New Year’s Eve Sparkly Nails

So I kept my promise at the end of yesterday’s post and here’s my second batch of New Year’s Eve looks. All glitters, yay!

With flash

Without flash, slightly blurry as it was hard to take the picture with my left hand!

Little Finger

Base colour- NYC Quick Dry Polish in Manhattan

Glitter- NYC Rock Muse Smoky Top Coat

Ring Finger

Base Colour- Catrice Hollywood’s Fabulous 40s LE Nail Polish in The Nude Scene

Glitter- Model’s Own Hed Kandi in Ibiza Mix

Middle Finger

Base- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Glitter- Nails Inc Nail Jewellery in Princes Arcade (Pink Diamond)

Index Finger

Base- Sally Hansen Hi-Definition Nail Color in Spectrum

Glitters- Color Club in Sexy Siren (blue, one coat, from Inner Vixen 2008 collection)

Color Club in Object of Envy (green, dabbed over parts of blue, from same collection)

Essence Nail Art Special Effect! Topper in Disco Disco

Thumb

Base- Nails Inc in Paddington

Glitter- Barry M in Amethyst Glitter

Lots to choose from! I like the little finger one as it changes the base from a lovely wine/cranberry colour to an almost oxbloody colour, it’s very subtle. The ring finger reminds me of confetti, perfect for celebrating! The middle finger is inspired by this post by Holographic Hussy (it was the reason I bought that shade!). For the index finger I wanted a full coverage glitter look and went for a mermaid inspired theme with blue, green and silver. And I just loved the Barry M colour for the thumb that I HAD to include it.

Again, I don’t know what my favourite look is! At the moment I think it’s the ring finger one, I love the nude colour used underneath. What’s yours? Also, what are your plans for tonight?

Black and Gold, Black and Gold, Black and Gold

Couldn’t resist putting the lyrics in there! It’s been stuck in my head since I had an idea of doing black and gold nail looks for New Year’s Eve. Something to suit everyone’s likes! I don’t know why but black and gold paired together really bring New Year’s Eve to mind. I guess it’s classy and sophisticated.

With flash

Without flash

Index Finger

Gold- Color Club in Sultry Diva (Inner Vixen 2008 collection)

Black- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Middle Finger

Nude- Nails Inc in Basil Street

Gold- Revlon in Gold Coin

Black- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Ring Finger

Black- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Gold- Essence Snow White Collection in The Huntsman

Little Finger

Black- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Gold- Claire’s Accessories Nail Pearls in Gold

Thumb

Black- NYC Expert Last Nail Polish in City Blackout

Gold- Chit Chat Nail Polish in Gold

The middle finger was inspired by the art deco nails on Beaut.ie. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll have another nail post up for multi coloured sparkles on NYE!
I don’t know which is my favourite, I love them all for different reasons! What’s your favourite?

New Year’s Resolution Recap

It’s the time of the year where I go over the New Year’s Resolutions I made for the year and see how I did!

1. Be more healthy and exercise more (I really need to lose weight too but I think if I concentrate more on being healthy instead of obsessing over losing weight, I’ll succeed better)

Eek! This is never a good resolution is it?! Best to leave it at that!

2. Get a job

Sigh, so close on some accounts but no dice.

3. Cook 12 new savoury/dinner dishes

15 new things! Yay! Roast Turkey, potato stuffing, bread & sausage stuffing, honey slow cooked chicken, yaki soba, chick pea burgers, turkey mince stir fry, slow cooker chicken korma, naan bread, onion bhajjis, chicken burger, oven cooked parmesan chicken, Chinese 5 spice chicken with hoisin sauce, spiced honey pork chops and potato gnocchi!

4. Make 12 new sweet dishes

22. TWENTY TWO! A record for me! I guess having my own kitchen helped. Here they are: vanilla slices, pecan pie, pumpkin tart, pumpkin muffins, molten chocolate pots, soda bread, lemon meringue pie, cherry bakewell cupcakes, butterscotch blondies, Coca Cola cake, chocolate fudge cake, red velvet cream cheese brownies, cake batter fudge, macarons, banana butterscotch sponge cake, banana and peanut butter cookies, coffee mascarpone bundt cake, peanut butter, banana and bacon bread, honeycomb, Dutch oven pancakes, banana and honey nut muffins and cake in a mug! Phew! (I’ve just noticed that I’ve really loved bananas this year).

5. Finish reading all the books I’ve started (There’s about 20-30 of them).

Right, just as I thought, I got really side-tracked by new books! Typical really. According to Goodreads, I read 28 books (not including the cook books and novellas I read). I’m in the middle of 3 books at the moment, I might finish one before New Year’s Day though.

6. Watch 50 films I’ve never seen (while completing the A-Z list I started last year).

From my records (and I could be wrong as I didn’t really do a good job keeping track), I got to 37. It could be one or two more, I might have seen some films on TV and just forgot about them. I have 3 left in the A-Z: O,Q and Z! Sigh, I will get it completed eventually!

