Sunday 29 December 2013

My Little Grotto


Hello again, as I said I am going to keep trying to blog as much as possible and seen as I've got a few more days off I thought I would get the posts up that I was meant to post before Christmas. These are just little ideas of how I decorated my room and marks:P for the festive period without breaking the bank...a few ideas you could maybe use for next year and grab a few bits in the sales.

This year I didn't want a tree for my room (didn't really see any that caught my eye) so I bought these little glass tree with multicoloured bobbles that hang from them. the come both in clear glass or green my mum went for the green so I opted for the clear which fit in lovely with my bedroom decor. 'Watt Brothers' £7.99 for larger tree & £4.99 for smaller.

I LOVE fairy lights at the moment so when I made my weekly visit to 'B&M' I picked myself up a few sets with small pearls attached and popped one set inside a large round vase with my little Christmas pudding bobbles to dress it up and the other set along my window ledge weaving in and out of my candles. Lights £3.99 and pack of 3 christmas pudding bobbles 99p (I got 2 packs), round vase £2.99 all from 'B&M'.

While we were at 'Ikea' we spotted cute lanterns and having a set of fairy lights to put somewhere I decided to put some glitter miniature bobbles into the lantern with the tiny fairy lights. Mark loved mine so much he then copied me :P  Lantern £2 'Ikea', bobbles £2.99 'B&M', tiny fairy lights £1.50 'Primark'.
My lantern 
Marks lantern (bobbles from Ikea)
Another obsession of mine the now is candles, I use to hate when people bought me them but now I have loads so I treated myself (as if I never buy myself anything) to some Christmassy ones from 'Primark'. Little santa £1.50 and Glitter candles £2.50, cheap as chips...so I bought two of each.
red candle from Ikea pack of 36 scented candles for £3.75 they smell amazing!!
As Mark was feeling a little less festive than me this year he decided to perk himself up by buying a mini tree for his own room from 'Next' £22 lights inc. With his left over red bobbles from 'Ikea' we decorated it together and wrapped another set of the tiny 'Primark' lights around it ....aww how cute. (I love that Mark is now warming to 'Primark' haha).
These teeni tiny beautiful, glass Christmas bobbles are from 'Paperchase' £10, Marks new favourite shop. It sells a little bit of everything and even has a small cafe up the stairs, kind of like a fancier WHSmiths. I love just sitting looking a the different colours and designs on the bobbles. Sadly with Mark being very lazy and unorganised he didn't actually put them anywhere but I reckon these would look lovely all year round in a  round or tall vase mixed with little fairy lights but we shall see.

Last but definitely not least meet Patrick the penguin, Mark also bought one, Penelope (well was forced into it:P). I seriously could not resist these little polystyrene balls for £6.99 you can't complain they will live forever.
B&M £6.99
Oh and these were our take on homemade 'real orange chocolate orange' we found on one of "Zoella's' youtube videos (love her videos oh and I have serious hair envy you can see her step by step here) and thought they looked yummy so we took a messy bash at it...oh it was soo good but very messy.

Saturday 28 December 2013

Take Christmas Into Your Own Hands. Crimbo Nails

Hi Everyone!!! Long time no speak I am extremely sorry that I have been super lazy, I'm not going to lie I haven't been very committed lately to my blog but New year on its way I am going to be strict with myself to try and blog at least once a week. I mean there are thousands of great bloggers out there and if you can all do it then what is stopping me.
Anyways I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and spoiled yourselves at the sales. :)


I know I am a little late I was planning this to go up on Christmas Eve but it didn't all go to plan so here we are today in my new jimjams, my 'Murad blemish control cream on and my cosy santa jumper.

I know I have done a few posts on Shellac in the past (you can read them here 1, 2 &3) But I have never done nail art like this before...these were my festive nails. I have never took nail art this extreme before but I thought 'hey it's Christmas if you can't do it now when can you?' So on my day off the week before Christmas I decided to go all out and use my Shellac to create some really festive nails which went down a treat at the salon, some of the clients were brave enough to go for a wee bit of holly on one nail or little tree. Thank goodness I didn't sit for 3hours doing my nails for nothing as they were the talk of the salon...yehh!!

So here are 10 different festive designs for your nails you could maybe take a bash at for next year I just came up wight the ideas on the spot and my white ran out half way through so I appologise for my fat santa face. Due to me melting one of my thumbs with spilt hot chocolate on a hot hob and to running out of Cream puff in my pictures I always have one thumb missing sorry about that.
All of these designs were done by myself using 'CND Shellac' products and dotting tools.

From left to right as seen in photo.

Pinky - Snowman, 'Midnight Swim' background and 'Cream Puff' done with 2 different sized dotting tools to create the snowman and then detailing done with 'Black Pool' & 'Tropix'.So starting from the

Ring Finger - Rudolf, background done in 'Rubble' and detailing done with 'Cream Puff''Black Pool' and 'Ruby Ritz' for the red nose.

Middle - Dotted Tree, 'Scarlet Letter' as the background (which was probably a bit dark) and then with different sized dotting tools again I created a triangle from dots using 'Serene Green' and glitter with a gold glitter at the top acting as the star.
Index Finger - Little Penguin (aww), I wanted to make it a little different from a black and white penguin so I used 'Azure Wish' as the main colour and layered 'Cream Puff' over it creating a pale cool blue for its tummy. Then using 'Tropix' I added the feet and beak and used the same as before for the eyes.

Thumb, everyone's favourite - Christmas Pudding. I did this one a day later as my white was just too old to use any further. i used 'Rubble' as the cake colour then drew the dripping cream on with a new 'Cream Puff' then using a small dotting tool I then dotted on the raisins with 'Fedora' and
'RubyRitz' and 'Hotski Tchotchke' for the holly.
Left Thumb - Christmas Tree, 'Serene Green' as my base and then I made a triangle from tip to cuticle with 'Gold' Additive, giving the effect of a gold tree with a little red star gem on top. Simple but very effective. (sorry I don't have a close up of this one as I melted it while cleaning a hot hob).

Index Finger - Santa, 'Beau' for the base (santa's skin) then I drew a semi circle with 'Wildfire' for the hat. I then added 'Cream Puff' with a dotting tool for the fur around his hat and beard and dotted 2 small 'Black Pool' dots for the eyes. Then I sprinkled some iridescent glitter over the 'Cream Puff'.

Middle Finger - Holly, I layered 'Romantique' & 'Moonlight & Roses' for the background to which I then stuck 3 small circular gems at an ankle and then used 'irresistible' green jagged glitter which gave the holly more of a 3D effect. This design was the most popular with the clients...not too crazy for them.

Ring Finger - a Snowflake done in 'Blue Rapture' as background colour with 'Cream Puff' & 'Azure Wish' layered for the actual snowflake. I then dotted on some iridescent glitter.
Pinky - a little Fat Robin done in (first of all it was 'Dark Lava' but was too dark) so opted for 'Rubble' with 'Ruby Ritz' (limited addition colour for Christmas)for his red tummy,  'Cream Puff' and 'Black Pool' for the detailing of eyes and feet.

Here are some of the clients nail art which is also really nice just on  one nail. (All done by me at 'Belle and Blackley' ).



I hope you liked my nail art. Did you get adventurous with your nails this Christmas?