Friday 27 December 2013

Weekend (ish) Mani #18 and a How To!

Merry Day After Boxing Day!

Have you had a look at the boxing day sales yet? I've ordered a few bits and bobs and so will post about them very soon!

My Christmas Day Mani was a bit of a quickie one, we were doing the cooking and prep etc for 11 or so people and so it was very, very busy!

I have made this into a wee tutorial type post too, since it's Christmas and all that jazz!

I have a multitude of different pictures too as my iPhone storage is kinda full and I still haven't figured out how to work my coolpix that I got for my birthday in July!


This mani was pretty simple, I was rather rushed and this was the only thing I could think of that didn't require too much effort (or thought!) on Christmas Day.



Here's the tools I went for: a selection of polishes, a topcoat, thread, scissors, dotting tool and a plastic tray thing for splodging my polish into.


After I applied my basecoat, I applied two coats of OPI 'I vant to be a-lone star, I love this for this particular mani as it is a frosty pale blue with a silver shimmer.  Some of my nails needed a third coat as there were some patchy bits.

Before adding the second coat, I cut the thread to size in preparation for the next step.


After adding the second (and third) coats of polish, I applied the thread to my nails before the polish was dry.  you can apply it in anyway you want, I quite like the loop on my pointer finger!

Use tweezers or the scissors to gently push the thread into the polish so that it adheres to the nail. 

I then applied a coat of topcoat just to seal it all in.

One thing I did forget which would have been really handy for while doing my dots would have been a cotton pad with nail polish remover on it to wipe my dotting tool on after each colour.


I then splodged my polish into the plastic tray, I started with yellow and did all the yellow dots on every finger before moving onto all the blue dots, then all the red dots and then all the green. 

The yellow I used was the Barry M Limited Edition Yellow I posted about here.


The blue I used was Nails Inc. 'Baker Street' quite possibly the bestest blue colour in the world ever!! I posted about it here too.


The red I used was the Mavala Rouge Rubis one I used last week, here, is a lovely little red.  I can't believe I have owned this for a whole year before using this, it really is a lovely, sparkly red and perfect for Christmas!


The green was a cheeky little poundland purchase but I really like the metallic effect.  It is a Sally Hansen Ultra HD in shade 'Resolution'. I have only ever worn this on my toes and although the colour is pretty lovely, the formula is quite thin and needs quite a few coats for opacity. 


I waited (not so) patiently for the polish to dry, trimmed the thread and then topcoated again just to keep it looking nice and shiny throughout christmas dinner!

This design could have so many variations, you could do a darker base or a glittery base, switch up the colour of the thread and silver and gold dots would make awesome fairy lights! 

Let me know if you give these a try, these would work well for New Years Nails too!


Hugs,

Jodi














Wednesday 25 December 2013

Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very, merry Christmas with family, friends and fun!



I hope you're all snug and warm tonight too! 



Normal service shall be back soon, looking forward to a few extra days off work to take pics in daylight! 

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

Tuesday 17 December 2013

What's on my face...

This weekend, my work chums and I went for our Christmas 'do'.  For a change it was a lunchtime thing and I was home and in bed by 10.30pm! Not bad eh?! 

Here is what I wore on my face...


It does look like quite a lot when its all laid out! I'll take you through it layer by layer...

The Base...


*Smashbox Photo finish Oil free Primer * Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation in the shade 51 * Max Factor Lasting Performance in shade 100 Fair * Rimmel Wake Me Up Concealer in shade Ivory *Benefit Hello Flawless Custom Cover-Up Face Powder in shade Ivory *

The Contour...


*Natural Collection Blushed Cheeks in shade Dusky Pink * Bourjois Delice de Poudre in shade 51 * theBalm Cosmetics Mary-Lou Manizer *

The Colour...


* Mua Undressed palette, I used the top right gold shade and the bottom left (I think) in my crease * Superdrug Kolor Black Eyeliner (reaaallly old!) * Benetint Lip Balm * E.l.f. Eye Brow Taming Gel * Natural Collection Lip Pencil in shade Mulberry * 

There are a few items missing in the above picture because I lost them while I was out...nothing at all to do with the vodka, I'm sure... I was wearing Maybelline 'The Rocket' mascara, as seen here, and Kate Moss for Rimmel Matte Lipstick in shade 111 Kiss of life, seen here. I also lost the brush for my Benefit powder, a comb and my wee tin of Elnett - Good job, yes?!

The Scent...