7. Learn a new skill (as of yet I have not decided)

Hmm, I didn’t really stick to anything. I got back into knitting which was nice. I concentrated more on doing 30 Days of Pinterest and 25 Before 25, which was fun.

Christmas Tree Nails!

Merry Christmas everyone! I meant to post this one earlier but got caught up in pre Christmas madness. Here’s some nails I did the other week (I’ve actually kept my nails bare for Christmas Day as I just didn’t have time to do them!).

Hope you had a great day!

The C Word

Around this time of the year, the C word usually is Christmas. People start saying in November ‘Is it too early to mention the C word?’ or ‘I’m so excited this year for C********’. But that’s not the one I’m one about today. Nor is the more naughty C U Next Tuesday C Word! No, the C word today is cancer.

In March 2009 my father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that week, I was in the middle of my 3rd year college exams when he was admitted to hospital. I remember sitting an exam and managing to convince the supervisors to let me leave early so I could run to get the bus to take me on the 2 hour journey to the hospital. And 2 weeks later I had to move across the country to do work experience. Luckily the treatment worked and this time last year he stopped chemo and went into remission. Dad went for regular check ups and last month something showed up. It happened so fast, check up Wednesday, phone call Wednesday evening and then overnight admission to hospital Thursday and chemotherapy started again following Thursday. I don’t know why but this time it seems to have affected me more. Maybe it’s because this time Dad will lose his hair. Maybe it’s because he’s found it very difficult to wrap his head around it and has been so up and down, it’s hard to watch someone go through something so emotionally. Maybe it’s because this time he’ll have to get a bone marrow transplant, it sounds so scary and daunting.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they caught it early again thanks to the regular check ups. It’s just, even though it’s hard to deal with something like this at any time, it seems especially hard around Christmas time. Next chemo session is this Thursday meaning Dad should feel well for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but will more than likely be ill for my sister’s 21st a few days later. I am glad to be closer to home this time though.

This has mainly been the reason for my lack of posts, hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things again soon!

YouTube Pick of the Week

A short one this week!

I posted one of Jimmy Fallon and The Roots with Christina Aguilera a few weeks ago and this is a very cute one with Mariah Carey! To get you into the festive mood.

Chandler is possibly my favourite Friend (though I have a soft spot for Monica as we’re pretty alike) and just cracked up at this Moves Like Chandler video. And then I discovered the Chandler Dances on Things tumblr. Could it BE any better?!

This video takes the piss out of the Science, It’s a Girls’ Thing video that the European Commission released earlier this year.

Finally a video for Egg Nog! I’ve never had it before but I plan on using this recipe to make some. Yum!

Snowflake Nails

Another holiday nail look! I wanted to post this earlier than now but never got the chance. I hope to write a blog post about that soon enough.

Anyway! I love the look of snowflake nails. I previously linked Behind Green Eyes black and gold snowflake nails but I love her stamped ones as well! Makes me really covet a snowflake stamping plate. I love Lynnie from Lyndar the Merciless two versions as well (here and here). So I decided I needed to hop on the snowflake nail trend!

Products Used

Blue- Essence Sure Azure (old style bottle, not made anymore)

White- Model’s Own Nail Art Pen in White

Sparkly top coat- Essence Night in Vegas

Essence Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 Nail Polish

I was in Dublin the other week and managed to pick up 3/4 of the limited edition Essence Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 nail polishes (few that was a mouthful!). I decided not to get the gold one as I’m not a huge fan of gold polishes and I just wanted to sparkly ones.

From left:

01 Jacob’s Protection

02 Alice Had a Vision- again

03 A Piece of Forever

04 Edward’s Love

Jacob’s Protection is a beautiful midnight blue with that sparkles.

For some reason I found this the hardest to picture but it is truly a beautiful shade.

Next is Alice Had a Vision…Again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is probably my favourite, in some lights the purple really is bright but in others it’s more subtle and vampy (excuse the pun).

And finally Edward’s Love

At first I thought it was a black with gold but it looked black with silver in certain lights. Either way, it’s a pretty black with sparkles! Perfect bit of glam for Christmas parties!

I got my polishes in Penney’s though they will probably sell out fairly quickly! Which one is your favourite?

Christmas Pudding Nails!

Yay it’s December! I’ve been excited for Christmas for a while now and last night I decided to get into the swing of things especially for The Late Late Show. So I put on my new Christmas jumper and did my nails!

I love Christmas puddings as a Christmas symbol (but not to eat!). Two years ago I made myself a Christmas jumper and put a pudding on it. For this nail art design I was inspired by the lovely Lynnie on Beaut.ie (also found on her own blog Lyndar the Merciless)

Colours Used

Brown- Catrice Ulimate Nail Lacquer in CO2 Reggaeton (Cucuba Limited Edition)

White- Art Club

Red- Art Club

Green- Art Club

Black- Wet n Wild in Black Cream

Top Coat- Colour Club

I have a few more Christmas nail ideas which I’ll hopefully get down. I saw a great snowflake design on Behind Green Eyes which is inspired me, check it out here!