a child, I believe to do with the heart, from what I remember she was in hospital for almost a year after she was born.

I doubt our childhood was an easy time for my parents, and I hope I never have to deal with problems like they did, may I say they are the most fantastic parents in the whole entire world. I call them for being protective, especially my mum, but I guess I can see why. We are all happy, healthy and safe now as we grow into childhood, and there has never been a doubt about a heart problem since we were very young.


Love and hugs, Amy (aka luckiest girl in the world)

Galaxy nails!

Hallo Everyone!
I have something to say...I am obsessed with galaxy nails right now! Why didn't I try them before? Of course, I'm the last person on the bandwagon, but alas, finally, tried it, and I liked the result. For the first time in forever I haven't painted my nails every other night. This is the first time in four days I have re-done my nails! Crazy right? Then again, it's still galaxy nails, so judge me!

It's so simple to do, and yet so effective! At work I got loads of compliments and "Oh my gosh, where did you get your nails done?" from both co-workers and customers, I'm not giving away my secrets! But anyway, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, but excuse the terrible clean-up, I didn't realize how bad it was until the pictures were taken and uploaded.

On a side note you're going to be hearing a lot about the colour 'Hayleys comet' by Models own, it's brilliant, I honestly think everyone should own it!

Love and hugs, Amy!

Saran wrap / Drip drop / camouflage?

 Hello guys!
Sorry for being gone a little while, I've been trying to get ready for the 31 day nail art challenge: Take two! By doing around 10-15 of the designs before December, then I do them and quite like the designs and keep them on my nails, so I haven't had anything to post...Until now!

I was messing around with the saran wrap/cling film technique and I liked the way it turned out, I didn't love it so I added drips, then I still didn't love it so I added Matte. I still don't love it. Hey-ho, I figured at least it's something, Something else will be up soon, possibly,hopefully, maybe.

Colours:
Essie - Navigate her
Hello kitty -Whatcha (sold in superdrug, so cute!)
Marks and spencers - leaf
Essie - Stylenomics
Rimmel matte coat

So here we go! I only used the matte top coat on the drips, it gave a cool effect to it, and I think it added a really cool dimention, I simply used a dotting tool to pinpoint specific areas. I'm still not totally thrilled with these (and now have super-awesome galaxy nails!), but I like the techniques and will keep using them! 

Love and internet hugs, Amy!

Daisy, oh Daisy.

Hey guys,
I got home from University today to find out that my bunny had died, needless to say I cried, for hours. She was around twelve years old! That's double the amount of time they generally live, I knew she was going soon, but it didn't hurt any less.

We say 'she'...well, really, she is a he, called Daisy. I got her/him for my ninth birthday, was told it was a girl, daisies are my favourite flower so it made sense to call her/him that. A few years ago my mum came out with "Daisy has man parts!" and well...it has become part of an inside joke. To me, Daisy will always be a she, the bunny that hates carrots.

Want some cuteness? Here you go!

Anyway, I didn't draw her on my nails, too much time and I don't have enough skills for that. That is the only picture I have of her that isn't blurry, she loved the camera, whenever I tried to get a picture she'd run over and sniff it, hence why it's hidden in the grass here.

Anyway onto the nails!

Again with the summer nails, but I just wanted to do something, so yeah, here you go.

Love and hugs, Amy.

Accessorize Dragonfly~

Hey guys!
So, my Accessorize leopard moth polish swatch/review (which can be found here) seemed to go down pretty well when I posted it and I was in Superdrug yesterday and found out they're still stocking the 'speckle nails' collection. I was so happy! The formulation of the one I wanted looked kind of funky in store though, that always puts me off, I did pick this one up though and I love!

I know these aren't the best pictures but hopefully you get the idea. Like the Leopard moth polish, although there is loads of glitter dots in there, it isn't shiny or sparkly. The pictures show one coat of this over a light green polish, I think three coats of it alone would make it opaque however.

I really love this, it kind of reminds me of the hulk with the green and purple, but it's a complete pain to remove! I'm not sure I'll reach for it too often because of how long it takes to remove it, but it's really awesome and something different for your collection!

love and internet hugs, Amy!

The friendship Turtle Nails~

Hello!

From the title of this blog post you may be wondering what the hell I'm going on about, well, there's a turtle key-ring with quite some meaning behind it, his name is Percy. Let me just show you him!

Anyway, my friend bought me this from her holiday around 5/6 years ago now, she also bought them for others in our circle of friends. So now we're all scattered all over the UK because of university, and so turtles are also scattered all over the place. Percy is the only one with all limbs intact. (he does look a bit scruffy though.) For a while now I'v ebeen wanting to do nails inspired by the pattern on his shell, because I love it, really I should have done it in summer, but hey, I don't match nails to seasons all the time!

I know these aren't the most perfect of all nails, but I think they came out quite well, although they took longer than I wanted them too! 

Love and internet hugs, Amy.

Hayleys Comet: Models Own ~

Hi guys!

Sorry for being away for a while, it's been a busy week or so but I'm back again and today I have swatches of a nail polish called 'Hayley's Comet' by models own. So I'm going to go right ahead with picture spam.

For the small designs I used Essie Stylenomics, which is an amazing dark green, autumnal colour which I think will be a new favourite of mine soon enough. I tried to get good pictures of the different colours in the polish but the pictures don't do it justice at all! Just believe me when I say it's a must have polish for any time of the year!

I layered it over Barry M mushroom, two coats was fairly good coverage but I could tell where the white of the nail started, that's just a no-no for me, using this again I would probably go for a pink instead of a brown as a base. As you can see one of the nails is chipped pretty badly, this was only about 5 hours after application, so maybe the staying power isn't great, but still, I love this!

Love and Internet hugs, Amy!