2012

Wow, so 2012 is OVER! That went faaar to quickly.

2012 has been a year of incredible highs and hideous lows. I feel like I've done so much growing up this year and learnt a lot, both about myself and the people around me.

Some key events in 2012 for me were:

•  Sitting my first GCSE exams. I have so far done 5 this year
•  Being appointed CEO for my team in NTYE
•  Performing at Trafalgar Square as part of Big Dance with over 1000 other dancers
•  Being part of my grandparents surprise 50th anniversary party
•  Performing in the Olympic Torch Relay, dancing through Croydon
•  Being accepted into the Cambridge University GEEMA programme
•  Raising over £140 for The British Skin Foundation by doing a sponsored swim of 1500 meters
•  Realizing there are people out there who do care, especially certain teachers that have helped me a lot this year.
•  Completing two weeks of work experience
•  Starting up this blog. Even though it doesn't really feel like it, it has come on a LOT since it began
•  Turning 16!

Those were pretty high moments for me but I've also been through some tough things such as:

•  Losing a lot of people close to me 
•  Being told that I can't go abroad anymore unless my 'condition' improves
•  Having some really low moments, some that pulled me to rock bottom
•  My health getting worse and my doctors not giving a shit about it
•  Realizing that people are willing to lie and spread rumors about me just because i have an 'illness'
• There are many more but I'm not going to bore you with it all...

Hopefully 2013 is full of more highs than lows and hopefully less of a struggle!

Oh and by the way... 900+ pageviews in December!!! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that! I guess its because I still consider myself to be a bit of a nobody in the blogging world, haha.

While I'm talking about the blog, there are a few things I want to do in 2013:

• Have more varied post and not make this a 100% nail blog
• Host a GIVEAWAY!! I've been meaning to set one up since the start of December but just never got round to it!
• Have a more consistent flow of posts
• Reach 100 followers?
• If my blog *does* become a bit of a success perhaps get my own domain and Facebook page?

Happy new year everybody!!
Hello 2013!

Birthday, Christmas and hauling

Ok rubbish title I know, but I'm ill and can't think properly so thats the best I've got - I'm sorry!

But anyway, the 18th was my birthday and the Sunday before I had a party. A massive thank you to everyone that came, you made it even more magical! And with birthdays come presents, aha...! I got some amazing things and I couldn't be more grateful! Thank you again to everyone who got a gift <3 Some of those things included makeup (and some colour changing nail polishes!!), jewellery, money and gift vouchers and my parents got me the new camera I wanted!!

Hopefully by the new year I will have gotten pretty used to it and so I'll start using that one to take blog photos instead to the old one I'm currently using,...

On my actual birthday, my aunt took me out to dinner with her two daughters, they are so cute and adorable! Aha I just love babies and young children!

After that, school finished for Christmas and so that Friday I met up with my best friend from primary school. It was the first time I'd seen her in like 3 years and yet it was like we had never been apart!

On Saturday me and my mum went up north to visit my grandparents and cousins and stayed until yesterday. Obviously every time I go to stay it means one thing - shopping!! I went nearly every day but I don't know, I didn't really buy much (well what I call much anyway, haha) Of course I got nail polish and this is what i accumulated:

3 for 2 offer and when you buy any three the gold one comes free- so I basically got the middle two free!

My first ever Topshop and Jessica polishes

I FINALLY own striping tape!

Okay, so I went a bit Sallys mad... Oops! Well it was all so cheap!

Reduced O.P.I's!

More reduced O.P.I's!

Even more reduced O.P.I's!

Also, with my some of my birthday money I bought myself a tablet! Its only been a few days since I opened it and im already addicted to it!!

Then came Christmas... To be honest this year it really did not feel like Christmas.  I don't really know why.. Maybe it was because I was ill? Whatever the reason it wasn't as much of a hoohaa as it has been in previous years. Even the sales were a bit of a let down! Me and my mum went on boxing day all prepared for the manic craziness and there really wasn't any! It wasn't that busy and not many shops had stacks and stacks of sale items like they used to...

