Liebster award!

A little while ago I was nominated by The Polish Magpie for a Liebster Award! I've been a bit tardy with my Blog and only saw the nomination this week.

I've never heard of a Liebster Award and wondered what it was. Basically it's a great way way to find new blogs to follow, and to get to know the bloggers better. The idea is that you are tagged by a blogger, who asks you 11 questions that you have to answer. You then tag another 11 blogs, who should all have less than 200 followers each and ask them 11 new questions of your choice.

So thank you so much to The Polish Magpie for nominating me, here are my answers to the questions you asked!

1. What made you start a blog? 

I wanted to share photo’s of the nail art I did and also write about the nail polishes and techniques that I tried. I hope that people find my blog inspirational and get some great ideas as I have from other Bloggers. Also if it helps some people choose polishes they want to buy and for a bargain price that would be great too. 

2. Where do you get your nail art/make-up inspiration from? 

 Online mostly, from the Bloggers I follow in particular The Nailasaurus, The Crumpet and Chalkboard Nails, also I love OhMyGosh Polish on YouTube and if you want to see an expert Water Marbler check out MySimpleLittlePleasures. Pinterest is great too and also the facebook Groups that I’m a member of, some of the designs other members do are mind boggling and what really puts us to the test is the Nail Art Challenges that some of the girls organise. 

3. What polishes are at the top of your want-to-buy list? 

 I really want to get my hands on some ILNP bottles, their Ultra Chrome Flakies look the business. I’d also like to get my sticky little mitts on A NIght In Vegas collection from Pipe Dreams polish, as so many people say these are GREAT for water marbling. I’m currently trying to track down some Mundo De Unas polishes too which I hear are great for stamping. 

4. Honesty time – How many untrieds to you have in your stash? 

 This year I’ve been making a concerned effort to use my untrieds and since January I have used 99 of them. However with a few new additions, at last count I still have 159 untrieds in my collection. Going through them has made me realise that many of them are glitters or effect polishes, which makes me think I NEED more cream polishes especially for nail art.

5. Indie or mainstream? 


I'd have to say mainstream, I was quite late to the party with Indie polishes and many Indie polishes are hard to come by over here in the UK. Rainbow Connection though is a god send and I ordered my first few indies from here along with finding other UK polish makers such as Stellar Nails and EffieNas Nail Polish on the facebook Groups I'm a member of. 

6. What’s your nail & cuticle care routine like? 

 Not as good as it should be. I wear nail polish ALL the time, so my nails have become a little discoloured and I’ve been trying to whiten them with all different types of techniques. I’ve used the whitening tooth paste trick, soaking my nails in lemon juice and baking soda. I bought a whitening treatment from Amazon which didn’t seem to do the trick either really and finally my local Sallys started stocking some Bubble White which is specifically for whitening nails. I think this has finally made a difference.

 As often as I can I use Sally Hansens Gel Cuticle remover and pop this on all over the nail and leave for around 8-10 minutes, then I scrape this off my nail and push my cuticles back with a pusher. If the cuticles are getting too unruley I’ll go and treat myself to a manicure and colour. I’m just getting round to using more cuticle creams and oils as my cuticles are very dry, it’s just getting into the habit of using these every day. 

7. Is there a nail art technique that you haven’t tried yet, that you’d really like to? Or one you’d really like to improve? 

 I really need to practise more WaterMarbling, I’ve not perfected this technique yet although I have tried it a few times. Also I’ve only tried to make my own Decals through stamping and reverse stamping only once, I REALLY want to be good at these. Not sure if my current stamping polishes and stamper at up the challenge or if it’s just me being crap! 

