You look *lovely* today.

{image source: keep calm gallery}

And I'm not just trying to keep you on side because posting's been so light lately.

Honest.

Just another Manicure Monday: Chanel Mimosa

A famous quote that's usually attributed to Coco Chanel says that a woman should remove the last accessory she put on before she leaves the house. Since I'm more likely to look in the mirror and decide that I need another few baubles than follow that bit of advice, it's probably no great surprise that I felt like embellishing the sunshine-y goodness of Chanel's SS11 must-have, Mimosa. 

Mimosa (€21) is a polish that's already got quite a lot going on - it's bright yellow, and shot through with microshimmer, and did I mention that it's yellow? - and it looks very special indeed in the bottle. It's a surprisingly good colour on my nails and not unflattering to my skintone. However, it does make my unkempt cuticles look quite red and horrific, as Himself was kind enough to point out to me yesterday afternoon. 

Eventually I reached for my bottle of OPI Bring On The Bling, thinking that a multi-coloured glitter accent nail would break up the full-on, cuticle-reddening expanses of Mimosa nicely. I had this cheery photo in mind when I broke out the sparkles:

{source: Rue Magazine via pinterest}

It makes me wonder why I don't already have yellow tights and sequinned peep toes in my wardrobe every time I see it. 

Then, because loading bling onto a yellow manicure wasn't quite OTT enough, I found a white nail art pen and went all Jonathan Adler on the remaining nails. 

Madame would be horrified.

Talon-tastic Thursday: The Paul & Joe accent nail

If you're a lover of beauty or cats - or both - you'll no doubt remember Paul & Joe's cat-headed lipsticks from Autumn/Winter 2010. While I never purchased a tube of kitty lippy for myself, I loved the concept and, of course, the predictably gorgeous packaging.

So when I saw this nail wheel...

{source & photo credit: Clara Hwang}

... and the nail inspired by one of those Paul & Joe lippies, well, I clearly had to have a go myself. 

Now, the picture above doesn't really represent how the packaging of Moon Shadow looked In Real Life, since the flower print was actually on a light gray-green untextured background. Here's a visual reminder incase you can't quite picture it.

{image source: BeautyBay}

'member?

Anyway, I decided that I actually preferred the version with polka dots on a beige base and thought I'd work it into a retro red manicure as an accent nail. I used Orly Country Club Khaki as the base on my ring fingers, Essie Wife Goes On for the red in the flowers, an ancient polish called Sassy from Tesco for the pink, and Barry M Racing Green for their leaves, all of which I hand-painted with a small brush. I used Sally Hansen's nail art pen for the polka dots, and the other nails were painted with Essie Wife Goes On.

Want to see how it turned out?

BOOM.

Mmm. Shoesday.

It was only a matter of time until my beloved, bargainous, and bejewelled Accessorize leopard print flats got too worn and tatty looking to wear anymore. I suppose I always knew that that day would eventually come, but I still can't quite believe it's arrived.

And now that their time is up, I am utterly bereft.

They've been my go to shoes for just over a year so I'm panicking about what I'll do without them. In a particularly cruel twist of fate, I recently discovered that Next had almost identical shoes in stock until a couple of weeks ago.

My eBay Watch List is primed and ready to tell me if a pair pop up online, but obviously I need something to wear on my feets on the meantime.

I think that these little beauties from Oasis (£25) will do the job very nicely indeed. In addition to being gold and glittery with a lace corsage and pearl 'n' bling embellishment - all of which I love, of course - they're super comfy. Nice one!

Pimp my gaff

This weekend, I shall mostly be trying to obscure the contents of our glass-fronted kitchen presses.   

Being able to see all our cups and cereal boxes even when the doors of the presses are closed really isn't my idea of a good time. I have bought me a roll of hot pink opaque window film (from these very nice peeps) and I am NOT afraid to use it. 

If my home improvements humour holds out, I also intend to do this to the back of our front door.

{photo credit: Lisa Barrett}

And it shall look amazeballs.

Talon-tastic Thursday: Back to basics

You might not have guessed it from yesterday's ninjas, but I wasn't joking when I said recently on Beaut.ie that I've been less and less bothered to do nail art lately. 