And now the New Year is almost here, where has the year gone..?!?

Best of British Nail Bloggers

2012 was the year Em's Little Corner was created, looking back through the blogposts this China Glaze dotticure is a particular favourite!

2012 has been a fantastic year for Kerrie from PishPosh and Polish. There has been some really memorable manicures and some really memorable nail polishes released! To sum up the year Kerrie has posted her Top Ten Polishes of 2012 are your favorites here? What would you have picked?

Polished Art was only created back in the summer, but Sam has had great fun blogging since! The highlight for her has been participating in challenges - being pushed to try new techniques and meeting lots of lovely bloggers :) Her first challenge was the Summer Challenge!

Rose Tint My Nails has only been up and running for a month, so instead of a 'Best post of the year' Alyssia offers up a new feature on the blog: Sister Saturdays in which her and her sister go head to head set to a theme, this month's theme is Galaxy Nails!

Northern Nails turned one in November , can't quite believe I have blogged for a whole year , so I thought a review of 2012 was called for, and a massive thankyou to you all for still coming back and reading !

Lou from Painted Nails & Baking Scales has her top two polishes to show you. First up, her all time fav, Haze of Love by Wet N Wild Megalast followed by her all time second favourite of the year Khloe Had a Little Lam Lam by Nicole by OPI .

Wendy from Wendy's Delights has really enjoyed the Nail Challenges this year, her fave being home made water decals with mini tutorial go on give it a go, it's fun! !
Anna of Anna's Polish Addiction has posted her top 5 2012 manis

This year The Teenage Shopaholic was... created! She started her blog in September and since then she has created some amazing things such as her Halloween mani , Birthday mani and Christmas mani.


Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing's favourite mani this year was definitely her British Sausage Week nails! Mmm! Everyone loves a bit of sausage!

31 Days of Nail Art Challenge - Day 8 - Metallic

Metallic.

A finish I don't tend to wear much. Why? Because it often looks brushstrokey and also, I don't much like the frosted/pearly look that can sometimes come off of metallics.

So, instead of a plain metallic I chose... Barry M Chameleon Blue!

I originally bought this for when I was a away from home so I could change my nails without much effort.

Its a nice enough colour on its own, not my favourite though. It's a sort of silver toned blue colour.
It was opaque in one coat but I did two because it it showed just about every single ridge on my nails.

I wasn't feeling particularly creative so I just did dots...

The colour I do like from this polish is the one it changes into! Its a gorgeous plum/maroon/burgandy colour and I think that looks more flattering on my skin tone than the blue did. Excuse the mess, the topcoat outside of the painted area sort of changed colour too and i was too lazy to clean it up :/

The funny thing is, in real life I did NOT see this much variation in colour! Its as if the amount, and thickness, of topcoat dictate the outcome of the 'topcoat' colour... Hmm, interesting.

I guess in the future I will wear topcoat anyway so I'm happy that I prefer the 'topcoat' colour.

Christmas Nails

Merry Christmas everyone!

I seriously cannot believe the year is almost over! And because I've been so busy it doesn't even feel like Christmas is here.

Anyway, I was so stuck with what to do because there is so much choice! But I eventually decided to do something different on each nail.

This is what I created:

Thumb: Fairy Lights

Index Finger: Snowman

Middle Finger: Christmas Tree

Ring Finger: Rudolph

Pinky: Candy Cane

I hope you all have a fabulous day on Tuesday, whatever you are doing. x

British Nail Bloggers

It's another Festive themed week at Pie's Eyes, including a Candy Cane manicure and a Snow Scene head over and check them out

Emma's showing her favourite "party glitter" Nails Inc Rainbow St a party on the nails at Emma's Little Corner!

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing has some Festive Robins for you this week! Check out her Christmas Tutorials page if you fancy recreating some christmas manicures.

Steph has some new friends she'd like you to meet =D

Has Enigmatic Rambles mastered the festive wrap styled nails? either way they are very pretty!

