Review : Born Pretty Store - Black Rhinestones

Good evening everyone ! Today I have a very special post for you all, my first ever review ! I was contacted by Born Pretty Store a couple of months ago, and it's taken me a while to get round to finding enough time to do it properly (wouldn't want to do it half-heartedly would I ?), but I finally got the time after I finished the mountains of work I was catching up on from after the Easter holidays ! So behold, my review !

So today I'll be showing you the 1.5mm black resin rhinestones which I used to create an easy studded nail art design that I really really love ! The rhinestones come in a pack of 10,000, so there's plenty to last you ! The bag that they come in is plastified and very sturdy, although once it's open you have to seal it back up with selotape or if not then transfer the contents into a closable container, as there is no reclosable seal on the packet.

For this design, I just layered the rhinestones over two coats of Essie Mint Candy Apple, I wanted to do something simple to show them properly. I really love the size of them, they're not so big that they take up too much space on the nail, and it's nice that they look so small and dainty !

I think I'm going to get quite a lot of use out of these rhinestones, and I can't imagine I'll be running out of them any time soon thanks to the sheer amount that come in the packet ! The only real downside I can think of for these rhinestones is the fact that you can't re-seal the packet, although this is far from insurmountable, so not a real problem with the product !

If you are interested in purchasing these 1.5mm black resin rhinestones, then head on over to Born Pretty Store, they do loads of nail and beauty accessories for really good prices as well as free shipping worldwide. And as if that wasn't enough, if you use the coupon code MQL91, you can get an extra 10% off your order ! Happy days !

NOTD : Cupcakes !

Hey everybody ! So I had to take off my floral nails from a couple of days ago this evening because one of my nails has broken so I've had to cut my nails down short to limit breakages ! I don't mind having short nails, in fact I actually really quite like them, I can just never be bothered to sit down each day and file them, and they grow long and then I get annoyed because I can't write anymore, so I cut them all down, and then they grow back... it's a vicious circle really.

So here are my short new nails ! My Mum gave me the idea to do cupcakes when I asked her this morning because I was lacking inspiration ! She always has the best ideas ! I didn't want to do a full set of cupcake nails, so I settled for two accent cupcakes, cute right ? I was hoping the stripes on all the other nails would stand out more than they do, maybe I should have just done pink and brown stripes instead...

For this design the colours I used were OPI My Very First Knockwurst, an un-named pink Color Club polish, OPI Berlin There Done That and then OPI You Don't Know Jacques for the darker brown dots on each cupcake. I'm really happy with how these nails turned out, and I really like only having a couple of cupcakes on each hand ! Plus the little red rhinestones I used for cherries look so sweet, I love it !

And that's it once again for today everyone ! I hope you like these little cupcakes, I actually think they look slightly realistic in that the colour are actually plausible cupcake colours ! What do you think ?

Have a great evening guys !

El Salonsito Spray Paint

Heya everyone ! So once again I've had a super jam-packed day, and I've been busy writing all the posts for next week ! It's amazing how time-consuming writing posts is, but I'm not complaining, don't worry ! I've had loads of fun sorting out this new series, and I hope you're going to enjoy it (I won't reveal the theme for it until tomorrow) ! And due to all this busy-ness, I haven't had time to do my nails today, I will however give you the outcome of my Essence peel-off base coat tomorrow, so you can all see how it worked out for me ! Anyway, on to the nails !

So these nails (as you may have seen in the title) are inspired by El Salonsito ! I did these nails a while ago, back near around the hommage month in May, but didn't decide to include this design in my "As Seen On.." series seeing as I haven't been reading El Salonsito as long as I have the others. This is however one of my favourite designs I've done on my nails, and I'm pretty sure it was the first time I tried out the index and middle fingers as accent nails !

So for this design I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh ? for the base, then I used Accessorize Gold Dust, OPI Alpine Snow, Barry M Black and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black to do the spray paints on the accents nails. I really need to try doing this design again, with different colours, maybe big bright colours, because I seriously love this look !

