Fancy Friday #79 : Favourite Nail Polish or Design

This week's challenge is a bit of both. As you well know I am a devout Elevation Polish believer. And though Lulu creates oodles of gorgeous polishes there is one that has always been my favourite. It is the one I choose when I need a pick-me-up or feel all my lovely pastels are a bit boring. Not so with this beauty.

I give you: Elevation Polish Toubkal, my all-time favourite nail polish!

It hits all the right buttons with me. It is a totally vampy colour (my first nail polish colour crush was on all things vampy) and it has glass flecks in abundance - a finish I've been crazy about since back when I bought Illamasqua Raindrops at it's initial release.

For good measure I've thrown in a favourite design and a go-to mani:

Stamping and Skittlette.

Usually I use as many different polishes for the skittlette as possible but with this one I really just wanted to show you that one. So in order to make it a skittlette I found some rhinestones in my  nail art travel case and put them on my thumb and ring finger. They only sat for a couple of hours since I only attached them with top coat :D

I love stamping and try to incorporate it in as many designs as possible. For this challenge I chose my Messy Mansion plate MM44 - with an absolutely gorgeous lace design. I received my new stamper heads from Messy Mansion - I finally got hold of the soft ones, and let me tell you, they stamp marvellously!!! I don't think I've ever had a this clean and crisp design!

I think it is gorgeous!!

Don't forget to take a look at the other favourite designs og nail polishes from my fellow Fancy Friday challengers.

Så er der dømt yndlingslak. Jeg er jo helt vild med Elevation lakker og elsker det meste af det Lulu laver. Især denne skønhed, Toubkal,  får mig til at tabe vejret når solen lyser over den. :D Jeg har så lige stemplet lidt henover den og pimpet den med et par rhinsten ;)

Golden Oldie Thursday #37: Burnt Orange/Copper

I have a polish the same colour as copper pennies that hasn't seen light of day since the week it was bought - and the sad little bugger only got a one finger swatch back then!!

GOT to the rescue!!

Illamasqua Shrapnel was one of three polishes created by fans of Illamasqua and I bought it in my very first order together with the other two fan collaboration shades: Raindrops and Eclipse - incidentally polishes that has suffered almost the same sad fate as Shrapnel.

I usually don't like that colour on me but I am not hating this either, which is good :D.

I had some bubble issues which I can only connect to my base coat so I won't use Sally Hansen's Nail Quencher together with Shrapnel ;). Top coating it didn't help the bubbling so I decided to stamp it - my go-to rescue.

I used Messy Mansion plate no. 20 for this image...

...and stamped with BarryM Gold Foil:

As you can see my rescue attempt didn't help much  - bubbles are totally visible :D

I really like this even though I shy away from colours like this - maybe I should try some more.

Remember to check in with the rest of the GOT polish girls and see which polish they have chosen for this week's challenge.

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday #36: Ignored for too long

Ignored for too long? Most of my polish get to be ignored for too long :D. So I just opened the top drawer in Helmer 1 and found two gorgeous YSL polishes: Wintergreen and Moonlight Blue.

In the bottle they look extremely promising, on the nails it is a totally different story. That shimmer is almost gone :O.

They are a dream to work with!! High pigmentation means they are both one coaters though I used two layers as usual.

I decided to give them a good stamp!! With MessyMansion plate 16 and BarryM Silver Foil.

Look at that bottle shimmer!!! Wah for it not translating to the nails!!!

Do you have any ignored polishes? If you do, which?

Have a look at what the other girls have ignored for too long:

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday #25: Gradient

Uuuhh a favourite technique of mine though I'm not that good at it :D.

My RBL's don't get enough love so they were the ones I dived in to this time to find some polishes for todays challenge.

Insouciant and Poco a Poco made for a delicate gradient...I really like it!

But I really wanted to do something more with them, somehow I thought they needed some Ooomph...So I did this - with my VividLacquer 020 plate:

I used BarryM Silver Foil for the stamp.

