Indy's Indies: Balloon House

I have coveted Balloon House for such a long time, that I was so happy to finally get my claws on it.  I've seen so many fantastic manicures created using it, mostly themed around Up!

I started a Pinterest Board to inspire my manicure but only found two photos floating around.  If you've used the polish and want to add your pictures to the board, let me know!

I just wanted balloons in the sky.  There was no way I could recreate that beautiful Up! manicure so I just went for bunches of balloons.

I used a base of Barry M Blue Moon (definitely it's last outing, it's dead) and sponged Barry M white over the top to try and create a cloudy look.  I then applied Balloon House in little collections on my nails and used a nail art pen to add straws.

I finished the manicure off with two coats of Insta-Dry.

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Indys Indies: What Am I Doing Here

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to 2014 people.

I didn't do any fancy nails last night.  I'm not a big celebrator of New Years Eve.  I like the closing of the year and the hope the new year brings - planning to make changes etc. But I don't like being made to feel like I have to go out.  I spent last night over my step-sister's house - eating lots of yummy food and kicking her butt on Harry Potter scene it.

So because I wasn't going out anywhere fancy pants, I decided to keep my nails a little more low key too.  As you already know, I've been working from my pile of "unswatched" polishes.  I was desperate to get my paws on Balloon House from Indys Indies and to make the postage worth it, I also picked up a Shuffle Bag.  What Am I Doing Here was one of those polishes - and a lovely surprise too.

The bottle is crammed full of glitter, there isn't an inch that is not covered in glittery goodness.  There are lovely round glitter pieces of many different colours and the base is also covered in little black glitter too.

I decided to put this topper over a skittle created from my favourite (non-indie) collection of 2013 - Barry M Gelly's from left to right Pomegranate, Guava, Passion Fruit, Key Lime and Blue Grape.  Once these were dry I only had to apply one coat to get a nice covering.  The glitter didn't really need a lot of poking and prodding to get it into place and each stroke of my brush was really glitterful.  The only (really small) niggle I had was that the brush wasn't in such a great condition and it was hard to use.  But that could just be because it's been sat on my shelf for a while, waiting to be used.

I didn't get chance to clean this manicure up, so I apologise for the mess.

And now onto the new stuff.  Firstly, my 2014 Nail-resolutions.

1. Take better care of my nails and hands.  No more picking off nail polish and I will always use hand cream and cuticle oil.
2. Learn some new techniques - water marbling and stamping are at the top of the list.
3. Take better pictures - learn new finger poses and edit my pictures before uploading them.
4. Make more of an effort with social media

And on number 4's note, I'm really excited to announce that Naileymabob is finally on facebook.  I will obviously be sharing my latest blog posts on there but will also share pictures of my failed attempts and my latest nail related purchases etc.  You can find Naileymabob at http://www.facebook.com/Naileymabob.  Don't forget that I am also on twitter, instagram, blog lovin' and pinterest.

Hope your 2014 is amazing and full of beautiful manicures.

An InLinkz Link-up

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