Anna of Anna's Polish Addiction has a new favourite polish - a gorgeous indie from Glitzology, she's also posted Nails Inc Disco Lane and two Christmas manis.

This week The Teenage Shopaholic has been... getting Christmassy! She created a cute Christmas mani to get into the festive spirit

31 Days of Nail Art Challenge - Day 7 - Black and White

Black and White.

Two colours that I hardly ever wear.

No reason in particular, they just don't seem to look good plain on my nails...

So, for this week I used a different nail art technique on each on my nails. Well, I say technique but two of them are just special effect polishes.

Anyway this is what I created (excuse the messiness, I didn't have time to clean up) :

I used O.P.I My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base and then I used (from left to right) China Glaze Black Mesh, Barry M Black, Barry M Croc Effects Black, W7 Cosmic Black.

Hmm, my favorite nail is probably the polka dot one...



P.S. I think I'm the only one still doing this challenge so I'll stop putting links to the other blogs from now on.

P.P.S. Since I am the only one, I'm going to post when I can, not every monday as was previously arranged.

Birthday Nails

So it's my 16th birthday tomorrow...

Aha, well since it's on a Tuesday it was a bit awkward doing anything big then so I had a party yesterday. It was just family and friends but it was great just being with the people that are important to me :)

I might do a post tomorrow with more about it but for now here's the nails:

I used a base of Color Club Blushing Rose (I think, It has no name.. :/ ) which is a pastel pink creme, and then drew the little things on freehand.

Thumb: 16

Index finger: Candle

Middle finger: Cupcake

Ring finger: Balloon

Pinky: Confetti

This has got to be the quickest nail art I have EVER done! Seriously, I did this in less than an hour!

I felt a bit sad taking these off :(

31 Days of Nail Art Challenge - Day 6 - Purple

I know, I know, I haven't posted for ages! (well almost a week actually) And I am sorry, but it's because my camera is being majorly weird and won't let me upload anything! :'( 

I've temporarily fixed it, it's a long story but my method of moving photos isn't particularly good for the camera so it better fix itself soon! 

Anyway, on to the post that was supposed to have been posted on Monday:


Purple.

My favourite colour.

A colour I used to wear but only had 3 shades of, one being a hideous sheer pearly grey toned lilac.

But now I have waaaay more, much nicer, shades and I love almost all of them.

Here's the problem: I don't like this mani. Well I do, but not in the photos. The colours look off, the sparkle is dead and it just looks messy. I wish it would look more like it did in real life but oh well, just try and imagine it.

So here it is:

I used a base of Kiko 245 and the did the stripes freehand with Andrea Fulerton Flip Flops in Ruby and Millie. On my accent nail I used the Andrea Fulertons to create a pink to blue gradient, but the colour disappeared in the photos :(

Strange angle but it shows off the gold and silver tones:

Weird underwater photo that is probably the most colour accurate and shows off the duochromeness:

There was a hell of a lot of gold and silver duochrome in real life but it just didn't want to show up in most of the photos....

And don't forget to check out what Stephanie and Wendy have created this week!

Liebster Award!

I was kindly nominated for the Liebster Award by Lisa of Geordie Nails AND Rebecca of Lane's Laqures a few days ago! Wow, i feel so honored because in my mind I still think I'm a nobody in the blogging world!

*WARNING: LONG POST ALERT*

These are the rules:
Post 11 random things about yourself.
Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.
Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.
Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers)


Here are 11 random things about me:

•  My favourite colour is purple
•  I live in London
•  I don't particularly like people buying me nail polish... It's not a stand offish thing, I'm just a bit picky
•  I'm addicted to Diet Coke
•  I danced for just over 7 years but sadly had to give it up :(
•  I'm a vegetarian and have been my whole life (out of choice not because of religion/family/etc...)
•  I don't believe in God or religion (but i respect everyones faiths) but wouldn't say I'm an atheist.
•  I love to swim and recently completed a sponsored swim of 1500m for The British Skin Foundation
•  I've had more than 15 hospital appointments this year alone :(
•  I wish I was more open to people
•  I'm turning 16 next week

These were the questions that Lisa set:

What do you have on your nails right now?

