MAC Surf Baby Nail Polish Swatches, Hibiscus Nail Art and Pandora :-D

Oh MAC polishes, how you tempt me and frustrate me at the same time. I wasn't planning on buying the summer collection polishes from the MAC Surf Baby line. However I noticed they were creams and I thought 'ooh, perfect for nail art'. Especially tempting as one looked nude/skin toned. You won't find it hard to guess where I got the nail art inspiration from ;-)

Ah yes, the Surf, Baby! line has cute hibiscus flowers on the packaging and I'm a sucker for different packaging. I can't say I like the red flower so I went for white over MAC's Ocean Dip.

Obnoxious yellow packaging? Check.

Alas you might think these are both creams as the bottles claim but looky here at the swatch of Hangin' Loose:

Up close that flash shot reveals shimmer! Subtle yet still pretty at two coats I was slightly disappointed. I thought cream meant no shimmer :-/

And here is a swatch of Ocean Dip. So pretty. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of teal/jade/blue/green shades but this one is lovely and I couldn't wait to wear it.

Now here's the sad part. Normally when I swatch I don't get the opportunity to wear the polishes for very long. I wore Ocean Dip for a couple of days and despite my heavy base coating, my beautiful white nails turned slightly yellow. Which yellows and blue shades tend to do. But quite frankly this annoyed the crap out of me because I had just last week (after filing away the remainder), finally removed the last of my *very* yellow nails from a previous naughty polish. All I can say is wear Essie's Mint Candy Apple without base coat at your own risk. Looking online I see similar claims. It takes months to grow out badly stained yellow nails and over the last couple of years there's a few polishes that have been thrown in the 'sin bin'. The joys of nail polish?

Back to the hibiscus nail art! Only a few colours required and my current favourite MAC polish Ice Cream Cake makes a return :-) I really need to start looking for a new white nail polish as poor China Glaze Snow is getting thick and hard to work with.

To start with, I simply drew the outline of the flower with five petals, slightly pointed at the end.

Second I filled with white.

Next drew the pistil (uh thank you google?) with MAC Hangin' Loose and the shimmer while visible, didn't detract from the look.

Finally added MAC Ice Cream Cake to the centre of the flower and as stamens at the top. Then I just finished with a top coat!

Onto something slightly off topic, the boyfriend and I celebrated an anniversary on the weekend. He presented me with a bunch of red roses, one for each year we've been together. There were six and he is very sweet.

The roses came with this cute balloon!

And because the weather has been absolutely dreadful here (cold, windy, rainy) we had a picnic on the lounge room floor. Complete with picnic blanket and a small bottle of bubbly :-)

And a whole lot of cheese! Oh my I was so full after this cheese and cracker epica.

I was surprised with a bag from Pandora, and there was a small wrapped gift box inside.

Revealing a new charm for my bracelet :-D I had my eye on this duotone star charm for a while and was stoked when I saw it.

My updated Pandora Bracelet! Which I promptly cleaned and polished. Silver gets tarnished SO quickly! But I love the charm, it was a really lovely weekend.

Well I hope you enjoyed the flowers and swatches, let me know if you've been tempted by anything in the Surf Baby collection. I was very tempted to get the eye liners but resisted :-( Hope you're all having a wonderful week and I'll see you next time!