Orly Precious Collection Swatches feat. cherry blossom nail art!

I have been holding onto these pretties for a little while and finally got around to swatching them over the weekend! The Orly Spring 2011 collection called 'Precious' is out and they are a mix of creme and shimmer polishes (2 shimmer, 4 creme) and they are verrrry pretty.

Left to right we have Pure Porcelain (pale pink creme), Gilded Coral (coral shimmer), Fancy Fuchsia (hot blue pink creme), Ancient Jade (jade green creme), Sapphire Silk (deep blue slightly teal creme) and finally Royal Velvet (dark blue with purple shimmer).

Before I move onto the swatches, I decided to play with the 'spring' theme using these Orly colours and attempt some cherry blossoms (key word: attempt)...

Oh boy! I had to redo these as the first attempt was quite bad but I think I got the thumb right. I used 3 of the Orly precious colours (gilden coral as the base, pure porcelain and fancy fuchsia as the flower). The subtle grey branches were OPI's totally fort worth it. It's a very subtle look yet very pretty on the nails. Onto the swatches! Let's start with Pure Porcelain:

Ahh pale cremes, such a tricky formula to work with. Pure Porcelain was 3 coats (actually most were except for the jade and dark blue cremes which only needed 2). Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above (although a bit dark - I am experimenting with new SLR settings :-)

Ah one of my faves - Gilded Coral. It reminds me of the NARS Orgasm polish but is much softer (less orange). Beautiful. Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. Isn't it pretty? @_@

Bam! Next we have Fancy Fuchsia and yeah it's really crazy bright. LOVE IT. Very nice for spring/summer. Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. 3 coats like the first two just because of some slight patchiness. Creme formulas tend to be tricky to apply.

Ancient Jade is a creme jade green and only needed 2 coats. Quite opaque. Flash shot above.

When I looked at the natural light shot above I did notice some streakiness but nothing a top coat won't fix.

Sapphire Silk is a dark blue creme and like Ancient Jade only needed 2 coats. Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. Not the biggest blue fan but it applied very nicely.

And lastly we have Royal Velvet and what a spectacular colour it is. More blue than purple in my opinion but you can see purple around the edges. Flash shot above. This could use 3 to 4 coats. Above is 3 and 4, one of the fingers was slightly patchy :-)

Natural light shot above. Isn't it just stunning? Well that is all I have for now, I hope you enjoyed the swatches and the cherry blossoms! Have a fantastic week everyone and I will see you next time :-)

Sephora By OPI Urban Ballerina swatches with cupcakes!

I love my minis and Sephora so I couldn't help but order the Urban Ballerina set online. After swatching the colours (swatches below) I decided to pick out my favourite Urban Ballerina colour (purple, what a surprise) and draw some cupcakes:

I will talk about what I used to draw these in a little bit - first the Urban Ballerina set!

This set contains 4 mini polishes and left to right we have Leotard-optional, The Way Tutu His Heart, Who's Spinning Tonight? and finally Break a leg-warmer!

I'm not sure what season or trend this set is in aid of but it's an interesting name/concept. Onto the swatches!

Leotard-optional is described as an opaque mocha beige. It's a cream formula (no shimmer) and it looks beige-tan to me. The flash shot above is about 3 coats I believe.

Excuse the low light shot above - Canberra decided to be gloomy and rainy all day much to my dismay. This colour is not my cup of tea as a nail polish but I wanted more creams to use with my nail art so it's a winner from that perspective (I need to expand my cream collection 10x :-)

The Way Tutu His Heart is a light pink cream polish. The formula was a bit patchy for me and I believe the flash shot above is 4 coats. It may be the smaller brush though and a full size bottle may not be as problematic. Again, happy to have a new cream in my collection :-)

Nice light pink. Natural light shot above.

Ah here's the real reason I bought this set. Who's spinning tonight? was another purple shimmer polish for me to try! The shimmer is oh so subtle and was hard to capture even with flash as shown above.

In natural light it just looks like a dark purple cream as shown above.

Break a leg-warmer! is another cream in charcoal gray and it's the most opaque of the lot. I only needed two coats for the flash shot above. I like this colour. Unique to my collection thus far.

Natural light shot above. So all up there were 3 creams and one shimmer polish. If creams are your thing then this set may be for you. It's certainly different with that tan-beige colour.

Anyway, I'll talk more about the cupcakes! Obviously, I went for Who's Spinning Tonight as the base colour. Then I added Leotard-optional as the bottom of the cupcake and The Way Tutu His Heart as the frosted top. The only non ballerina set colours I used was China Glaze Snow as the white lines on the cupcake case and Mecca Cosmetica Shine as the frosting/sprinkles on top. Shine is highly recommended, I absolutely adore the shimmery pink. It is a must have. Progress shot of the cupcakes below:

I started with the outline of the cupcake case, filled it then did the outline of the frosting and filled. Details left until last. Thumb swatch below against The Way Tutu His Heart:

Cute isn't it? I am a BIG cupcake lover and I have an embarrassing number of cupcake cookbooks... It was only a matter of time before this design appeared on my blog ;-)

Natural light shot above. Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches and the cupcakes! I had fun drawing them. Until next time...

Essie Spring 2011 Collection mini set swatches feat. Spring Break Beach Nails!

