My new nail art blog

I have decided to open up a new blog to put my pictures of my nail art on. Mostly because I know how annoying it can be when you like a blog and they suddenly start prattling on about something you have no interest in.
so if you want to continue viewing my nail art, you can find it here
or the link is in my sidebar

Holiday happenings

The gingersnap creations blog is currently running a challenge to make christmas cards along a number of outdoor related themes.
I decided to make this tag using a stamp from the frantic stamper's own range of stamps

I'm also sneaking in a bit more nail art. Toe nails this time.

Climbing Wall Cake and some nail art.

A bit of an interesting combination you might think, but I thought it might be a good idea to put my non-stamping items all in one post.
My son is having a climbing wall party today and I promised him that I would "try" to make him a climbing wall cake...
it was going to have a person on it as well, but my roll out icing was just too soft and looked awful, so I decided to just go for the wall.
In case you are interested in making one for yourself (?!?)
I used 3 madeira slices from Asda, and stacked them end on with buttercream and jam in between, I used a packet of asda ready to roll white icing, added some black food colouring, then kneaded it until I had a rock like pattern. then I rolled it out into a random shape. and dumped it onto the cake (which I had painted with warmed apricot jam). I then just made it fit. I wanted it random to look like rocks. I made some more rocks from ready to roll icing (I had to open a second pack) for the candles, and decorated with Skittles, tutti-fruttis and strawberry laces.
This is the first fondant decorated cake I have made since leaving school and I'm quite pleased with it.

now on to the nail art. I recently bought myself a konad nail stamping set and a couple of extra plates, and I can't stop playing. these are a couple of my recent attempts. (My nails are really short as I have to wear them that way for work (and I am not allowed to wear nail varnish to work so I get to re-do my nails twice a week!!)

basic nail art

a slight deviation from my normal blogging, but I just wanted to share my latest "thing".
I recently had a lovely pedicure, where I had some gems put on my toenails, and as a crafter the whole time I was thinking, "I could do that!" , especially when I was charged 20p per gem, and I had 18!!
So I immediately ordered some gems and started playing.
I was browsing various sites today looking for more ideas of ways to position the gems, when I hit upon the most useful information about painting designs on nails. Use acrylic paint! on top of your nail varnish of course.
I am never short of acrylic paint so I immediately had to play. This very simple design is simply six dots of acrylic paint applied with a fine brush and one gem in the centre (attached with a small amount of top coat). The whole thing is then protected with a top coat.
The main nail varnish is just a cheap rimmel one.