Case in point: these plain, wallet-matching nails, which I wore for almost a week without any temptation to do so much as an accent nail before the ninjas took over. 

I know you can't see my thumbnail, but I promise there are no fancy BlackBerry bling shenanigans going on with it. It's just a bit short and stubby and self-conscious feeling so asked not to be included in this picture. 

What you're seeing here is two coats of Rimmel Lycra Pro Coral Romance (which I got in March 2009 so we're heading into our THIRD summer together - who says nail polish doesn't keep?!) with Essie Super Duper Topcoat. 



Psst - I had to use my Orly Nail Repair Kit on two of the nails in the photo before painting them. Can you tell which ones? (The correct answer, by the way, is "No Lynnie, these all look perfect and seamless to me!" Just so you know.)

Come Shop With Me

To get away from a monster spider lurking in the hot press and our upstairs neighbours' noisy grandkids, I took myself into town on Tuesday evening to get something to wear to the two summer weddings we've been invited to.

Want to see what I tried on?  

{petrol beaded dress & coral pintuck dress from Topshop}

At £150, I shouldn't even have tried on the dress on the left. It's way over budget, but at least I didn't fall in love with it in the changing rooms. I actually think it's wildly overpriced for what it is. It's a nicer, more Prussian blue colour in person, and the beading's lovely, but I just didn't think that it looked like an expensive dress when it was on.

It's also made for someone taller than me: the boob area seams were somewhere down around my waist, making the neckline look decidedly more daring than would be appropriate for a daytime event. And - as if I needed another reason to pass! - the pleating and flounciness on the lower half made me look (a) completely out of proportion and (b) like I had something to hide.

Eh, NEXT!

I am not very good (read: completely rubbish) at up-styling plain items of clothing, so I can't really see myself being able to make the shift pintuck number on the right look particularly special for a wedding. I can see it with a skinny gold metal or patent leather belt, or maybe some chunky jewellery, but that's about it.

This is a bit overpriced too, I feel, for a polyester offering that I can only really envisage as a day dress. It clocks in at £46.

The colour and cut were vay flattering, though, and it would be a good summer staple... ok, this is one that might yet find a way into my wardrobe after payday.

{floral printed tunic dress from Zara}

{lantern dress from Zara; the one I tried was this shape but plain & hot pink}

I find that Zara clothes look great on the hanger but heartbreakingly manky on me. The fluorescent tube lighting down the sides of the mirrors of the Zara changing rooms that emit as much heat as they do unflattering light don't help matters. 

Both the above frocks made my mildy pear-shaped arse and hips look cartoonishly enormous. 

Yeh, a bit like that, but more tragic and less cutely kooky.

A quick look around Miss Selfridge, River Island and French Connection didn't turn up anything suitable either, and at that stage the shops were closing. 

It was time to head home. With, er...

{navy & cream heart print cardi from Topshop}

{bling & bowtie blouse from Ci Ci at Topshop}

{chunky costume necklaces with semi-precious stones from River Island Design Forum}

{gold Nadalia trainers from French Connection}

I don't suppose there's a chance that some permutation of these items will add up to a wedding outfit, is there?

Nails Of The Day: NINJANAILZ!

This handful of miniature, super stealthy, ever watchful ninjas was inspired in part by The Daily Nail and in part by the gang of rogue Hassansins in the fillum Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time, which we watched on Sunday night. 

Lookit, Sunday was a slow night on the tellybox and actually, it wasn't that bad. 

The dude on my middle finger is clearly the ringleader, with his snazzy headband, and he and his covert crew are on a mission to take out bad manicures wherever they see them. 

Well, that's not strictly true. Mostly they're on a mission to sneak around tabletops or appear on Himself's shoulder demanding tea and say "hiii-ya!" a lot. Having these little characters on my nails has been loads of (very, very childish) fun.

This is an easy one to DIY. I used Barry M Peach Melba, which is absolutely gick on its own on my nails, for the flesh colour. You could use a pen or the end of a sewing pin for the eyes - see my guide to creating polka dots on Beaut.ie for more deets. 

Oh, and keeping the black borderline under their eyes as straight as possible will make them look a bit more menacing, which obviously helps to ensure that demands for tea are met promptly and without the need for the ninjas to get nasty.