And that's it for today guys ! I've got two more posts to write for next week and then I'll be done ! And tomorrow's post will be the nails I'll be going to England with, so make sure you stay tuned for that !

Enjoy the rest of your day everyone ! And please excuse the late post !

As Seen On : Very Emily

So at this current moment I am on holiday in Cologne (and will be for the next few days), so I've got a whole 6 days of scheduled posts for you, as part of an "As Seen On..." series. So from Monday to Saturday, I'll be featuring some of the very first nail blogs I started reading, bloggers who inspired me to start my very own nail art blog, and re-creating one of their manicures for each day of this series !

Hey there guys ! I can't believe it's the last day of this "As Seen On.." series, and I do really really hope you've enjoyed all these scheduled posts ! It was so hectic to do all the nails and write all the posts, but I've had so much fun doing it ! Today I'll be featuring Emily's blog Very Emily, a blog I've been reading almost since the beginning of when I first got in to nail art ! I really wanted to do one of her manicures using square studs, but I hadn't received my Born Pretty Store order until after I'd already done this design, but nonetheless, I still love this one !

So this nail art design is inspired by this teal and gold nail art over on Emily's blog, I didn't have any actual gold rhinestones, so I substituted them for yellow-y ones, which I think from a distance (and maybe with your eyes crossed) gives pretty much the same look ! I didn't do Emily's technique of leopard print, as I wanted to do my own spin on the design (plus the fact I've never done leopard print with a nail art brush) !

For this nail art design I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Accessorize Gold Dust and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black for the leopard details. I think Barry M Cyan Blue may have been a better match for A England Galahad which is what Emily used, but the colour I did use looks pretty similar ! I wish I had all the different rhinestones and everything that Emily uses for her designs, the amount of different sizes, shapes and colours that Emily owns in the way of rhinestones really is unbelievable !

And can you believe that that's it ? But as I said yesterday, I've got another series with a different theme lined up for the week beginning the 17th September for when I go to England, so not long to wait ! Enjoy your day !

NOTD : Dia de los Muertos Sugar Skulls

Okay guys, so the original design I had planned to do on my nails yesterday actually didn't turn out well at all, and I took it all off as soon as I'd finished the design on my thumb, plus the fact that I was too lazy to go and do my nails straight after writing the post like I said I did. But never mind, I've still got a new NOTD for you, so don't worry ! I've had this design in my inspiration file for a week now (I think ?), and so when my initial design for today failed miserably, I turned straight to this.

So I based today's nails on this design by Nancy Mc, a nail artist I've been following closely on Tumblr for the past year or so, and I absolutely love her work ! Her nail wheels she posts are full of wonderful inspiration, plus she uses great colour combinations that always come up so flawless !

Now besides the fact that these nails are highly impractical (the fimo didn't fit on all my nails properly and I didn't cut the slices thin enough to mould to my nails), I absolutely love them ! They look soooo much better in real life than they do in the photos, and both hands put together look amazing (if I do say so myself) !

The polishes I used for this design were OPI Steady as She Rose for the base colour, then I used my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pens in black, white, yellow and blue (plus OPI Big Apple Red) for the mouths and details on the faces. I used fimo slices and rhinestones for the eyes.

So what do you think ? Would you wear something like this on your nails even though it gets in the way and you're worrying about bits falling off ? I'll keep you up to date as to how long the fimo pieces last before they snap off ! Hopefully the nail glue I used is so industrial they shouldn't be going anywhere ! We'll see though won't we !

Also, don't forget to vote for my nails in Makeup Savvy's finalists for the 15 day nail challenge ! All you have to do is comment the letter of your favourite (mine are entry A, hint hint) !

UPDATE : I ended up picking the fimo eyes off individually after 24 hours of perfect wear (major picking though, teeth and everything, it wasn't going anywhere) ! I even jammed my thumb nail in my nail drawer just after I'd written the post and that fimo did not budge !