....fighting tooth and NAIL

So here's my first beauty post. I had intended to set up my tripod and work out a really cool setting for some daily outfit photos but I never really got around to it... busy busy! 

But while I had some down time I decided to give a bit of nail art a go. Forgive me if this post is a bit all over the place but it was my first attempt in years at anything nail arty, usually i just paint them a block colour and wait until they're hideously chipped to re-do them.

A few days a go I was with my mum in a hairdressing/beauty wholesalers and I decided to pick these babies up:

• The nail art brushes were 1.95 each but came with no instructions on cleaning or anything so I presumed nail polish remover and a cotton pad would do the trick.. but now the brushes are all hard and crap and for 4 euro.. one use is not value for money :( If anyone has any advice on how to clean them, I'd really appreciate it.

• On the upside the nail stickers are AMAZING, they're really soft and pliable so they stick to the contour of your nails. I just have one on my thumb to test it... 5 hours and it's still there :)

First I painted my nails with a base coat of grey. I chose Rimmel's 60 second nail polish - grey matter (see image below):

Next I tried out the nail stickers, just on my thumb. They're so easy to use. Just paint on a basecoat, peel off a sticker, place it on your nail and finish it off with a clear top coat. I like Rimmel's 5 in 1 Nail Care, Nail treat polish.

Then for the rest of my nails I messed around a bit first with some random patterns as you'll see below. I then settled on a very sleek simple design of half and half... (It's kind of like a french manicure at an angle... kind of). 


Due to me throwing out a lot of old crappy gloopy polishes recently my colour palette was confined to either red or blue/green. I gave the bluey/green a whirl but it looked so flat and kinda like I was just bad at painting my nails. So red it was! (or 'frisky clover' to be precise)


I finished off the nails with a top coat of the rimmel 5 in 1 for strength.

Aaaaah, *blurry picture alert*

Ignore the second nail from the left... I got a notion to put a shiny stripe across my nail... don't ask me why

Overall i think it's a very simple idea but it looks like you've put in a bit of effort (when it really only took a few mins and a steady hand). These are the nail polishes I used:

I'm mad for Rimmel recently. Great range of colours and their new 1 sec brush makes painting your nails so easy. My only criticism is that they go gloopy REALLY quickly. I must give Models Own a go soon, I've been hearing loads about them. 

Ok so, that's all!

Goodnight!

El :)xx

Hello blog-land!

Welcome to my blog and more importantly welcome to my first entry.. ooooo!


I am currently getting to grips with this whole blogging thing so forgive me if I post something now and then post nothing for a couple of days. The chances are no one will be reading this until I have more posts anyways as I've decided I won't start promoting it until I have a pretty nifty set of posts, first impressions are everything you know??


My plans for this baby are great but it's just deciding where to start that's tough. I suppose I should say a bit about myself, my aims and objectives... yada yada yada.


As I've stated in my 'who am i?' section, I like: 

CLOTHES
(I <3 stripes)

COOKING
(please note this isn't me, or my child, I don't have a child.. i'm 22 and can barely look after myself)

& CATS
(not my cat but very cute all the same and similar colouring to Pixie - I won't give too much away about her just right now.. she deserves a post all to herself)

I'm pretty sure I'm breaking all sorts of copyright laws with those images but I'll worry about that later... I even have a plan to combat it... in the meantime, i dunno, sue me or something.

ANYWAYS.. For my Blog I plan on having outfit posts of my lovely self, beauty tips, hair tips (courtesy of my mother.. maybe, i dunno, I haven't asked her yet), things i want to buy, maybe some tv and film related things, the odd interview here and there and some yummy recipes to get you drooling... My only restriction is that it the contents must err on the side of the cheap cheap cheap (except for when I tell ye about my new coat... 75 euro but soooo worth it)

So that's it really... I'm off for some girly time with my friends, I plan to pick their brains about cool stuff for my blog :) and see what they think of my layout so far. Also anyone? If you're out there... say hello! 

Let me leave you with something I found as I googled 'cooking':

How hilarious is this?? Also labelling it a 'teaser version' won't make me want to buy it... lets just hope they're making some reference to manly chefs and not their nether regions

Toodles,

El :) xx