I also took with me, my 10ml YSL Manifesto spray eau de toilette.  I have decide that these dinky but not too dinky perfumes are one of my favourite things! This was part of a gift set I got last Christmas which contained the 50ml bottle of Manifesto and also this handbag sized version.

Have you got any Christmas Nights out to look forward too?

Do you play up lips or eyes or both?

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx




So...about that 'no buy'...

I failed my self imposed 'no buy'.  Several times.  I went to TK Maxx and I failed.  I went to Boots and I failed.  I went to Semi-Chem, yup, I failed and then I had the audacity to buy a few bits on feelunique.com.  Ach well, as they say, you can't take it with you. 


TK Maxx had these two opi's including a limited edition liquid sand for £12.99.  I saved £12.99 on my winter boots from sports direct though so that balances out... Right? I'm going to give this to my mum to give to my brother to give me for Christmas.  Guilt appeased! 



In Boots, I bought a Max Factor foundation.  I have heard these are quite good for folk with pink skintones so I'm going to give it a whirl, the shade is the lightest one, 100 fair, so hopefully that will do the trick.  I haven't linked it as that particular shade isn't on the Boots.com website.  Also, because you were getting a free gift if you spent over £15, I also bought the wild shadow 2-in-1 gel shadow and liner pencil in the shade 05 which seems to be a nice bronzey brown and called 'Caramel Rage on Boots.com.  The free gift includes a full size lipfinity, a full size polish and a full size mascara which I shall review at a later date.


Now to Semi-Chem, I only went in for ibuprofen on the way over to my chums and came out with ibuprofen, oven cleaner (?!?!?) and a new nail polish, as you do. I got my first NYC polish for less than £2. That has been my mid week mani.


And Feelunique brought me the renowned Dr Bronner's magic soap in peppermint and Caudalie's beauty elixir in a limited edition L'Wren Scott designed bottle.  I had a £5 credit to use for referring a friend to Feelunique and it would have been rude not to use it! 

And I still haven't done my Christmas shopping! Yikes! 

Have you ever tried a 'no buy'?

How's your Chrsitmas shopping going?

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

Monday 16 December 2013

P...p...paint on a Penguin!!

Okay, totally lame title but hey, it's Monday!

Here's a quick guide to how I did my penguin nail at the weekend...


I used a Catherine Arley Black Holo, I had never used it before and thought the holo would be quite fun but in actuality (is that a word?!) it wasn't very holo! Its a good enough polish but not very easy to get hold of and personally, I wouldn't bother.  Sidenote: If you are really keen on a holographic polish then could I recommend you check out iconic effect as they have a superb holo topcoat and you can pick the intensity, all the swatches I have seen look amazing and it means you can holo all your fav colours you already own! Squeeeee!!


Back to the nails, once you have painted your base colour, which doesn't have to be black btw, if you want a pastel pink penguin, you go ahead and paint that pastel base right on!  Get yourself a dotting tool or kirby grip and dab it in the colour you have chosen for your eyes and tummy.  I'm using the plastic top off of a Whiskas Dentabits container to splodge my polish into, pringles lids are also excellent.  I have a bundle monster set which contains quite a few tools but I only really use the dotters.  You can pick up dotting tools on Amazon and eBay really cheaply and Bourjois also do one although I am not quite so sure how widely available that is.  For my little guy's bits, I'm using the old faithful, Barry M Matte White. 


Do two relatively big eye splodges, you can be as symmetrical or asymmetrical as you like here, asymmetry just adds character...right...I find it is best to put fresh polish on the dotter for every dot or dab.


Draw on your little dudes tummy, again, it's upto you if you want a fatty penguin or not.  I did a kinda fatty one purely because that is the best of my artistic abilities.


Next, get your black and splodge a bit on your polish receptacle i.e. plastic lid and, using the smaller end of the dotter or kirby, apply a dot into the centre of your white eye 'splodges'.


I have yet to get this bit symmetrical and it always reminds me of those googly eyes you used to get on cards as a kid! Like I say, character!! 


Next up, we need to give this badboy some features.  I used an orange Revlon polish called 'Siren' for the first time, seemed pretty good although it was a bit runnier than the other two.  If you had your heart set on penguins of this colour scheme, best thing to do would be to go to Boots or Superdrug and take advantage of the 3 for 2 offers running on the likes of Barry M and Sinful Colours. 