The Essie Spring collection is here! Sadly it's not spring in Australia but I'm going to pretend it is because I don't want autumn/winter to come any closer. So I present to you my spring break beach nails featuring the Essie Spring collection colours:

Cute! I had this look in mind for a while and although a little wonky, the beach umbrellas are cool ;-)

The latest Essie collection has a French theme and consists of 6 colours, 4 of which are available in a mini set as shown below:

There is Nice is Nice (purple/lavendar cream), French Affair (pink cream), Topless & Barefoot (Beige cream) and Coat Azure (a medium blue shimmer). Onto the swatches!

Topless & Barefoot is the most raved about in this collection. It's that 'perfect nude' and while the colour is beige, it is surprisingly flattering on the nails. I didn't expect it to be. A few coats are required though for some patchiness in the formula. Flash shot above.

You'll have to excuse my poor battered hands. Too much housework! Natural light shot above. I really like this colour.

Coat Azure is beautiful. Opaque in one coat and just shimmery gorgeousness. I don't like blue so that's saying something :-) Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. A bit bubbly on the index finger but other than that, applied beautifully.

French Affair is a pale pink cream and a few coats here too I believe. Not as opaque as it looks. Flash shot above.

Nothing to write home about, yet another Essie pink :-) Surely they've run out of pink colours to do?! Natural light shot above.

Nice is Nice, a light purple/lavendar cream. A few coats here as well (basically Coat Azure was the only one coat polish). While purple is my favourite colour, I think OPI's Rumple's Wiggin' wins for me personally. Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. All in all a great set and I might still pick up the other 2 colours that are full sized. They are more nude/sheer colours though. But interesting looking. From the mini set, the standouts for me are Topless & Barefoot and Coat Azure. Just gorgeous.

Here's a close up of the nail design with Topless & Barefoot. I tried to use all the Essie Spring mini set colours for the spring break beach nails but there were a few extras (China Glaze Snow and Orly Blue Belle to create the 'wave' effect).

Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches and beach nails look. It's more summery than spring but you visit the beach on your spring break right?! I have no idea... we don't have 'spring break' as such here... :-P Anyway, I hope everyone is having a lovely week and I shall see you next time :-)

Angry Birds Nail Art feat. the piggies!

Ok I meant to have this up for St Patrick's day but I was too sleepy to finish this look in one night. So I started Thursday and finished Friday... and voila:

Now if you don't know what angry birds is, it's an iPhone game that has become insanely popular and is now available on other platforms like Android. I love this game and I also bought the Seasons edition of the game where they release new levels for each 'season' such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's day and most recently St Patrick's Day. So this look was inspired by the latest release which is why it's very green :-D And you might notice a little leprechaun piggy on my index finger ;-)

Here's a closeup of the piggies in line. I started with the thumb then got too tired and went to sleep! The next day I finished them off. Yes going to work with one green pig thumb is not ideal...

I went a bit green crazy because I didn't feel I had the right 'greens' for this look but if you're curious the base colour is Rimmel Green Grass 260. A bit bubbly but it did the job. While I used a lot of other colours for the minor details, the only other 'main' colour I used was OPI's Gargantuan Green Grape for the pigs themselves.

Now because I like to embarrass myself I'll let you in on a little secret. I've been trying to do these pigs for two weeks now. And have failed miserably. This was one of my failed attempts:

Oh sigh. At this point I decided to change all the colours and start again! If at first you don't succeed...

Well my house is a disaster from travelling on a long weekend then going straight back to work. I shall spend my weekend cleaning, whilst burning scented candles and listening to 80s music :-D Why? Well because I picked up a Bath & Body Works candle called Caribbean Escape and have had Caribbean Queen stuck in my head ALL week. It's been driving me insane. It took me a while to figure out why I had this song stuck in my head too. It smells lovely and while I don't like coconut, the fruitiness of this candle overpowers the coconut. Just lovely.

Ok time for 80s tunes. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! Until next time...

Are You Feeling Lucky? Lucky Green Clover nails and a weekend away!

St Patrick's day is coming up and what better way to get into the spirit than with a little lucky clover mani :-) So I present my blinged up lucky clover:

I didn't realise this would be so hard to take a photo of! I decided to use Essie Pretty Edgy as the base and I was sad I didn't have many yellow green grass type cream polishes so I blinged out with China Glaze Emerald Sparkle as the dark green base and Sephora by OPI Gleek Out as the outline.

Sadly flash was not my friend tonight. While I got some superb shots of my thumb nail, trying to get all in focus with no light reflecting was quite difficult. But you get the picture :-D

I wasn't able to post on the weekend because I was in Perth for a friend's wedding. We did some touristy things in the Swan Valley (we've been before so didn't have do to the wineries again) and managed to get in a bit of shopping in Perth CBD ;-) Here are some photos of my weekend away...

After shopping in the city, we walked out to the Bell Tower that's along the river.

We also returned to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory (the one located in Swan Valley, but we've also been to the Margaret River one :-) to pick up some delicious but over priced choccy.

This is the second time we've been around the Easter season but they had a lovely display in the window looking in on the factory.

Close to the chocolate factory is Yahava Koffee, coffee tasting with a large selection of coffee beans and tea. I got a black tea and the bf picked up 3 kinds of coffee beans.

Here we have a shot of the wedding location (ceremony was held outside at the resort we stayed at).

What trip isn't complete without a little shopping? :-D I picked up the velvet edition Lola by Marc Jacobs (the one with the felt cap) and the solid perfume bracelet. It is love.

I love the scent. It reminds me of something from my childhood but I can't put my finger on it...

Well I hope you had a lovely weekend, and have a great St Patty's day if you celebrate :-D Until next time lovelies...