BFF Friday: Indie and an Accent

Oh my, another two weeks have passed and me and My Mint Nails are up to our old tricks with another BFF Friday.

This fortnight is Saz's choice and she decided we should use an Indie polish then match it with a nail art accent nail.  Then she messaged me today and asked if there could be two accent nails.  Luckily I hadn't done my manicure yet, so I nicely agreed.

Anyway, the indie polish I decided to use is my last unswatched Tara's Talons nail polish.  This is a fun and colourful glitter topper called "Disneyland".  Disney is one of my favourite places to go, so of course I wanted this polish.

I painted three nails with Barry M Matte White then two with Barry M Burgundy Crush.  I added Disney land onto the white nails and freehanded Mickey Mouses with a Barry M white nail art pen.

The polish is fab, just like the rest of Tara's glitter toppers.  The only issue I had with this one was that I struggled to get the Mickey glitter pieces out of the bottle but the little buggers finally showed up with a bit of fishing.

Don't forget to check out Saz's blog and find out how her manicure went!

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The Tara Emporium: Ibiza

I'm such a lucky nail art blogger, I really am.  I've got all these fantastic polishes to talk about.  More Tara today and this time I'm here with Ibiza.  It's full of neon-y goodness and if I was one for going clubbing, it would surely remind me of my clubbing times!!  It's mixed up with black stars and shards to give a complete Ibiza-night-club-summer-holiday feel.

I layered mine twice over Barry M White to make sure the colours stood out, which it does.  As per normal, the glitter was easy to apply, gave me great coverage after a shake and was easy to reposition once it was on my nails!  I love it!

Here's the polish without flash first:

  

And now with flash:

  

Perfect!

I only have one more Tara polish to swatch - that's the lovely Disneyland.  I can't wait to get it on my nails and show it off, Disney is my favouritest place in the world.

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Tara's Talons: Barbies Hangover

Hey guys,

I need to save face after that horrific double gradient attempt I did for BFF Friday.  So here is a swatch of the fantastic "Barbie's Hangover" from Tara's Talons (or the Tara Emporium).  I realised in my last post about her, I didn't let you know how you could find out more about her!  Aren't I a naughty nail blogger?  You can buy Tara's polishes at her etsy store, visit her at her website or "like" her facebook page. While I'm doing a little bit of promoting, why not also visit my facebook page - if I get to 250 likes, I'll be launching a facebook only giveaway!

Back to the polish.  Barbie's Hangover is a fab glitter topper.  It's a mix of greens, pinks, whites with a few extra colours mixed in too.  I decided to apply this as a glitter gradient over Model's Own Hypergel in Cerise Shine for the ultimate Barbie look.

(I apologise for the photos - I realised while I was at the Roller Derby that I hadn't taken a photo of my nails!!)

    

Again, because Tara's polishes are so consistent - they applied beautifully, cleaned up well and I got great coverage without much poking and prodding.  Exactly what you need from a glitter topper!

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Striping tape Christmas Trees

I'm still on my search for Christmas inspiration.  I love having festive nails and everybody always comments on them which of course makes me smile.

One Nail to Rule Them All has been posting festive nail tutorials every Tuesday and Thursday and a couple of weeks ago she posted a tutorial to create striping tape christmas trees so I thought I'd give them a shot.

I used Barry M Berry Crush, Barry M Forest Green, Barry M Black and Tara Talon's Naughty or Nice (from my advent calendar) to create the look.  I'm not very good with striping tape and this was extra fiddly hence why my trees don't look nearly half as good as hers.  I am, however, quite impressed with how the Naughty or Nice looks over the black and may be promoted to party glitter topper of choice.  It's so colourful and I love the different shapes and colours in it.

I'm off work for two weeks now over the Christmas holidays so expect a few manicures for me.  Tomorrow I hope to work on something amazingly special for my Christmas Eve/Christmas Day celebrations then on Boxing Day, I hope to share with you some of my Christmas nail presents (I know I've got two bottles from Saz and my Nail Secret Santa to open as well!)

Also, this is my 100th post.  That's really exciting as I've only been blogging a little under a year.  I've got some big exciting things planned for the New Year - including a new look blog and some new techniques I want to try out and I'm already itching to get started!

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Advent Day 7 & 8 - Crackers & 12 Days

Hello, just a quickie from me again because I'm exhausted after a fun filled weekend having an early Christmas day with my friends.

Today and yesterday's advent treats were 'Crackers' a pink tinted polish packed full of glitter and '12 Days' - a grey tinted polish again packed full of glitter.

These are beautiful and will be perfect to go with my Christmas outfits.