I digress... Using the bigger end of the dotting tool, I used one dot of the Revlon Polish for each 'foot' or is it flipper? and then used the smaller end to dot a wee (kinda) triangle for his beak.

ét Voila!! 

It's now upto you if you want to get really arty and draw on scarves and what not, just bear in mind that you will need to also paint the same on your dominant hand with your non-dominant hand. 

Make sure you let each coat dry a little and DO NOT put topcoat over until it is completely dry as it will inevitably smudge your little guys eyes and the orange from his beak will be on his tummy and you will be sad!!! 

Hope you give this a go!

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

Sunday 15 December 2013

Weekend Mani #17

I have power!! Laptop cable has arrived, thank you Amazon and now hopefully normal service can resume!

My nails this weekend were all about Christmas as we had our work night out yesterday, although it was a lunch that lasted into the night! 


Ah, my smudgy penguin! my first attempt ever at a penguin and I literally had 13 minutes to do my nails so I think he turned out pretty good


The red is a Mavala number called 'Rouge Rubis' and it is rather lovely! I received this last year in my latest in beauty, you beauty advent calender (which I got for half price in January). It's packaged really cutely as a Christmas decoration so a nice wee surprise for a nail fanatic at Christmas time.  Topshop are doing similar individually packaged polishes too.  


I smudged his tummy several times although I am happy that his eyes were ok, they would have been harder to redo. I will post a tutorial this week on how I did the penguin, there are loads of tutorials on youtube or you can just google some images for inspriation.


I have used Mavala polishes before and I really like them.  They have a special formulation that apparently allows your natural nails to breathe and therefore reduce damage caused by polish (pretty sure you would have to use a Mavala Base Coat to achieve this result though?!).  Several other great things about Mavala polishes is that they are in 5ml pots therefore less likely to dry out, they are less than £5, come in a fabulous range of colours, are nasty chemical free (in your face formaldehyde!!) and they are opaque in two coats.


I tried to capture the shimmer in this polish but it is much more shimmery in real life.  It has a ruby red 'jelly' type base with these red glassfleck type particles throughout, these pictures are without topcoat by the way. It kinda reminds me of Essie's 'Leading lady' seen here, Essie's 'Ruby Slippers' here, China Glaze's 'Ruby Pumps' here or Zoya's 'Carrie Ann' seen here. Off the top of my head, I would say the closest OPI I could think of that would be even slightly like this would be 'Love is a Racket, here, but I think that is more pink with blue through it. I always thought it was weird that OPI didn't release some version of red polish with their 'Oz: The Great and Powerful' collection but it was a soft shades collection so I'll let them off!! 


It has chipped a wee bit and there is some tip wear but I was pretty tough on my nails last night, I dropped my bag alot and so was picking many a thing up off the ground, tsk tsk!!

Latest in Beauty are currently offering this Mavala polish as a 'luxury sample' and so for £2 this could be yours, its free to sign up to their website and they often have great collections. 

The Youbeauty advent calender is available here, and if you use the code YBD10 you can get £10 off.  I really liked my one last year as the samples are good sizes to try out. 

Have you tried Mavala polishes before?

Are you going to attempt some Christmas nail art?

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx




Monday 9 December 2013

I'm so excited!

I'm going to mac tomorrow.  For the first time ever! I have no idea what I'm going to do once I'm in there apart from possibly wee-ing myself a little but MAC!! 

I'm a little excited! 


Also, our tree is finally up and it's starting to look a bit more festive round here! And the cats haven't killed it... yet - More excitement! 

Hope you had a great weekend! 

What would your top mac products be?

Do you have a mac store or counter near you? 

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

Sunday 8 December 2013

Weekend Mani #16

Yup, it's that time of week again! It's the weekend of indecisiveness for me I think, I have on this colour but as I am off work until Wednesday I may change it for something a bit more 'va-va-voom'! 

On my nails this weekend, I have 'meet me on the star ferry' by O.P.I.  This is from the Hong Kong Collection of 2010, of which I own a few others from that I didn't actually realise! 


This one is really difficult to describe, in the bottle it seems to be an almost mauve colour but with a touch of red and a silver shimmer running through it but on the nail it looks different in every light! It looks purpley, reddy, goldy, silvery, shimmery and frosty all at the same time!!


This shows it leaning towards purple.  The shine is amazing, I have no topcoat on in any of these pics. I don't know if the colour suits my skin-tone the best but that's a small niggle that most people probably won't pay any mind to.