Yeah I have a problem with choosing and sorting my pictures...at least it's not the twenty I started out with!! :D

Remember to check the other gradients as well!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday #24: Free Choice

I decided to do a Skittlette for last week's GOT Polish challenge with one of my most prized polishes.

Ninja Polish Alexandrite was a polish I didn't get back when I bought Color Changing Garnet and Zultanite - which I came to regret dearly. When it became clear that the pigments used got discontinued and it wouldn't be available again I started coveting it badly :D. I was so fortunate that a nail polish friend RAOKed it to me last January - but I have only ever worn it once. So here was the perfect opportunity to wear it again.

I stamped my middle and ring finger with Moyou London Pro plate 02 using BarryM Silver Foil

I actually broke one of the rules doing this skittlette but it was almost midnight when I did this mani so it wasn't until I was taking pictures that I realised that the glittertopper on my little finger didn't fit in - I'm wearing Clair de Lune by Indigo Bananas, a polish I only very recently added to my stash.

I think this turned out excellent - and I was actually able to center the stamping on my middle finger :D.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fancy Friday #58: Ice Cream

This was a fun challenge and since I have the Ice Cream polishes from BarryM I sure knew which colours to use here :D.

YSL Rich Coffee, nails inc hampstead gardens, BarryM Berry Ice Cream, Strawberry Ice Cream, Mint Green, Blueberry Ice Cream, Leighton Denny Indulgence

Did a french tip with hampstead gardens, and then used a thin striper brush dipped in YSL Rich Coffee to do the waffle pattern. And used a dotting tool to create the scoops, sprinkles and jam.

 

I am not totally convinced about the HK Girl top coat, it acts very strange if the mani is uneven in it's structure - and I don't always get the high shine effect that is raved about...

Hurry over to see what the rest of the Fancy Friday girls have come up with ;)

Is, Is, Is, Is...det er hvad der er på bloggen i dagens anledning. Jeg har alle BarryM Ice Cream lakkerne så de er taget i brug her ;). Jeg blev en smule issyg da jeg så dem da de var færdige...

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy belated St. Patricksday!!

I haven't celebrated St. Paddys since I studied in England over 10 years ago. It was fun and since I love Irish beer it was a blast. So to remind myself of all the fun I had I decided to get in on this year's celebration - and here is what I did.

I started out with this basic mani and had it all planned out. At least I thought so. But when it came to stamping the pot'o'gold on my ring finger I suddenly remembered I had thought of painting one of my nails gold.

A lot of facepalms later I got myself together and started stamping. And then I got to the Claddagh and realised I still hadn't gotten it all together. So I topped the middle finger with Ninja Polish Shillelagh and was good to go.

Last year I bought some plates from Messy Mansion one of which was this St. Patricksday plate. It is very versatile and though I will only get to use it once a year I'm still happy I bought it :)

I used Camelot for the pot'o'gold and should probably have used my Black stamping polish though that one isn't always a guarantee for a clear transfer either.

And these were the polishes used for this mani:

Have you made a St. Patricksday mani and want to share it? Follow this link to add the inlinkz script to your blog post:

get the InLinkz code

Golden Oldie Thursday #7: Chevron Fail

If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably know about my tendency to share my nail fails on a fairly regular basis. This is one of those days...

My nails have a fairly deep c-curve which can make stamping a bit challenging at times - in particular if you don't have a squishy stamper and the design itself need to be very straight, like chevrons. At the moment I use an XL stamper that has a more firm silicone head which gives me slight problems to say the least. I didn't really realise how bad the problem was until this mani. But I'll return to that in a moment.

Most of my Illamasqua polishes are more than a year old because ever since that awful debacle with Royal Mail last year their shipping prices have gone up considerably so I've found myself only wanting to purchase when they have sales - and then I still only buy make-up AKA I haven't bought them in more than a year. So off I went and dug into my Illa polishes for this week's challenge.

