Goodbye Summer Nail Art Contest - Vote!

Hey!

This is just a quickie to ask you all to take a look at Nail Art Tuesday's blog and vote on the entries for her 'Goodbye Summer' contest.

Click here to go to the post.

I have entered but not going to tell you which entry is mine as don't want to influence the vote at all :)

All the entries are great and I don't think I have a chance of winning but it was my first attempt at anything more complicated than dotting so I'm glad I at least gave it a go! Maybe I'll enter more from now on.

Anyway hope everyone had a good weekend and get voting!!

Birthday Pictures (including new nail polishes!)!

Hey!

Finally I have sorted through my pictures and am able to do a post about my birthday :)

Be warned, this post is VERY picture heavy. There is nail polish in it though, promise!

So, as you all know, it was my 30th birthday a couple of weeks ago. I went back to my hometown for it and most of it was a surprise, all organised by my boyfriend, Maz.

We travelled down to Newbury on the Thursday (cats and all) and the first thing I did when I got there was get my hair cut! I still haven't found a hairdressers up here so I always get it done whenever I go back.
Then we spent the evening with my parents who ordered their first dominos pizza and loved it!
Friday we spent the day with my parents and then in the evening I was surprised with a meal out with my family at a local restaurant. My parents had been earlier in the day and decorated the table with lots of sparkly things and some flowers. They also took a cake to be brought out after dinner.

This was the cake -

It may not be obvious by this picture but this cake was HUGE!! I still have most of it in the fridge :)

It was a lovely evening and the food was amazing. I nearly cried when I saw the table had been decorated especially for me. At the end of the night I made everyone pick up all the bits of glitter/tassles/confetti etc so that I could take it all home.

Next day, Saturday, was my actual birthday. I got up early so that my dad could see me open presents before going to work.

Here's what I got -

An overview of everything! The helmer (storage) wasn't a present, my parents just weren't using it much so said I could have it!

The Urban Decay Book of Shadows II was from Barnaby. Such a clever kitten ;)

This little fellow is called Theo and is from Swarovski. This was my present from Bobo. Again, such a clever cat!

A gorgeous bracelet from my brother and his wife (and their bump!).

A nail art kit from my sister and her family. I can't wait for my nails to grow a bit so that I can try this out!

My 2 main presents from Maz. I adore them both. I wear the necklace 24/7 and will wear the watch once we've had it adjusted to fit my wrist!

Spice rack from my parents. I've wanted one of these for sooooo long! I love to cook. My parents also gave me some money which I bought some nail polishes with and plan to make a konad order with the rest :)

Now for the polishes I got -

(L-R) Barry M Acid Yellow, Grey and Dazzle Dust 933. Boots No 7 in Vivid Violet.

The Barry M were from Maz and the Boots No. 7 from a friend. Maz said he tried to choose colours I wouldn't usually get myself and I have to say I'm impressed because I swatched them and LOVE them!

(L-R) OPI DS Extravagance, Lincoln Park After Dark, Teal The Cows Come Home and Purple With a Purpose.

My first full size OPIs!! I was so excited when I saw these. They came from Australia from one of my best friends who lives there.

(L-R) China Glaze Sexy In The City, Watermelon Rind, Ruby Pumps and OPI Reflecting Pool.

As I mentioned earlier I got some money from my parents so I finally went to a Sally's to see what they had and was so happy to find some China Glaze and OPIs! I can't believe I've never checked them out before!

Plus another couple of things I picked up. Some nail bandages and a peroxide whitening gel.

That's it for presents. I also got a dressing table but it's not being delivered until after we move.

I was very, very spoilt. Especially by Maz :)

After the present opening was over Maz then told me that we were booked into a local hotel for the next 2 nights. I was so excited and completely surprised, hadn't seen that one coming at all. So we left the cats with my parents and went to the hotel. We had the most amazing room, I wish I'd taken some pics! It was the Executive Suite - ooo la la!