8. Any brands that you would really like to try, but haven’t yet? 

Yes loads, many are US Brands that aren’t easily available over here in the UK, here’s my hit list: 

• ILNP (US Indie Polish) 
• Mundo De Unas (Mexican Stamping Polishes) 
• Pipe Dreams Polish 
• Emily de Molly Virago Varnish 

9. You can take 5 polishes with you to the desert island. Which 5 do you pick? 

 I did a post on my blog not that long ago about my Top 5 Polishes, so I guess I’d have to pick these: 

 Deborah Lippmann - Video Killed The Radio Star 

Barry M - Persian 

Color Show - Rose Chic 

OPI - Love, Peace and OPI 

Orly - Oui 

10. What got you started in nail art? 

 That question is easy, this video by Pack a Punch Nails.

11. Tell us 3 random facts about yourself. 

 1) They filmed a movie (I think for TV) about Frankenstein and Carrie Fisher was in it. They filmed some scenes in a little North Yorkshire village called Ripley, where I went to Primary school. All the pupils and I were used as extras in the film. Some photo’s were taken and one with me in it was used on the inside cover of TV times. 

2) I used to host a alternative music show in a local Community radio station called RedShift Radio every Sunday called the Sunday Session. We had a funk feature and every week played a 90’s anthem. 

3) I have run 4 marathons, two in Scotland and two in Berlin, Germany. 

 I’m going to nominate the following blogs, some I already love to follow and read and some I just started to follow: 

 1. The Nail and Beauty Files

 2. Totally Elsa 

3. Anna Bean’s Nails

4. Cherry Lemon’s Beauty Blog

5. George Art and Nails

6. Life in Laquer

7. Starfish Nails & Jewellery

8. Knitty Nails

 9. The Adorned Claw 

10. My Nail Files 

 11. Neon Sparkly Nails 

Now for the next bit, here are my 11 questions for my nominated bloggers. 

1. What do you love most about Blogging?
2. What is your Top Tip for creating a neat and tidy manicure?
3. Where and when do you do your manicures?
4. What are your top 5 favourite brands?
5. What manicure have you been most proud of to date? (post a picture if you want)
6. Why do you love nail varnish and painting your nails?
7. What nail or hand care treatment can you not do without?
8. If you were to create your own nail polish brand, what would you call it?
9. What is your favourite nail art technique and why?
10. How many polishes do you own?
11. What other creative things do you like to do? 

I'm hoping to learn a few things and looking forward to the answers above. 

Thank you so much to The Polish Magpie for her questions, I've really enjoyed answering these questions and creating my own. You can see her original post here and don't for get to visit the blogs above to check out their answers.

Twinkled T Nail Vinyls

I've been spying lots of lovely Nail Art on Instagram where Nail Bloggers have been using some very funky nail vinyls to create some amazing designs. The two sites that I've seen these type of vinyls on are Snail Vinyls and the UK site I bought mine from called Twinkled T. I bought four types of Vinyls and the ones I used first were the Almaz Stencils. 

I painted OPI 'Do you have this Colour in Stockhlom' as my base and used Sally Hansen 'Sparkling Water' from their Triple Shine collection to sponge the stencil design over the vinyls once applied to the nail.

I love this polish, I'm a purple person, so this is the perfect shade of purple and possibly one of my new favourites. I just used the stencils as a accent design as you only get 16 stencils on one sheet and I want to experiment more with them. Each stencil is quite big though and to make them go further, I cut one in half and used half on my accent nails.

Tribal Design, Reverse Stamping and Making Decals

Stumped again for something to so with my names, him indoors suggested a tribal design for some reason, I had no idea where he gets these ideas from, but it was a good one. 

I picked some Spring colours to use as my base that I thought would go together as a gradient or I thought I'd also see if I could reverse stamp the design or failing that make my own decals.

Polishes chosen and a white base painted the the reverse stamping did not go well, it made a smudgy mess. So I then tried making a decal, which came out a little better but still wasn't perfect.

Oooh look at that wonky, smeary mess. Some more practise is needed on these techniques and maybe a better stamper. 

So I resorted to the old fashion method and sponged a gradient and stamped the pattern over the nail when dry using a black stamping polish. Doesn't stand up to a close inspection but from a far it doesn't look too bad.