Diabetes Awareness

Diabetes is a life-long health condition, and in the UK alone there are 3.3 million people diagnosed with diabetes. It is estimated that almost 600.000 people live with the condition never having been tested for it. It is therefor incredible important to raise awareness for this conditions.

There are two main types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2, where as type 1 is the most commen, UK is seeing a rise in the numbers of people with type 2. To explain the differences Diabetes UK has made this illustration.

Different types of Diabetes

When I went to school one of my classmates was diagnosed with diabetes, I remember feeling sad for him when he had to excuse himself from the classroom to take his insulin jab.
Later I would learn that my family has a history of Diabetes, while I am luck to not have the condition myself I know plenty who do.

When Leah asked if I wanted to join in on a Diabetes Awareness link -up I had to say yes.

For those of you who don't know, I donated my blog-income for November month to Pancreatic Research Funds. In total this raised £6.25. Finding a Cure starts with awareness.


Today's prompt with Crumpets Nail Tarts is grey + colour + pattern. My pattern this week is "stamped" so I was very lucky with that.

I started out with 3 coats of China Glaze - Pelican Gray, I stamped over using Ciate - Paint Pots - Vintage with Bundlemonster BM-321 on two nails and BM-315 on the rest.

China Glaze - Pelican Gray

China Glaze - Pelican Gray, stamped with Bundlemonster BM-321 and BM-315 using Ciate - Paint Pots - Vintage

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents: My Job

I know I don't often mention my job, but today's theme in the Hobby Polish Bloggers group is, "your job". I suppose that would require me to talk about it, a little.

As some of you might have guessed my job has to do about tech and computers. As I am not allowed to fully disclose all that I do, I can tell you this much. 

For this manicure I used China Glaze - Jungle Queen, W7 - Silver Suede, and Sinful Color - Snow Me White. I used Moyou London Scifi Collection - 06 and Cheeky - CH54

 China Glaze - Jungle Queen stamped using Moyou London - Scifi Collection - 06 with W7 - Silver Suede 

China Glaze - Jungle Queen stamped using Moyou London - Scifi Collection - 06 with W7 - Silver Suede and Cheeky - CH54 with Sinful Color - Snow Me White

I really love the end result, and my workmates though this was a well representation of what I work with. So there you have it, My Job.


How to have fun with the IT Department:

Excuse me, Sir.
I seem to have run out of ink on my keyboard.

Lean back and watch their reactions. Priceless.

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents: Halloween a Zombie pond

Hobby Polish Bloggers presents: Halloween

My last Halloween manicure was such a success that I decided to do another one. I understand you want to see more of them, so I deliver to you, a Zombie pond. *cue scary music* So with the girls at Hobby Polish Blogger, I present to you: Halloween.

For this manicure I used Sally Hansen - 540 - Jell-ous? to help out on the decal making I started out with two coats on the Uber Chic stamping mat, and did one stamp and continued to build Sally Hansen - 540 - Jell-ous? between the stamps.
All in all I used 9 coats on the index finger with one to two arms for each layer of polish. Ring finger and middle finger had 5 coats and my little finger had the least amount of coats with only 4 coats (!!) I also applied some splatter using Makeup Mekka - Strawberry Daiquiri on the second layer before using the splatter.

HPB Presents: Halloween a Zombie Pond

For those of you that are curious I have attached below the image plate and marked the different sections used for this look.

For a full review of this plate head over here.

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents: Russian Flowers

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

I wanted to join in on the Llama Nails Challenge this month which is: FLOWERS, and at the same time participate on the Hobby Polish Bloggers (HPB) Link-Up this month which is also Flowers. May Flowers. So Two Challenges in one go!
I have been terrible at keeping up with Challenges here and there, but every now and then I like to pick them up and join in.

For this manicure I used four coats of MISA - Russian Sage. I never quiet agreed with this polish. I thought it would be more opaque when I bought it, and I don't really care for VNL, so I wanted to find a way so that I would like to wear this polish. What better than to pull out a sponge and make a gradient(!).

I sponged the tips using Yes Love - 27 - Shiny Glitter. A polish I got while I lived in Spain. It is actually a brand from Portugal, but it was widely available in the shops around Madrid. I never came across this brand on my many trips to Alicante, so it might not be available all around Spain. Just so that is said.

Misa - Russian Sage gradient with Yes Love - 27 - Shiny Glitter. With BornPrettyStore flowers.

I wanted to add some flowers to this, and I received some lovely water decals from BornPrettyStore that I wanted to use for this Challenge.  Purple Floral Butterfly Pattern Sticker T112.

The instructions are pretty simple, take protective film of, soak in water, add decal to nail, remove backing paper, top coat to protect your design. Easy.

The decals comes with a protective film you have to remove. That was not a problem as it was not attached in any way to the paper with the actual decals on them. When I pulled the decals out of the pocket/pack the protective film stayed behind. This did not effect the design in any way.

Like with all water decals, you cut out the pattern you want, drop it in some water and let is sit for a little bit. I was expecting it to be kinda like water tattoos where you put the image on to the surface you want to it go, and then slide the backing paper off.

Notice how my manicure is sporting some white flowers with a purple outline, and some full on purple flowers?

If you used the T112 decals like I described above: that you place them onto your nail (backing paper up, image down), after it was done soaking in water, you would get the white flowers with the purple outline, but you could slide the decal of the backing paper before adding them to your nail.
I found it to be easiest by placing my thumb on the image and slide my index finger down over the backing paper, as the backing paper would follow the index finger and reveal the decal, you could choose which way you wanted them. Purple flowers, or white flowers with purple outline. Since they are different on each side.

On the BornPrettyStore shop you see them as purple flowers, little do you know, that they can actually be both. In my book, that my friends, that is a huge bonus.

T112 from BornPrettyStore.

By having them like this, you can create unique look by mixing and matching the decals on your nails. I really like this feature, and I love the finished result. As you can see from the picture above I was able to overlap two of the designs to make it look continuous, with the vines that goes off the flowers meeting together in a loop at the bottom of my nail.

If you want to get hold of the T112 - Purple Floral Butterfly Pattern it is sold for 2.86 $ but at the time of writing this post, on sale for 2.15 $ .BornPrettyStore offers free shipping worldwide, and if you use my code (RAMG10) you get 10% off your order.

Happy Polishing!

An InLinkz Link-up


I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Holy Motherboard

I have to admit I am a bit late with this post, I'm playing catch-up on these challenges. The girls over at Llama Nails on FB have this Nerd Challenge going, and it looks really cool.
Previously on this challenge we have had "Inspired by Math", "Inspired by Space", "Inspired by Science Fiction" and "Inspired by Litterature", now its time for "Inspired by Technology".

I love computers, that's just how it is. So when this challenge arrived I knew what I wanted to do. A post I did last year was a programmers -manicure with HTML codes, and this time I'm going deeper, and taking a look at the Motherboard. Interesting enough, I'm holding my first motherboard in the HTML -code manicure.

For this manicure I used black and white acrylic paint, a liner brush, a script liner brush and a dotting tool. I used China Glaze - Unpredictable as my base color. At the end I added a metal circle and a nail art sticker ( for the serial number)

Ripples in the Water

It's Friday, and that means another Cheeky Girl Challenge! I love these challenges. Choose one plate each week, one image off the plate and do a manicure. As always you will be able to see The Secretary and Mishka from Lacquer or Leave Her! do each their manicure using the same stamp. I'm so excited!

I recently did a haul with some Chine Glaze polishes, so I felt the urge of using them for this manicure. It was sitting on my desk (as all new polishes do, until they have been swatched) begging to be used. And so I did. 

China Glaze - Want My Bawdy

Barry M - Denim

Cheeky plate CH52

It's been so warm here in England lately and was running a fan while I did this manicure, and I got bubbles. Google images was kind enough to make an "Auto-Awesome" with my swatces. For those of you that are not familiare with the term, that is when you upload 4 or more similar pictures to Google Pictures and Goggle makes a GIF out of it. I will add that to this post as well, so you can see the shift of color in the beautiful polish.

That will teach me to be comfortable while doing my nails. Tsk tsk. Bubbles on such a beautiful polish. How could I?! Then I stamped using Barry M - Denim. This was a tricky one, so I will add some additional pictures to fully show the wonders of this design. I'm playing with the trick of mind, and light again. A personal favorite of mine. I am the Jedi.

Blackened blurple.

The base looks black, with a vibrant blue circle print.

Barely there print, on aqua.

To see Mishka's manicure follow this link here.

Let me know what you think about this kind of manicures in the comment section below.

O'Keeffe's Freudian interpretations

Over at Llama Nails on FB we are doing the Inspired by an Artist Challenge, second artist out is the Mother of American Modernism. Georgia Totto O'Keeffe. 70's feminists celebrated her as the "originator" of "female iconography", and her art, specially from her New York -time has been of Freudian interpretations.
I have kept that in mind when doing my nail art for this challenge.

So without further ado, this is my interpretation of O'Keeffe's paintings.

Sinful Color - Pink Forever

From the outer edge to the middle. Savina - Dazzle, nailart striper in hot pink, Sinful Color - Pink Forever.

As you can see on my nails and hands this was taken a while ago, I actually did this manicure as soon as the challenge was posted, which is a while ago now. I hope you liked it. It did not stay long on my nails, I can tell you that, there is something about wearing vagina looking designs, that just don't appeal to me.

