Review - Nelly Polish - Looe

*** Sample Provided for Review ***

My first review sample! Thanks so much to Hilary of Nelly Polish for sending me this and another bottle (Mena) to have a nice play with.

I have to admit that I've photographed Mena twice and the light just would not behave, so sadly I've only got Looe to show you today.

ER31DC Week 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

Stripes. I love stripes.

Swatched - A England Galahad

Just a short swatch post whilst I'm setting off on my jollies - hopefully nothing will explode whilst I'm gone!

I've been after this polish for months now, and when Mr Painted-Claws got overexcited and gave me one of my birthday presents early I nearly exploded when I opened this up.

Galahad is such a beautiful blue creme, bright and bold and absolutely gorgeous. I know I'm gushing, but I really think this may be one of my favourite polishes.

The pictures above show two coats, although the second coat was pretty much just out of habit - this is a super pigmented creme that goes on amazingly and dries quite fast. These pictures do have a topcoat of Seche Vite, thus the amazing shine, but on its own its quite shiny as well.

Pokemon Challenge Gen II, Round 5 - Flying

I was so impressed by Rachael's HootHoot nails for round 1 - he's a dual Normal/Flying type that I thought I'd try it myself for the flying round!

ER31DC Week 25 - Inspired by Fashion

I'm terrible at fashion. If its not jeans and a t-shirt, I'm probably not gonna wear it. I did however spot this jumper in the New Look autumn collection and fall in love with it a little. I love jumpers. They protect me from my bitterest enemy - the cold.

I love the colour with the white of the lace on the front, co I went to try and replicate it. Then I realised there is no way I'm that good at freehanding things so I pulled out my Born Pretty Store lace stickers and BAM. Instant pretty.

Guest Post - Rachael from Racho's Nail Love

Hi all! I'm Rachael from Rachos Nail Love. I'm here while Becca is absent, soaking up the beautiful sun on her holiday as she kindly let me do a guest post for her! By let me, I think I bugged her a lot and just told her I was doing one.. but it's a good one I promise - can't have anything less than the best for my best friend :)

So anyway - here I go! I started to rack my brains about what sort of nails to do. I had a few ideas of what I would like to try, but as you will know - ideas don't always pan out!

So my first idea was negative space nails. I also love skittles / skittlettes where you have a variety of nail designs with one common aspect like colour, theme etc. And I really love studs, and especially stud crosses. So I thought I would try and throw them all together in a black and gold combination. I loved it until I realised I didn't have any gold tape to finish off my negative spaces. Thats okay - I'll try and freehand it. WRONG! Totally ruined it. Here's what it turned out like. No good.. don't know why I even stuck my name on it!

But I loved the cross, so I decided to keep that and start my other nails again. Bye bye negative space! So I had a perusal of bloglovin, pinterest and instagram and then I remembered some beautiful nails I saw over at Paulina's Passions. I loved them so much, so I thought I would try some splatter nails again. 

So here are my final version nails. I had to add studs, because I love them soooo much at the moment! These ones are from a wheel from Born Pretty Store. I do have to say sorry though as by the time I was finally happy with my nails, the light wasn't great, so the photos are a little dark! Sorry!

What do you think? The colours I used are my new favourites - Deborah Lippmann Modern Love and Essie Naughty Nautical along with my trusty Sinful Colors Black on Black and Snow Me White.

Well, hope you enjoyed my blog post - thank you again to my wonderful friend Becca for letting me do a guest post for her, I hope she loves it too! :) 

Rachael xxx

ER31DC Week 24 - Inspired by a Book

... or a series of books.

My first fandom was Sailormoon. I'm a massive kid when it comes to this anime, I love it to bits!

Pokemon Challenge Gen II, Round 4

Water Round!

I love octopi. Its a bit odd how much I really do love these bizarre creatures, but they're great. So naturally, I went for Octillery as my Gen II Water pokemon choice.

Hollibobs!

That's right ladies, I'm off on my holidays.

From the 11th to 26th of this month I will be in (and around) sunny Faro in the south of Portugal, doing very little except swim in the sea and read in the sun.

This isn't just a holiday for myself through - I'm taking this chance to give my nails a nice, polish free fortnight. I'm also cutting my nails right down, which is going to be very different as my nails are very long for me at the moment.

There will be posts whilst I'm away, including a guest post by one of my Chief Enablers, Rachel of Racho's Nail Love and (hopefully) my challenge nails for the two challenges I'm participating in at the moment.

When I get back however, there will be plenty going on - I've had quite the haul for my birthday, as well as trying to get my hands on some Kiko polishes whilst on the continent, so I'm sure that will more than make up for the slight quietness that may creep in over the next two weeks!

Pokemon Challenge Gen II, Round 3

Round 3 - Fighting!

Not many new fighting types added in Gen II. so I fell back on a Gen I classic...

ER31DC Week 23 - Inspired by a Movie

Apologies for the massive lateness of this post, but I'm off on my holidays on sunday and last minute panic is in full swing in the Painted Claws household. And by that I mean my other half keeps telling me not to worry and I keep writing insane lists and losing things.

This mani was inspired entirely by Rachael over at Racho's Nail Love and one of the mani's she did for a recent challenge - Comic-Con Geek Week Day 3.

I love Stargate. I remember watching the film so many years ago and absolutely adoring it. I even had the video game for the Mega drive back in the mid-90s. I was terrible at it. But the thing that captivated me most and the one thing that ties all of the various versions together is the gate itself.