Trying to capture the colour without the shimmer, turns out, it ain't that easy! Please excuse the peppy pig plaster, sliced my finger on a Gillette in the bathroom.  Strange I have peppa pig plasters and no kids...


In usual O.P.I. fashion, the formula was easy to work with and this was opaque in two coats.  I have three coats on my middle finger as I bumped it whilst the polish was still wet.


And there you have it, a polish captured in pretty much every light source I have at my disposal and still remains a bit of an enigma!! I like this polish and I wanted it for ages but I'm not as in love with it as I had hoped to be.  In fact, I'd quite like to put this on my gramma! (She's pretty cool though so...) 

Do you wear polish to suit your skin tone?

Are you a fan of shimmers? 

Hugs,

Jodi 
xxx

P.s. This is once again courtesy of my ipad.  Binx has chewed through my laptop cable and so I am awaiting delivery of (another) new one! Good job he's purdy!


Wednesday 4 December 2013

Old cats are cold cats!

With winter upon us, my little tooter, Honey, is really starting to feel the cold.  It doesn't help that her belly is still quite bald from where she over grooms.

This is a really important time of year not just to keep yourself cosy but also to keep your pussy cats cosy. If your cats are outdoor cats please, please make sure they have a reflective collar, preferably with your number on it and if they go awol, please check in surrounding sheds etc as they will try and find a warm (or less draughty) spot. 

As Honey is now about 14 years old and very little (3.2kgs) it's important that we give her a little help to keep warm (I think it is anyway!) 


So I bought her a hoody... I know, I'm mental! I got this off of amazon but I actually think it is too small for her but at least I know she wasn't totally against wearing it! This is really for dogs more than cats but the selection for cats is minimal.  


I also had a therapeutic heat pad lying around from when I used to get a lot of backache and so this is like her own electric blanket that I put on for a while at night, they have these in Argos for £29.99 which actually sounds like quite a lot but you can get them from eBay and amazon ( you can get waterproof ones!)  I use the scarves that I got from poundland for my Cheshire Cat outfit a few weeks ago.  

As for the boys, they are in the livingroom next to the radiator, or on the sofa, or on our bed... They can sleep anywhere and if they are feeling the cold they often snuggle up together - so cute! 


I'll sleep on the sofa then...

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

P.s. This has been posted on my ipad and so apologies for lack of links and unformatted pics! 


Tuesday 3 December 2013

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Todays post is just a quick one but it may give some of you some nice new storage ideas.  I am a big fan of candles, as I may have posted about once...or twice... anyhoo, nowadays it would seem the packaging is almost as luxurious as the candle itself.  I have found a few handy ways of re-using candle containers once the candles is all gone.


Here's a small selection of my candle jar storage, I love finding ways to reuse things, if something is in good condition, it seems such a shame and a waste to just throw them out.  I have even found storage for my birchboxes and glossyboxes.



Super handy is what I would call the yankee candle large jar!  Great for storing cotton wool, keeps it dust free, cat hair free and also prevents it getting wet! I favour this rather than storing packs of cotton wool in random drawers, I always forget where it is and end up buying more.  This is also great if. like me, you don't have loads of storage space in the form of drawers etc. 


The cuboid(?) on the left with the cotton buds in it was originally a candle from Tkmaxx, they have a great selection of candles especially at this time of year and some of them are in really pretty jars. I was in tonight and the scent selection is so varied! Great for keeping things dust and damp free and also stops 'the boy' from putting his used buds and various other items of debris, back into the container as he is prone to do! Grump!

 The middle jar was a three wick candle from sainsburys that was pretty huge, similar sort of size to a three wick neom candle but about a tenth of the price! Sainsburys candles are actually pretty well in terms of scent throw, their selection isn't huge but they are nice.  The one I had was a coconutty one and you could smell it even when the candle wasn't lit. It is currently home to a rotation of different tealights and votives and I don't have to worry about wax spilling everywhere.

Lastly, this wasn't a candle, this was a toothbrush holder that never got used as a toothbrush holder.  It was from Asda, they also have cute bathroom accessories just now in loads of different colours.  This originally had cotton buds in it but 'the boy' was sick of my make up brushes lying around 'everywhere' (apparently) and I couldn't cope with them in a sealed bag every morning.  This keeps them all together nicely without them being all bunched up and taking out four at a time when I only went in for one.

I have loads of glass jars from the likes of glade and febreeze candles too, they come in so handy.

Do you try and re-use items?

What is your favourite scent from a candle?

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx