Magical Monday's

Hermione Granger.

Welcome back everyone! I am back today to talk to you about the latest in the Magical Monday's collection, and this time Alicia from FixintoFaff and I have decided to showcase Hermione. This one I took a lot longer to finish the complete look because I honestly had no idea how to portray this character over five nails.

I began with my base coats. On the thumb, pointer and pinky I painted two coats of Barry M Grey, on the middle I painted one coat of Manhattan 69R and on the ring finger I did two coats of Barry M Matte Black. I chose to use the grey because it was a reminder to the walls of Hogwarts, which were a stone grey. I then used the brown for the middle so I had a dark base I could pull through on her hair, and the black was just to tie everything together with another shade.

Now lets talk about the art on the nails. I used another two brown shades on the middle finger, to try and recreate Hermione's Hair, these colours were Laval Mud and p2 Well Dressed. To do this design I didn't really let any of my layers dry, and using a detailing brush I painted on squiggly lines with Mud and then I painted Well dressed in between and pressed harder to mix them on the nails, after this was complete I used Out the Door topcoat to mix it all together a little more. My pointer finger I used Barry M Gold Foil to hand paint my G, this was supposed to symbolise Hermione being in the house Gryffindor. The ring finger is supposed to be a time turner from when she had to use one throughout Prisoner of Azkaban, and I deliberately smeared this design so it looked almost like it was in motion, although I am unconvinced it looked good enough.

My pinky was painted with Manhattan 69R and Barry M Gold Foil with a detailing brush to create Hermione's Wand. And lastly is the thumb, on this one I used Manhattan 69R and Barry M Gold Foil to create her wand as well as write the word Mudblood, which she is regularly referred to within the films and the books, which is all to do with her blood status within the wizarding community.

PHEW! That was a long description! So yeah, if you liked this one then you can jump over to Ali's post about Hermione here. If you like this collab then we will return with another segment next month!



Shatter polish - big NO NO.

Get the look.



Welcome back! So for a while I was doing research into what people like and what they don't. So the most unliked fad was Crackle/Shatter Polish. It seems a lot of you liked the idea behind it, but hated the polish itself. I myself was one of these people that when I first found this type of polish I was so excited, but then I got highly disappointed with the polish. In my opinion it was either thick and gloopy and was just a horrible mess, or it was too thin and barely shattered at all.

So what would you say if I told you that you could achieve the same look with normal polishes and minimal effort? Well, you can. I looked into it some, thinking of how I could do it without having to use the horrible polish, I thought about dragging tools across my nails but then quickly rethought this idea.

Eventually I came up with this. I know you can achieve the same sort of thing with inks which react to alcohol, and you can use that in a spray bottle, but I wanted something a little more simple which used normal nail polish. And then I found it, when I wasn't even thinking about this look anymore, I found it in my stamping plates! It was there all along in my Pueen Love Elements stamping set! Awesome right?

I painted my nails with two coats of Essie The Lace is On, and then using my Pueen plate 45 and Sally Hansen Platinum Star I managed to create this look. I remembered to use my Seche Vite for a lovely thick top coat, and that was it complete! I absolutely love how this design looks like shatter/crackle polish without it actually having to come from those polishes, and it also kind of reminds me of foil manicures now I think about it! Not to mention the amazing stamping coverage by Platinum Star! I cant fault that at all, especially considering it is a very thin silver polish. I have absolutely no other dupes like it in my collection. The closest polish to it I have I would think has to be Barry M Silver Foil, but it is thicker than this one is.

What do you think about this look? Were you a fan of those crackle polishes? Is this a look you would wear? Also if you have any thoughts on what I should try and recreate then leave your idea's/link's in the comment section and I will attempt to find an easy way to Get The Look! - Oh, and did you think we were leaving without a thumb shot? No!

Okay, so that is really all there is to it, I know I haven't posted all that much, but this is due to my daughter having a hectic week last week! I am thinking I should be able to post on a Tuesday, Thursday and A weekend (Not including the weeks where I have Magical Mondays and Collabs with Pretty Quirky on Wednesdays). Oh, and I still cant wrap my head around the fact that I turn 22 tomorrow. Sigh, but I hope you're having a fantastic day - see you next time!