I had a lovely long bath and got ready for a night out with my friends. I thought we were meeting them in town but at about 8pm Maz said he had to go get something from the car and came back a few mins later with a cake and some of my friends! He'd had the cake made by the hotel and he'd been out earlier to get lots of alcohol for me and my friends (he doesn't drink).

Here's the cake -

How cute! My name is Sarah but my nickname is Millie... for those of you wondering! Maz always calls me Millie.

So we had a few (!) drinks at the hotel and then we hit the town!

Here are a few pics -

That dress I'm wearing was another pressie from Maz.

Me, Hanna and Nisa.

The man who gave me the best birthday ever :)

We took a million pictures but none of me and Maz together came out that great! :(

We had a great night. We danced the whole time and laughed a lot.

Then the next day we went to my parents again for a meal and back to the hotel in the evening.

Monday it was all over and time to go back home again :( I did get one more surprise though, a big bunch of flowers from best friend in Australia. They were meant to be delivered on my birthday but had got lost on route! They were gorgeous and can be seen in the pictures above.

So I had an absolutely fantastic 30th and I didn't want it to end. Maz put so much thought into organising the whole thing and bought me so many presents that I was almost in tears over it all. He also wrote me the sweetest card ever and got me cards from Bobo and Barnaby too :)

I am a very lucky girl.

Sorry for this mammoth post. I know a lot of people won't be interested but I know at least a couple of you who will be.

Thanks for reading!

China Glaze - Coconut Kiss

Hi!

Today I thought I'd show you one of the polishes that I got in my package from MagicMaid. I'm sure you've seen this one swatched before but it has turned into one of my favourite polishes so I had to show you it :)

China Glaze - Coconut Kiss -

These pictures were taken after a couple days wear thus the marks on them!

A purple that actually photographs as purple!

This is 2 coats, no top coat.

I love this colour!

Definitely in my top 10 now.

I wore this again on my birthday weekend with a fauxnad over the top -

Fauxnad done using China Glaze's IDK.

I was only planning on wearing it for the night out with my family but I loved it so much I ended up keeping it on for night out with my friends as well. I got lots of compliments!

Those last 2 pictures were taken in the bathroom of the pub I was in one night! I suddenly realised I hadn't taken any of the fauxnad :)

That's all for today!

Still need to do my proper birthday post but there are so many pictures to sort through that I keep putting it off! Soon though.

Birthday Package!

Hello!

I mentioned in a post a while back about my amazing birthday package from MagicMaid and showed you some overview pictures but I thought I'd do a post completely focused on it as I loved it SO much!

When I picked it up from the post office it was all I could do not to rip it open there and then but I managed to make it home first. Just.

Here's what I saw when I opened it -

There was lots of squeeing and, as you can see, I got some help from Barnaby :)

It took me quite a while to open up all the individually wrapped bottles and I forced Maz to stay and watch every single one ;) He was very good with the appropriate ooohs and ahhhs!

So here is what she sent me -

Cover Girl Boundless Color in (L-R) Disco Dazzle, Luxe Lilac, Amethyst Mist (the label on that one got partly ripped off in my haste and only left the name in french so that's a literal translation which I'm hoping is right!)

(L-R) Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Red Carpet, NYC East Village, Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost and Eggplant Frost.

Sinful Colors - (L-R) Call you Later, Irish Green, All About You, Queen Of Beauty and Secret Admirer.

Sinful Colors - (L-R) Serena and Chloe, Forget Now, Sugar Sugar, Frenzy, I Love You.

OPI - Pretty Little Pinks - My very first OPIs! Was so excited to see these :)

Lastly, China Glaze Fairy Dust and Coconut Kiss.

I love every single one of them. I ended up wearing Coconut Kiss out for my birthday. I had planned something different but once it was on I couldn't take it off! I will show that in another post :)

It really was one of the best packages I've ever received and I can't believe how generous Niki was! Thank you Niki!!

I certainly have plenty of polishes to keep me going for a few posts!