• Currently, I've got my purple mani on in preparation for tomorrows entry for the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.

If you could choose a zoo animal as a pet, which would it be?

• Is a horse a zoo animal? I don't think so... But I don't particularly agree with most zoo's so obviously I wouldn't want to keep a wild animal cooped up. But if I haaad to choose then i'll say a gorilla (don't ask, long story).

What did you want to be growing up?

• I still am growing up! I haven't left school yet! But i still don't know for sure what I want to be, I just know I want to do something in the design industry, probably in fashion. (That's the first time i've actually stated that publicly).

What was the coolest thing you ever learnt/did in school?

• Again, I'm still in school! Haha, but I guess it has got to be Isle of Wight. That was the BEST school trip ever! We went to stay at Kingswood for 4 days and we did some amazing activities like Leap of Faith, Zip Wire and 3G Swing and being with my best friends made the whole trip even better. Its something i'll never forget because I proved to myself and others I could to so much more than that was thought possible for me and I met some brilliant people, one of which has helped me so much in my life <3

If you could learn any language, what would it be?

• Hmm, maybe Italian because I want to go there sometime in the future...

Are you interested in makeup/fashion in general?

• Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry, don't know what else to say.

What is the best thing about your hometown?

• Hmm... It's changed a lot in that past few years but the best thing is probably that everything is very local and there are THREE shopping centers/complexes less than 20 minutes away.

What is the worst thing about your hometown?

• Oh I could go on and on now, but i guess the fact that in the last few years it has changed sooooo much and for the worse. You all remember the riots right? Well, enough said.

What do you think the new Royal baby should be named (sorry if you hate the Royals!!)?

• I have no clue but I just hope Kate has a safe pregnancy and it would be nice if it was a girl or twins :)

If you could only eat one thing for a week, what would it be?

• Hmm, the obvious answer would be chocolate but when I think about it, I would never survive on it alone so I'm gonna say pasta because I love it and I wouldn't get bored if there was a variety ;)

If you could design a signature nail polish representing you, what would it look like?

• Purple, definitely purple! And holographic! And it would be colour changing, from black to darkish purple! Omg, if someone actually makes this I will actually love them forever. I say purple because it's my favourite colour, holographic because i loooove holo polishes and colour changing, not because I'm two faced or anything, but because there is two sides to me, healthy and happy (the purple), and not-so-healthy and not-so-happy (the black).

And these were the ones Rebecca set:

Where in the world are you?

• London! In England, UK, just incase you were wondering. ;)

What is your favorite holiday destination?

• Hmm, considering I've not been able to go abroad because of my health I have to say anywhere near the coast. I just feel so much more free by the sea. :)

Do you have a nail tech qualification?

• Nope, I'm still in school, meaning I don't have any qualifications yet!

How many polishes do you own?

• Just over 300

Do you have any other hobbies?

• Oh yes, blogging is fairly new but the nail polish addiction is a bit older. Generally I love swimming, listening to music, reading and until recently dancing. I also love to bake and i'm getting very into photography and I'm really creative so I looove anything arty really. Oh and the shopping, haha that's my favourite hobby!

Do you speak any other languages?

• Yes, Gujarati is my first language then English, Spanish, the odd bit of French and some Hindi and Urdu.

Why did you start blogging?

• To be honest I don't really know... I read many many blogs prior to starting my own and I guess I just wanted to give it a go :)

Do you have any pets?

• Nope :( But I do help look after the schools animals if that counts?

What kind of music do you like most?

• Hmm, it varies a lot but generally what's in the charts. Then again sometimes i can't stand that music... But pop music generally. Well, at the moment I'm loving Emeli Sande, FUN and Girls Aloud

What is your favourite book?

• Ah, this is hard because I love reading! Okay, the ones I loved when I was younger are: The 'Threads' trilogy and 'The 13 Treasures' trilogy and 'Paradise End'. I can't decide from the ones I've read recently.