Michelangelo the Architect

Often when people talk about Michelangelo, the talk about the painter and the sculptor, but we often forget that he did not just paint and sculpt, he was also an architect. A pretty darn good one at it as well. So when the girls at Llama Nails FB -group said we where having a challenge "Inspired by artists", and the first artist was Michelangelo, my thoughts went to the architecture he designed. This manicure is inspired by some of the buildings he designed. I'm still very new with acrylic paint so it didn't turn out exactly how I imagined it to, but we all learn by doing.

I started out with W7 - Silver Suede, used a "fan" brush and added some white acrylic paint, and painted the architecture in black acrylic paint with a "script liner" brush, and a "spotter" brush.

Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe

I'm like two weeks or so late with this manicure. It just didn't spring at me right away, and thought of doing another transfer nail art just didn't appeal to me right now. So I waited for the inspiration to come to me. This morning it did. I woke up by the sunlight beaming into my bedroom, and instead of getting up and going to the computer like I usually do, I picked up my book that I started reading yesterday and started reading. 

It's such a good book. I know, it's chic-litt, it's not for everyone, but I happen to enjoy reading it. 

Few years ago, I would never even touch a chic-litt book, but something changed and 2 years ago I bought my first chic-litt book. I can't remember which book it was, but I'm guessing it was by Sophie Kinsella. If you don't know of S.Kinsella, I can tell you that she is the woman behind the Shopaholic -series, she also wrote (personal favorite of mine, when it comes to her books) Twenties Girl. I did not just love them, I devoured them, I read them in a day, and I keep looking for new books, so when I noticed that Kinsella had recommended "Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe" by Jenny Colgan, I had to buy it. 

And that is how I ended up doing this manicure. 

For this manicure I used acrylic paint with a "script liner" brush, and NYX - Matte Baby Pink.

Be kind, Rewind

It's a great movie, if you haven't seen it, you should. I recommend it.

Its time for the next plate in the Cheeky Girl Challenge. Today its CH51. Which means there are only 4 plates left! Oh no! What a long, strange trip this has been. It's an end of an era. In 4 weeks time me and Mishka from Lacquer or Leave Her! has successfully made a manicure with every single Cheeky Summer Plate there is, selecting one image from each plate.

One coat of Sinful Color - Snow Me White, used a nail art striper in black to seperate the nail in two, stamped using Wet and Wild - Black.

If you want to know what Mishka did with this plate, jump over to this link right here. 

Let the cogwheels turn

This might not be your typical Sci-fi manicure. Cause that was what I was trying to do. I was stuck on this for ages, when one day, I sat at my desk, and (Bam!) it hit me. While swatching W7 - Golden Suede.

Let the cogwheels turn.

I started out with one coat of W7 - Golden Suede, used Wet n Wild - Black for stamping, added an accent stamping with Kiko- 400 (yep that's a holo), and added some golden beads and metal bits. Cheeky CH33 was the plate I used for this.

1 coat girls, just one coat!

Looks like a bead fell off. Let's pretend we didn't see that.

Neo-Victorian Steampunk Nail Art

Neo-Victorian Steampunk nail art

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I'm a bit late with posting this one, 3 hours according to UK-times. Sorry for that, but here it is.
It's the Cheeky Girls Challenge with Lacquer or Leave Her!

I have been in the philosophical corner lately. Ended up, at random, debating Descartes with a man I hardly know, whilst on my travels in Edinburgh , Scotland, previously this week. Hench the title of the post.
What do you think about the classical philosophical question? Give me your thoughts in the comments below.

It's time for CH50!!
I wanted to play this image up a little. Do something special.

How about doing a nail art using just one color family? That sounds like fun, right?
I pondered on this, long and hard. My big box o greens was pulled out, and I looked them over. Trying to figure which to match, how many, what shades to use...
Ended up with Essie - Mojito Madness, Essie - Navigate Her, and L.A. Color - Current.
After debating order, we all agreed on using L.A Color - Current as a base color.

I also did an accent using Essie - Mojito Madness over L.A. Color - Current, while I used Essie - Navigate Her, on the other nails. Stamped with the opposite color.

It needed 2-3 coats to be this even.

Adding some striping tape, to Jazz it up.

Going eco friendly. 

Want to see what out lovely Mishka over at Lacquer or Leave Her! has done with this image? Head over, and follow this link!

Watching the Space Debris

This is a part of the Llama Nails, Nerd Challenge. Second challenge is: Space.
One of the W7 polishes I recently bought was Space Debris. I wanted to do something special with this polish and grabbed my hex glitters for some added "debris".

First I started with two coats of Space Debris, and then I added some red and copper hex glitters on my nails and finished it with another coat of Space Debris. 

I suppose this is what you call a: Glitter Sandwich (?)