At the moment my nails are actually bare as I'm trying to improve their condition. I got so annoyed with them last week that I just chopped them all off as short as I could! It's not that they're peeling , splitting or anything like that, it's the yellow staining!! It drives me mad. It's my own fault for wearing polish without a base coat but I wish I could get rid of it. I know it sounds silly but even when I have polish on I just know it's there.... :) So I decided I have to sort it and now is the perfect time to do it as I have plenty of pictures stored up for posts. One of my favourite things to do is french manicures but with the yellow staining it's impossible so I'm determined to restore them to health!I've been using a peroxide whitening gel every day and they're already improving so I reckon a few more days and they'll almost be perfect again.

My posts are a bit sparse at the moment due to me not feeling the best. Nothing in particular wrong, just feeling a bit run down I think.

Anyway that's enough from me! Hope everyone is having a good weekend :)

I'm back! So I'll show you a franken :)

Hey!

I am back from my birthday weekend. Well actually I got back on Monday but I have been incredibly lazy since then and not done a lot!

I have lots to tell you and things to show you from my birthday but that will all be in another post when I've had a chance to take some pictures and stuff. What I will tell you now though is that I had one of the best weekends ever and I was completely spoilt.

So on to this post. Before I went away I did a franken which I really love.

I used -

Cover Girl Boundless Color - City Lights with 2 unbranded polishes I've had for a while.

I have no idea where the 2 unbranded polishes came from originally but I didn't particularly like either of them on their own so I decided to mix them and add some more sparkle!

This is the result -

No flash

With flash

I love it!

Here are some pictures of it on my nails. Most of them are with flash as it was the only way to capture the purple in it!

That last picture is without flash but I think you can still see the purple in it.

It's my favourite franken of the few I've made. For once it's not blue!!

Any suggestions for names are welcome :)

Lots of posts coming up over the next few days. I have so much to show you all!

Short Break

Hi!


I am going back to my hometown tomorrow for a few days to spend my birthday with my family and friends. I will have my laptop with me and I have plenty of swatches to show you guys but I don't know if I'll get a chance to do any blog posts whilst I'm there so you may hear nothing from me for a few days! If I'd been more organised then I would have set up some scheduled posts but I am awful for leaving everything until the last minute and now I've run out of time!


I still don't know exactly what Maz has planned for the weekend apart from the fact that we're going out with some friends on my actual birthday on Saturday. I will be taking a million photos so will show you some when I get back!


Hope everyone has a great few days!

Winner Announcement!

Hi!


My giveaway is now at an end. I had SO many entries. Thank you so much to everyone who entered and to everyone who spread the word. I hope all my new followers will enjoy reading my blog :)

So on to who has won!

I originally wrote out all the entries and was going to pick one out of a hat but before I started cutting names up I thought I'd have a quick look online to see if their was a 'pick out of a hat' application and there was! So I used that instead.

Here's what happened -

First I entered everyone's name into the program

Then I went to the hat -

Clicked on pick

and got my winner!

So there we have it. Brooke from Getcha Nails Did is the winner! On her entry she said that she'd like the Barry M option so I will be going shopping soon to get those for her! Congratulations Brooke :)

I wish I could give you all a prize but I will definitely be holding some more giveaways soon as I've really enjoyed doing this one and can't wait for Brooke to get her package!

Ten Bloggers & Ten Random Facts Award

Rebecca from Panda Does Makeup tagged me for this award. Thank you Rebecca!

I will try to think of some facts that I've never told you guys before but if I repeat myself then ignore me!

The Rules:

I share 10 random facts about me

I then tag 10 blogs I ♥ reading

10 random facts:
 
1. I love to clean. I don't mean in an obsessive 'I must get rid of all the germs' way, I mean I just enjoy cleaning. It relaxes me. I even have books about it. My mum can't believe how much I enjoy it because as a child I was the untidiest person ever! She used to dump everything on my bed to try to get me to tidy up but I'd just dump it all back on the floor again :) I was a delight.
 
