Festive treats (for me!)

 Although I did decorate the gingerbread house (with some help from my boyfriend) I must confess that this festive treat was not all for me!

 As there are so many discounts around right now I thought I'd make the most of them and buy myself some things for Christmas.

 First up are these pretty statement stone rings, I've been wanting some for a while and with the temptation of a discount code I just had to buy them from Lily Melrose's jewellery shop www.jwlry.bigcartel.com:

 Reduced from £35 to around £15 I managed to buy this t-shirt from The Orphan's Arms on ASOS:

 I went a little t-shirt crazy, being a massive Harry Potter fan and seeing Gem wearing the Deathly Hallows logo tee on www.gemsmaquillage.com I had to buy my own from Orange Circle. My wardrobe was lacking in navy items and I thought the colour went well with the cosmic print of the logo so I ended up getting the same t-shirt:

 The Topshop sale starts on Christmas Eve and I'm sure there'll be lots of bargains so you can treat yourself after all the hard work getting everything ready for Christmas.


Lauren Loves ♥: Saving money over Christmas.



XOXO

Cosmic Galaxy Nail Tutorial

Cosmic Galaxy Nails

 To achieve this space nail design I used: black nail polish, white nail polish, gold nail polish, peach nail polish, blue nail polish, magenta nail polish, sparkly nail polish, a piece of a sponge, tweezers, and a cocktail stick.

 Step 1: Paint your nails black.

 Step 2: Holding the piece of sponge with your tweezers put a small amount of white nail polish onto a corner of the sponge. Shape the main body of the galaxy by dabbing the sponge on your nails; try to create a curved line. Don’t use too much nail polish as it will take longer to dry and this design requires several layers of polish on your nails.

 Step 3: After a couple of minutes, lightly dab a gold nail polish over the shape of the galaxy on your nails.

 Step 4: Choose a side or corner that your galaxy shape has and dab a peach nail polish over the gold nail polish. Don’t dab the peach nail polish further than a third of the way along your galaxy shape.

 Step 5: Use a different corner of your sponge and dab a blue nail polish along the sides of your galaxy to refine the shape if it has become messy and to blend it into the black background.

 Step 6: Using another corner of your sponge dap a small amount of magenta nail polish in the same corner that you put the peach nail polish to create a faded line of magenta to peach to gold along the shape of your galaxy. You can also use the magenta to furthermore blend the blue nail polish into the black if your magenta nail polish is dark enough.

 Step 7: Dip your cocktail stick into a white nail polish and stipple (dot) it sparingly across the black sections that remain on your nails so it looks like stars.

 Step 8: Wait a few minutes for your design to dry then paint one or two coats over your nails using a sparkly nail polish to add more stars.

 I had most of the nail polishes in sets that were gifts so I don’t know where they came from but some of the other colours I used were: Extravagance by O.P.I Nail Lacquer (magenta), 198 Azure by Rimmel London (blue) and 105 Starry Silver Glitter by NYC (sparkly).

 You can create this cosmic galaxy design on your nails using whatever nail polish colours you have. Swap the black for a dark blue, the gold for yellow or the white for silver… go crazy!

Lauren Loves ♥: Glitter and sparkles.  

XOXO