Illamasqua Elope       Illamasqua Nomad     GOSH Forest Floor       BarryM Gold Foil

And since my freehand Chevrons sucks big time I decided to try stamping them instead - as if that would make any difference :D

The base for this mani is a "circle gradient" where I applied the polish in a circle like a layer cake diagram and then pressed it on the nails, making sure to get a smooth transistion by moving the sponge in all directions when I applied the polish.

As you can see the chevrons are all wobbly due to the c-curve. When I stamp I can't push the head down enough to get a perfect transfer so instead I have to roll the stamper, which results in these very much curved sides on the chevrons...a loose-loose situatuation.

Hopefully my next stamping session will go more smoothly - and my next GOT challenge for that matter ;)

Remember to check the other awesome manis:

Fancy Friday #35: Happy New Year

My New Year's mani for this weeks Fancy Friday challenge has failed miserably, everything I created didn't work out the way I thought. But since I'm a big believer in showing my fails as well as successes I decided to NOT keep on until I did something spectacular - or reasonably presentable :D - and instead show you guys my fails :)

The first mani design seemed awesome in my mind's eye but the end result is more than unimpressive I think. It could possibly have worked if I'd chosen a different stamping colour. I think a sparkly blue or green could have made all the difference.

I started off with a coat of BarryM Silver foil and topped it with WellNails Press it for Glory - a gorgeous silver shimmer polish filled with very thin silver holographic bar glitter and black squares and shards to give it some edge. The formula is thin but is easy to work with never the less. You can get opacity with it with two-three layers depending on how thick you like your layers. It sparkles like crazy and is a PERFECT NYE polish!! I apologise for the unfocused picture here, but it is to show how the holographic bar glitter glows...

I definitely should just have left it by its own but I wanted to use a New Years stamp on it and decided to use my Moyou Christmas Plate 05 with BarryM Gold Foil - which really was a bad idea. As  you can see you can hardly see the stamping and the awesomeness of the polish it self is totally lost in the semi matte cover that the foil gives it.

This is the marvellous New Years plate from Moyou - as you can see mine is a Christmas Collection plate, not a Festive Collection plate:

And this is the specific stamp I used:

For my second NYE fail I chose - and I really did think this would be good too - WellNails Rock in the New Year and Elevation Polish Wisteria.
 
Rock in the New Year is a totally fun glitter topper that I wore last year as well and I really loved it. I definitely chose better undies for it then because even though Wisteria is the most amazing dusty lilac colour they really don't make each other pop...such a shame.

It is a totally beautiful combination otherwise, but as a NYE mani it lacks the Oomph that should be what is the definition of a gorgeous New Years mani.

RitNY is a bit on the thick side and need a little bit of careful application - I used two layers here to get this look.

Wisteria is a breeze to work with and is a  self levelling one coater. It is very easy to work with even though it is a pastel colour. Actually this is one of the reasons I am a devout Elevation fan: Lulu makes awesome polishes with  impeccable formulation - and her pastels are in a league of their own!!

I hope you enjoyed my Fancy Friday fails :) - remember to check the other girls manis, they are spectacular!!

And if I don't get an NYE post up tomorrow: May you all have a Very Happy New Year!! See you next year!!!

Denne uges Fælles Fredag handler mest om, hvordan de ideer jeg får, af og til slet ikke er ligeså vidunderlige når de først er på neglene. De her to manier var i mit hoved VIRKELIG fantastiske, men da de først var udført blev det helt tydeligt, at de var rigtig kedelige!! Press it for Glory skulle ALDRIG have været stemplet med den guldlak og Rock in the New Year har helt sikkert behov for noget ganske andet undertøj for virkelig at være fantastisk. Men jeg synes faktisk det er en god ide også at offentliggøre de manier som er mindre fantastiske og under ens normale niveau for at vise, at det der nail art er en konstant udfordring for de fleste af os ;).