2014: The Year of the Nail Art

New year, new nails - or at least that's the idea!  Now that it's insanely cold (I am just nowhere near ready for the snow to make it's chilly appearance) the only thing that's getting me through this frosty weather is having some fun nail art to display to the world (and by the world, I mostly just mean me and a handful of work colleagues who have to put up with me unsubtly waving my nails in front of their eyes so that they can acknowledge my handiwork). 

My New Year's eve nails (below) are not that exciting but that's due to the fact that I left it until the last minute to do my nails so I really only have myself and lack of time keeping skills to blame, such a rookie error - I feel so ashamed!

 



Freakin' loved the blue holographic nail polish though which was a sneaky purchase from Wah Nails in Topshop's flagship Oxford Circus store!

My next nail treat for 2014 was based on my five-year-old self's role mode - Jasmine, as in Jasmine of 'Aladdin and Jasmine' fame!  All I ever wanted was a flying carpet to sing 'A Whole New World' on but I was deprived of that joy because apparently flying carpets don't actually exist or whatever!  Here's my Jasmine nails for you to have a peep at:

 



My next nail art session involved smiley faced clouds with rainbows, cherries, camouflage, polka dots and a double French design. People have been loving this at work, even though I feel that my clouds look more like clowns (which is not ideal seeing as clowns terrify me!).

 



I was actually lucky enough to get my nails done at Wah Nails at the beginning of December which was sort of a dream come true as I'm not going to lie  to you, it's so nice to get your nails done by someone who actually knows what they're doing!  I even went all out and got acrylics - I don't like to brag but I kind of live life on the edge!



 

I just now need to figure out my next nail art designs to make sure that 2014 becomes 'The Year of the Nail Art' - because every year needs some kind of dramatic title, right?!





A Girl Can Dream.............

So here's some of the latest nail art designs which I've been sporting lately:

 

I'm kind of loving the design in the last photo, it's what I have on my nails right now and someone (yes, it was a stranger but it's ok, she didn't offer me any candy) even asked to take a photo of them which I obviously said yes to because I'm pretty nice that way (unless you eat my last Mars Bar ice cream - do that & I WILL destroy you. Seriously.). So anyway, my nails are famous now...........well, sort of.....ok, so not really but a girl can dream, right?

  

London Fashion Week and Other Stuff!

A happy belated Valentine's Day and more importantly a happy belated Pancake Day to whoever is reading this!

I've been pretty busy of late - I've recently become a feature writer for a new online magazine (http://www.tfvmagazine.co.uk/ - check it out!) so I had the launch party for that last Monday in Mayfair and from last Friday to Monday I was given the amazing opportunity to attend several fashion shows for London Fashion Week and write up reviews on the collections for the magazine.  I cannot tell you how excited I was about this and what an amazing time I had - plus it was such great experience which is always good!

I'm not going to lie, London Fashion Week was a great distraction to something which I'm pretty damn nervous about tomorrow (I may reveal all in my next blog post depending on the outcome......*oooooh how mysterious*).

In my last blog post I mentioned about getting my hair done at Bleach London in Topshop and all I can say is that I freakin' love my dip dye.  The only downside was that it took a fair while but that was expected as getting your hair coloured always takes ages, I just basically hate sitting still! Anyway, I went for a standard blonde dip dye as I figured it was easier to maintain as I wouldn't have to worry about getting the colour topped up (I'm all about saving the pennies!).

Also I'll post a pic of my latest nail art at some point this week so stay tuned for that! 

Time to finish this post as I'm watching The Brits and the ad break is about to finish! Raaaah!

 

Lex Luthor Seriously Needs to Chill Out

So, I'm pretty sure that I haven't written a post since late 2012, as in last year. OOPS! I take full ownership for that and have no acceptable excuse other than I've been crazy busy........and Lex Luthor keeps trying to thwart me. Ok so that last bit re Lex Luthor may not be true but the crazy busy bit is!