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Advent Day 6 - Vixen

Is it day 6 already?  I think all these nail polish fumes are going to my head.  I don't think I've ever painted my nails so much.  I've run out of acetone and cotton wool this week!

I unwrap a beautiful blue/silver metallic paint this morning called Vixen and applied it over a white base to make sure the colour came out.  And it did come out very nicely.

I'm in Birmingham tomorrow night so there'll be no advent related post, but keep your eyes peeled for Sunday and a double whammy!

Have a good weekend! :)

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Advent Day 5 - Prancer

Ooh these polishes are getting nicer.

Firstly, I need to apologise for the state of my nails in last night's post.  I was so proud but looking back, it wasn't really that neat!!

Today's polish is a metallic purple with pink and gold hexes called Prancer.  I applied two coats over Barry M Berry Ice Cream (and a top coat of course).

Can you tell I've discovered the flash on my phone camera?  It really brings out the colour properly.  At the moment my phone camera is a better quality than my actually camera (which is on eBay) but I'm hoping to invest in something more decent after Christmas.  Any recommendations?

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Advent Day 4 - Mistletoe

I'm a little tipsy but check out my dedication.  I have been out for my first Christmas party, had a few glasses of wine and a lot more glasses of Southern Comfort and Lemonade (yum).  But I got home and did my nails so that I could keep up with my advent challenge!

Today's treat is a mink coloured base with a multitude of different colour glitters in all shapes and sizes.  It looks really lovely.

Now, apologies for the mess of my nails.  As I explained, I've had a bit to drink and I'm quite impressed at how neatly I managed to paint my nails base coat, two coats white, two coats Mistletoe and two coats top coat!  How good am I??

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Advent Day 3 - Letter to Santa

Day 3 brings me a nude creme polish called Letter to Santa.  It looks quite exciting in the bottle, it seems to have a bit of shimmer in it but I was a bit disappointed when I put it on.

Here is the bottle.  I've taken shots without flash and with it (and I don't usually do that) in hope of getting some of that shimmer potential out.

I'm out on my first Christmas party tomorrow and this polish is a little plain for that I think.  But the polish was a perfect base for a subtle glitter gradient.  I used Barry M Duchess and Barry M Pink Glitter for this.

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Advent Day 2

Today's advent-y treat is a lovely bluey-grey topper with blue shards called Tinsel.

I wanted to try out how it looked over a couple of different colours so I went with Sally Hansen's Dorien Grey on most my fingers with an accent of Barry M White (this manicure looked lovely and simple anyway, so I must remember to try it just on it's own at some point).  I then added two layers of Tinsel then two layers of top coat to give it extra shine.

The blue shards were a lot easier to get out and they stick down well so hopefully they won't ping off or catch.  I quite like this topper.  I can't wait to see what I get tomorrow.

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Advent Day 1 & Birthday Trips Out!

So as you can see from yesterday's blog post, I was on a coach from London to Newport.  I had spent the day in London with some of my most favourite people.  We tried to go and enjoy the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park but it was absolutely rammed with people.

Anyway, I also got a few nail related birthday goodies, including a lovely red from Claire's Accessories from Kathie, a fabulous looking Nail Lacquer UK polish and a kit to make my own nail polish from Saz.  You'll see more of these soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

I don't share many personal photos, but here's one of me enjoy a nutella covered pretzel

Yum!

Anyway, today is the first of December.  Pinch, punch it's the first of the month!  That means its time to open my fabulous Indie Polish Advent calendar that I bought from Tara's Talons.

It's hanging precariously from my coat peg on the back of my door because I can't find anywhere else to put it!!

Day 1 gave me a little glitter topper called Happy Elf.  In the bottle it looks like a light green tinged glitter top coat.  I tried it first over white, as I thought there was a green tinge to it so the white would help to bring the colour out but instead the white just hid the glitter.

So after discussing with Saz, I decided to try it over Barry M's Gelly Watermelon instead which is a deep green.  The colour definitely shows up the glitter a lot better.

The big flower shapes are light green (the smaller ones) and the bigger ones are silver though the pictures don't really do them justice.  I found it a little hard to get the shapes out, so a lot of shaking, poking and prodding took place and my nails are too curvy for the big ones to lie flat and I think they're going to catch/irritate me/ping off tomorrow in work but we'll see.

I'm hoping that this advent calendar will keep me posting more regularly.  If I can, I hope to post about the polish the day I open it.  If I have to skip a day or two (it is Christmas so I think I can be forgiven) I can combine the polishes into a funk manicure. 

I'm also looking forward to my new layout, which should be ready any day now.  I'm also looking at ways to increase my viewership and I'm hoping to think up a giveaway in the next few weeks or so.  Maybe these could include my attempts at indie polishes!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

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