Graceful Glamour UK

The postman knocked on my door VERY early over the weekend, 7:10am on a Saturday no less! But when I saw him holding two packages I didn't mind too much. What was in the packages? One of them had my order from Fragrance Direct in and the other had my 2012 Bundle Monster plates, wahoo! There have been allot of photographs circulating the blogger world before I received mine, so I already sort of knew what to expect. You get 25 circular metal stamping plates packaged in  with six images each, so that is a fantastic 150 images to play around and make some beautiful mani's with. So far I've only used the one plate (307) so this is really just a first impressions post to show you the designs. What I can tell you about that plate is, the design I used was very precise, having allot of detail and transfered very well from plate to stamp and then from stamp to nail. The one thing that was a little annoying was getting the blue protective film off. It was soooooo much more...

With flash  Well the mystery of me feeling fluffy and dreamlike is that I've come down with a terrible cold, booooohooooo! My brother and his family came down on Tuesday and a couple of them were ill, so I'm guessing that's who I caught it from. As you know from yesterdays post ( click here to see it ) I started this mani with Sally Hansen Double Duty , then two coats of Sally Hansen Deep Blue Sea .  With flash .  For the next step I picked out my Bundle Monster BM201 plate and used it with Sally  Hansen's Blue Away . This particular design was very easy to work with and I actually didn't have to start again with any nails which is a major improvement for me.  For some bling I decided to add pale blue heart shaped rhinestones with LA Girls Diamond Top Coat . I didn't realise as it was late at night, but some of the stones were slightly different colours, whoops! To finish I added an additional layer of the top coat over the whole mani...

With flash. I didn't really know where I was going to go with this mani, I just sort of made it up as i went along. To start with I applied a layer of Orly Top 2 Bottom as my base coat. I've been really enjoying this and would highly recommend it. Next I added three coats of Borghese Castello Blue. If you haven't seen my review of this with swatches, you can see it here .  Now for a little stamping, so I used the crazy paving style design on my Bundle Monster BM215 with Sally Hansen Raspberry Race ( swatches here ).  Without flash, natural light.  Next was to add some french tips using the rounded Wet N Wild guides and Sally Hansen White On.  I've really been getting in to flowers recently, due to Maria from Maria's Nail Art and Polish Blog  so I decided to add some lovely purple flower fimo. I added them to each nail and then finished off with LA Girl's top coat.  That's all from me for now, I hope you are well. Take care all, b...

No flash.  Hi all, I hope you are are having a fab weekend. I'm really enjoying spending some time with my daughter and not having to worry about unpacking boxes as it is all done! My little girl (15 months) and niece ( 3 years old) were playing in the paddling pool yesterday when my niece suddenly got up and got out of the pool. She was standing with a strange look on her face when I looked down and realised she was having a wee! A couple of minutes later I asked her 'Who did a wee on the floor Elizabeth?' and she said 'It wasn't me, it was Gracie!' I had to laugh... Let's get on to the nail art shall we? The base colour is Essie Smooth Sailing (click here for review), I added two coats of her and then a layer of Sally Hansen Super Shine Top Coat. With flash.  Next I took the gorgeous S ally Hansen Metallic Momentum and used her with my Bundle Monster BM225 stamping plate to get his beautiful flower mani. I have to say, as with the ot...

SC Starfish, 2 Coats With Flash.  I know I said I was going to show you the stamping tomorrow, but as I had it ready I thought I would let you see it a little early. I had a pretty horrible experience yesterday, I was quite innocently walking to the shops with my little girl in her buggy and a car reversed up the curb and hit us. Basically, the man driving the offending vehicle couldn't get out of his parking space, and didn't look as he reversed straight in to us! But to make matters worse when I screamed and was upset he'd hit us, he started shouting at me saying I should have realised he was blocked in and that he would have to mount the pavement and waited for him to do so. Hmmmm.  For my base colour I decided to go with Star Fish from Sinful Colors . She is a beautiful soft dusky pink with a slight lilac undertone and a crelly texture. I was actually kind of surprised by this as she looked rather more creamy in the bottle but I'm really pleased as s...

No flash Well here we all are then, where on earth has this week gone? In fact, how the devil did we get to July without me realising it?! I really notice how time is flying by how grown up my daughter is getting. I know, I know, she's only just over 15 months old, but this time last year she was a little baby who didn't even sit up yet and now she's running around, talking and playing football! As you know I've been really loving the Sally Insta Dri line of polishes and today I have swatches of Metallic Momentum to show you. She is a stunningly beautiful silver foil, but with a beige olive tinge to her. It's such an interesting colour and very different to anything I have, or have seen available. With Flash Her formula is very nice and opaque and as usual for my Insta Dri swatches the index and middle fingers have 2 coats, and the ring  and pinky have just the one. As you can tell, the one coat is beautifully opaque, but two just gives it some extra...

With Flash  Hi all and welcome back to my ever more nail orientated blog. I didn't actually think about the fact I'd only been posting about nails, it just sort of happened. I suppose it's because I'm really only just getting 'polish obsessed' and the things I'm most excited about at the moment are nail polish and nail art. For the base colour I used Sally Hansen White On from their Xtreme Wear line. I didn't really think about swatching her on her own as she's just a basic shiny white. If you do want me to swatch her, just let me know. To be honest, I wouldn't wear her alone, she's just a base for nail art. I used two coats for a nice opaque finish. Without Flash  For the tiger stripes I used Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Presto Pink with my Bundle Monster BM223 plate. This is an amazing polish and if you haven't seen my review on her, you can go take a look here . This mani took me a long time to do, I'm not sure if...

With Flash  I can't help it, I keep wanting to call this polish Pepto Pink! But actually her real name is Presto Pink . Yet another polish from Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri line, but I can't help it, they are fab. You see, each one I've used work well for stamping, but they also look nice on their own making them more versatile than the Konad polishes. Presto Pink is a stunning medium creme pink with cool undertones and a dusky quality to her. She actually reminds me a bit of a polish I've worn recently, I'll have to have a dig through and do a comparison for you. When I look at her sitting here on my nails I can hear that Stevie Wonder song, isn't she lovely playing through my head. Yes I know I'm weird! No Flash The polish glides on very easily and with that special contoured brush, I managed to do each coat with one stroke apart from my thumbs. As with the other Insta-Dri's I've used two coats on the index and middle, then just the ...

With flash  So here we are again with some stamping goodness. I must admit I've been really having to push myself to take the time and do stamping mani's as I've got to have all of my things cleared out of my old house and make it all shiny and lovely by Saturday (I'm writing this on Thursday). But on top of that I still have to look after a lively one year old who is in to EVERYTHING, and teething!  So to start off I applied three coats of the Borghese Milano Taupe (click here for that post) and a layer of my trusty Orly Top 2 Bottom, then waited around thirty minutes. I had a little flip through my Bundle Monster stamping plates and decided on the 'swirly whirly' design on BM222. I applied this design with the Konad White special polish then added another layer of the Orly to lock in the design.  No flash  Well there you go, what do you think? I know it didn't come out perfect, but I didn't think I did too badly. I found this d...