I have some cute Christmas nails that I did over the festive period for you to feast your beautiful, sparkly eyes upon (yes I am sucking up right now to make up for my absence. Whatevs.):

Plus these standard non-Christmas nail designs aren't bad either:

Not much to report on since my last post. I did make one of the biggest decisions of my life just before Christmas.................I decided to get my hair cut. Pretty big deal, eh? It wasn't even a big decision in that it took me about 5 minutes to decide to get it done whilst drinking a cup of tea and daydreaming whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing. My hair was in a rather bad state from a fair bit of bleaching on the ends (courtesy of DIY dip dyes) and was stained from having been dyed various shades of lavender, deep purple and bright pink so all the unpleasantness needed to be hacked off. So I now have short (ish) hair, although it's not so short now that it's grown a bit (because apparently that's what hair does - grow). My hair for the first time in about 7 years is completely natural in colour - no highlights, no dip dyes, no nothing - just 100% natural redhead. It felt weirdly liberating reverting back to my hair's natural colour and it was nice to know what my actual hair colour was, I mean, I knew I was a redhead, I just had no idea what shade of red I was. Turns out I'm a kind of deep auburn colour which I'm digging (yes, I did just say 'digging', this is the 90s, right?). However, I get bored easily and the time has come to say goodbye to my 100% naturally coloured hair and hello again to the dip dye experience, except this time I will be making no attempt to do it myself.......instead I've made an appointment to get it done at Bleach London which I've been desperate to do for AGES. Yes, it'll be pricey but I've saved up for it and it still works out cheaper than what my highlights used to cost me plus hopefully it won't take as long to grow out so I still have the option of reverting back to natural life again.

So that's it, London tomorrow for the dip dye and a casual persual of Topshop (well, I'm only human after all.................although try telling that to Lex Luthor, he seriously needs chill out).

Penguins vs Polka Dots

I don't know about anyone else but when I was younger, I loved Pingu. Honestly, as my five year old self there was nothing more exciting than watching a programme about a bunch of plasticine penguins who spoke an incoherent language.

This Pingu-themed nostalgia trip influenced my latest nail art offering:

I also threw in some polka dots because, well, I like polka dots (I'm preeeetty deep, I know!).

Halloween Nails

Here are my Halloween-themed nails from last week:

Right Hand

Left Hand

I used nail decals for the pumpkin faces and sugar skulls which I'd bought from Etsy. The nail decals are so easy to use and look really effective, they're also cheap which is just an added bonus! I did the Frankenstein's monster faces, blood drip, and 'BOO' all freehand, using a mixture of my Wah Nail Art pen, red and white nail polishes and a dotting tool. These Halloween nails are definitely one of my favourite nail designs so far as they were so easy and quick, they also look pretty decent which makes me love them all the more! 

*HAPPY (BELATED) HALLOWEEN*

.........GRRR. ARGH.

That Awkward Moment When No One Else Is In Fancy Dress.........

Happy (Belated) Halloween!

So my friends and I went out for Halloween last week in fancy dress. We figured that as it was a Halloween themed night at the club and that there was a 'best costume' competition that everyone would be in fancy dress................but they weren't. Don't get me wrong, there was the odd person in fancy dress but no more than the lone, odd person. So there we were covered in our fake blood and wearing our Halloween inspired outfits whilst everyone else was in their standard Saturday night going out clothes. And do you know what's worse? NOT ONE OF US EVEN WON THE 'BEST COSTUME' COMPETITION. Not that we were bothered or anything. I mean, who needs an iPad, right?!

Nonetheless it was still a good night, well, I mean the music was shockingly bad and, as is usual for that club, ridiculously loud, to the point of which my ears were still ringing 3 days after and felt like that there was a good chance that they would drop off. But we still had fun - even if we looked stupid, and it gave me another opportunity to recycle my True Blood costume which I'm determined to get my money's worth out of! Plus fake blood is always fun and by fun I mean extremely gross and goes absolutely EVERYWHERE. As does glitter hairspray, just, you know, FYI and all that.

A few of my friends and I also decided to go to Tulley's Farm Shocktober Fest which was just an allround bad decision for someone like me. If you don't like people jumping out at you dressed as zombies, creepy clowns or crazy chainsaw people then it's probably not for you (something that I wish I'd known beforehand!). I have never screamed so much before in my life. We had to go round this 'haunted' cellar with people jumping out at us, but obviously dressed in horrible costumes, I pretty much had my eyes shut the entire time because I am terrified of EVERYTHING. We ended up doing a haunted hayride and going round the 'creepy cottage' as well, both of which evoked an unnecessary amount of screaming from me. I have to say that even though I was frightened the entire time, I would consider doing it again next year because as frightening it was, it was also fun.............but then again don't hold me to that, ok?

I also did some Halloween themed nail art which will follow after this post, so check it out!