2. I can't watch result/eviction shows or auditions for anything like X Factor (UK version of American Idol), Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing etc. I can't stand seeing people have their dreams smashed/made a fool of/booed etc. It makes me feel sick. If I get into a programme like that then I always switch off when it gets to those bits :) To be honest though I don't watch many programmes like that full stop but I do LOVE Strictly Come Dancing and get very excited about it.
 
3. I am double jointed. My fingers and toes bend backwards and I freak people out showing them.
 
4. When I was 16 I had a horse riding accident and shattered a bone in my elbow that had to be operated on. 14 years later I still have a lot of issues with that elbow and struggle with things like bowling and throwing!
 
5. My Grandad was a vicar and my Grandma played the church organ for every service he did.
 
6. I used to be in a steel band. We played at fetes and concerts. I also used to play the guitar, piano and drums.
 
7. I don't do diets. One of my biggest loves in life is food, I don't believe in making myself miserable to lose weight so I just accept that I'm never going to be a size 10 (ummmm US sz 6?!). I'm not huge but I'm not thin either. I have lots of cuddly bits ;) One of my and Maz's favourite thing to do is go out for dinner and I would hate for that to be lost due to a diet!! 
 
8. I don't like onions. I hate the taste and the smell. I especially hate raw onions. I spend far too much time picking onion out of things! I don't mind it in a sauce though, as long as it's not visable.
 
9. My mum drank so many milkshakes when she was pregnant with me that I was born allergic to cows milk. Over time I got over the allergy but I am still a bit lactose intolerant so I tend to use soya products for most things otherwise I get really bad acid indigestion.
 
10. Maz tells me 1 thing he loves about me every day. They are always different and they always make me smile. Yesterdays was that he loves when I sing show songs at the top of my voice for no reason, the day before it was he loves how I tie my favourite lounging trousers up with a hairband to keep them up because the elastic is gone so I end up with this silly looking thing at the front (they're my favourite, I don't want to throw them away!). The little ones like that are the ones I love to hear the most :)
 
10 bloggers I read religiously: (in no particular order)
 
Nihrida
Beauty Judy
Getcha Nails Did
Helen and Sheenie's Nice Things
Magic Maid
Nails in Aus
The Digital Rebel
Marble Nails
Body and Soul
Pretty Clever
 
That is just a fraction of the blogs that I read religiously and I wish I could include everyone. I've just gone with blogs that I have read a post on recently so are fresh in my mind but I read EVERYONE's blogs and love them all :)

Storage, Sinful Color's Secret Admirer and Some Nail Art.

Hi!

This is another post that's going to be picture heavy but this time it's all about polish!

I was looking on youtube earlier and saw this tutorial by Nihrida. Seeing as I already had a dark polish on I thought I'd give it a go! Nihrida's blog is one of my favourites to read and great for inspiration!

Here are the results -

I used Sinful Color's Secret Admirer for the base (see below for more about that), Sinful Color's Queen of Beauty as the glitter and BarryM's Silver at the nail bed.

I'm quite pleased with this. As you can see I messed up in a few places but overall I'm happy with the result so thank you Nihrida! I should try things out more often :)

As I said earlier I used Sinful Color's Secret Admirer as the base so here are some pictures of just that before I glittered it!

Isn't it gorgeous! It is another of the polishes that was in the birthday parcel from Niki and it may be one of my favourites... 

It only needed 1 coat (1 COAT!!) and dried really fast compared to other Sinful Color's I've tried. 

Lastly, I went to Ikea on Friday and bought some new storage for my nail polish and accessories. I was thinking about getting a Helmer like I've seen other people using but in the end I went with the Andy because it's more my style and my collection doesn't really justify a helmer at the moment!

I absolutely love it and I can just pull it round to wherever I'm doing my nails that day. Maybe one day I'll have enough polish to need another one.... ;)

Finally, I just cant resist adding a non polish related picture so here's a picture of the dress Maz bought me yesterday as an early birthday present. It's from Jane Norman and was love at first sight for me! I loved it so much that Maz had to get it for me :)

That's it for now. Hope you've all had a good weekend!