My Tacky Valentine

Hi Goddesses

Phew, is it me, or is it hot in here ??  Probably me.  I've been rushing and dashing around all day, and am only now posting the Friday Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge at 8pm on a Saturday night.  What can I say, it's been a heavy week work wise, and there were 2 nights I got home and went to bed at the same time as Beth.  I was even too pooped to do my nails - I had the same mani 3 days in a row!!

Anyway, enough drama lol, here is my tacky Valentine.   I'm not really sure I ever knew what I was going to do for this one, and tonight, well, I just couldn't dither any longer, and when I realised V-Day is nearly upon us, decided to trot out this one, which I did last weekend.

This is a "meh".   It's ok, but not sensational, and that pains me as it should have been better than it is.  It's very much less than the sum of its parts.  Said parts are - CG Light As Air for the base, Aline's wonderplate and Color Club Foiled in Hot Like Lava.

I don't know if it was me or the plate, but this came out so much thinner than I wanted, and with a little bald spot in the middle.  I thought it would be really cool to hide that by colouring in some of the hearts, but know it just looks like it's got fairy sneeze all over it.

Ho hum, you live and learn.

Enjoy xxx :)

Adventures In Stamping - BLUE

Hi Goddesses

Well, it's been a controversial week in Adventures In Stamping :)  The winning theme was "Only Using Blue" which led to a big debate about whether teal was blue ?  Personally, I think teal is a bit of a sociopath who can't decide whether to be green or blue, but according to both Dictionary.com and ask.com, teal is indeed a blue.   Who knew?

But I digress.  Right up to the moment I needed to stamp, I still hadn't decided what to do.  I had worked out my base, but not my stamp. At one point, I thought about stamping 5 things that are never blue in nature - a cat, a tree etc - but as I was flicking through my Red Angel plates for inspiration, RA 119 caught my eye - the snowflake!

Here in England, we have finally had snow over the last 24 hours, and nothing, NOTHING, is as magical as snow, and as I didn't have any stamping plates in December, I thought now was as good a time as any to do a beautiful snowflake.

The base - this is 1 coat of Orly Snow Cone.  1 coat !!  I hate Orly because it is so thin, but this was totally opaque in 1 coat.  1 coat !!  What the whatnot ?!   I then lightly sponged on some Essie Borrowed and Blue, making sure I only covered about 50% of each nail, and finished with a coat of LA Girl Glitter Addict in Aqueous.

And loved it.  And seriously debated stopping.  Almost stopped.  Scared.  What if stamping ruins it.  Eeeek.  Seriously love it.  What to do, what to do.  Take photos, Crumpet, and then if it goes wrong, you can show everyone the amazing pre-stamping photos.  Genius!!

I finally did stamp it, with good ole unbeatable Color Club Foiled in Cold Metal (seriously, I wish you could get these in every colour under the sun.  They are SATURATED and perfect for stamping).

And ..... I LOVES IT !!!  I seriously love it.   This may be my stamping high point so far.  Heck, it might even be my peak.    Love it, love it, love it.   Very happy Crumpet.

So how was your day ???

xxx Enjoy :)

Stamping Sunday - Under The Sea with Deborah Lippmann

Hi Goddesses

I really did not think I was going to get this mani done in time.  I've been battling flu all week and yesterday it looked like it had won, but waking up this morning, it seems we've called it an amicable draw.  Now I just need it to bugger off entirely!

I had a theme planned for this mani.  The Adventures In Stamping theme for this week is Under The Sea and I was going to do a whole mix of sponging to create that underwater aquarama thing.  Well, enter the flu, and suddenly easy seemed best, so I reached for the next best thing - Deborah Lippmann's Under The Sea.

Oh yes, sorry - you and Deborah tend to call this one Across The Universe.  I disagree, for me this is just so mermaidy and underwatery, so I renamed it.  :P   I layered it over a new purchase - CG Sexy In The City.  Usually I do it over a navy base, but I didn't want this to look too dark with the stamping still to come.  And woah - what a surprise!

Here's an uncleaned up photo of ATU over Sexy, and a comparison pick of when it's worn over navy.  Did YOU know it could look so different ?   I certainly didn't, and it's given this polish a whole extra dimension for me, as well as making it perfect for this theme.

with a navy base

Sexy In The City is a very strange colour, but mainly strange in a good way.  It's a dark turquoisey blue with hints of teal and shimmer - VERY hard to pin down, but very interesting.  All the nails had 1 coat of this and then either 1 or 2 coats of ATU.  There were a couple of bald spots I wanted to cover up, but I also didn't want the layers to look uniform, as the sea twinkles all sorts of colours.

Getting the ickle fishies onto the nails was harder and sadder than I thought it would be.  I'd picked out some great colours like For Audrey and Zoya Dawn, but they were just too thin against the darkness of the "sea".

So once again, trusty foils and chromes to the rescue!   The hot pink and champagney one from the CC Foiled Collex, and 2 SH Chromes - Royal Purple and Aquamarine.

The drama didn't end there - this was a ****** to photograph, a constant battle to get the fishies into stark relief against the swimmery shimmery background.  Never mind, in person they look pretty damn decent, and I love how on certain nails the glitter from the ATU almost looks like bubbles from the fishes' mouths.  Cute.

oh, nearly forgot - fishies are from Konad M82.

Enjoy xxx :)