How was your day today?

• Pretty good, I just relaxed and did nothing really (besides write this) even though I should have been revising... Oops. 

These are the questions for my nominees:

•  How would you describe yourself in less than 20 words?
•  What's your favourite nail polish brand and finish?
•  Is there anything you wish hadn't happened?
•  What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?
•  What made you want to start blogging?
•  Do you have any special talents?
•  What would you love to do before you die?
•  What do you do for a living?
•  If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?
•  What's the one thing you couldn't live without?
•  Finally, if you won a million pounds (or any other currency) what would you do with it?

And these are my nominees: (I know some of you have been nominated before, sorry about that)

• nuthin' but a nail thing
• El Burn Book
• Kerruticles
• The Nail Polish Challenge
• PrettyKittyClaws
• Tales of Nails
• Pie's Eyes & Other Sparkly Stories...
• Volatile Varnish
• Imagination in Colour
• Doodle Nails
• Try My Hand

Wow, that was a looooong post!

Barry M Denim

Barry M Denim. A polish i showed you on monday as part of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge, which you can see here .

Oh.My.God, this is just sooo amazing!

It is a one coater, and by that i mean it is seriously one coat and your done.

Aaannnddd

This is so smooooth!!! Infact, it's so smooth my mum thought the pictures were fake! :0

Okay, before i get ahead of myself let me talk about the polish. It is basically a lovely blue creme base with micro sliver shimmer shot through it. The ratio of silver to blue is just perfect, and it genuinely looks like denim on my nails! (besides the smoothness obviously)

It has a matte finish and so it dries nice and quickly, but still allows enough time to avoid streakiness or dragging. The formula is just so perfect too!

I cannot fault it at all!

Okay, so its obvious i'm not going to be able to stop gushing about this for a while so i'm just going to stop typing here.

Snowy Glitter Gradient

Like I said in my last post, I had a glitter gradient on my nails on Sunday.

This is a better picture of them.

I had MUA Shade 1 with a Color Club (don't know the name) glitter gradient over it and white snowflakes stamped on my accent nail.

I love love LOVE the gradient! It looks so magical!

Click on the photos for a MUCH better look.

The base is a lovely dark blue with bold blue glowy bits in it. They glowed so much when my nails caught the light and even showed through the glitter and stamping.

I'm DEFINITELY doing this mani again with other colours because it is truly gorgeous!

31 Days of Nail Art Challenge - Day 5 - Blue

Blue.

A colour I like very much but much like green, a colour I never used to wear!

But that has completely changed! I own a lot of blue polishes now.

This is probably one of my favourite blues, Barry M Denim. It genuinely does look like denim on my nails! I'll do a proper swatch post for it soon but for now, here's a quick pic.

On top of that I put Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell (duochromatic micro glitter) and Look Nail Pop Pearl Effect (blue flakies), all sealed in with a coat of Seche Vite.

Before I started I didn't actually know if this combination.would even work, but now that its on my nails I can safely say it did!

Random underwater shot...

I love how it changes completely in different angles.

And under very bright light you can still see the Barry M Denim!

Ah I'm a sucker for magical toppers!


And don't forget to check out what Stephanie and Wendy have created this week!

Winter Wonderland!

--This was supposed to be posted yesterday but silly me forgot to check if it uploaded or not :/--

Wow it's the first of December! Where did the year go??

Anyway, today I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park with my cousin and my friend.

We went ice skating and oh boy was I bad :S

BUT, it was still fun and I can *think* I can skate a bit better now.

After that we went to Nandos and then back to Hyde Park to do some exploring. These are some photos I took:

Suprisingly, I didn't buy much! I got this dreamcatcher though :)

And of course, my nails. I had MUA Shade 1 with a Color Club (don't know the name) glitter gradient over it and white snowflakes stamped on my accent nail. I'll show you them in a post tomorrow but heres a quick (and bad) photo for now:

And Happy Birthday for Monday Jaini! x