Nail of the Week - Olympics Special

As mentioned in a previous post, I have been itching to show you this manicure, but it required special circumstances to create for! Yesterday I was in Greenwich watching the final day of the individual and team three day eventing (an equestrian sport set over 4 days, where riders compete in dressage, cross country and finally show jumping) hoping that team GB could take their first gold - alas it wasn't to be however we did fantastically by winning the team silver medal! It was an amazing day and one I doubt I will ever see again; the Olympics won't be back in London for some time after all. I'll put some pictures at the end of this post for you all to see.

Here's how I showed my British pride on my nails:

I used Barry M 'Cobalt Blue', Barry M 'Red Glitter' and NYC 'Pinstripe' to create the Union Jacks and attempted a 'string' manicure (layered over Accessorize 'Jewel') for the other nails. This took me AGES to do, but I think the results were worth it!

The string manicure is an idea I had from A Polish Addict, a blog I love and am totally addicted to... It's definitely not great and nowhere near perfect but I like the effect I got - it's grungy and kinda pop arty, more British I think than if it had worked as it was meant to! I also used the tutorial she linked to - find it here if you want to have a go. It's so simple and easy to do but takes quite a lot of time and patience (from start to finish, it took me about 3 hours...) and a steady hand. I am about as patient as a Jack Russel Terrier on crack... Hence the blips. I've had loads of comments about them yesterday and today so obviously the 'wrong' bits only matter to me!

Here's a few pictures from Greenwich Park for you all to have a look at; as I said it was a fantastic day, and was so well organised - great kudos to the Olympic family for putting on a great show and well done team GB! The atmosphere was electric and so tense when the Brits were riding; with every British rider getting a massive cheer from the home crowd on entry and course completion. Wonderful.

Greenwich House

The view from our seat - the arena was massive, much bigger than it looked on TV!

Team GB riding in to collect their well earned silver medals (the 2012 rosettes for the horses are so cute!)

Finally, a panorama of the view from our seats:

July Round Up

Sorry for the absence recently, it's been all go here! This week I spent some time down at my sisters and had a few really lovely days, shopping and picking out wedding flowers. I've also indulged in some British patriotism and watched the opening ceremony and most of the dressage (three day eventing, somewhat important to be up to date with as I'll be at Greenwich watching the show jumping final day on Tuesday!). So, busy all round. But it's a cloudy Sunday morning now so here's my July round up! It seems crazy that we're nearly in August already...

Since my June round up post, I've now acquired a job volunteering at a charity shop. It's unpaid and I only do two or three hours a week but it's really good fun and it's nice to get out the house and do something that's not pressured or targeted towards selling the most that you can. The people I work with are lovely, and the customers are amusing! Plus I get a nice warm glow knowing that I've contributed to society rather than sat in playing Sims all afternoon.

I struggled a bit with the loves and hates of this past month, as I don't really feel like I've discovered anything that ground breaking. The only things I really want to rave about are graze boxes and poundland bargains, which I think I've covered quite comprehensibly in previous posts here and here! I don't think there's really anything I've hated this month. I've loved the weather, the ability to get my shorts out, and the buzz around the Olympics so much I've been fairly distracted from make up and cosmetics and things! One thing I am definitely not loving is that my nails on my left hand are peeling rather severely and they refuse to stop :(

I've been spending a lot of time this month on money earning website SwagBucks, it's a website where you perform daily tasks such as surveys, polls and games in order to earn points that you can redeem for Amazon gift cards, Paypal gift cards or other rewards - So far, having joined on the 5th of July, I've earned 3 £5 Amazon gift cards and am well on my way to another! Fantastic site that I would thoroughly recommend if you have a few hours free.

I've also discovered Lookbook, a website that most of you fashion bloggers will be familiar with I imagine! It's not one I've really explored before but I'm giving it a go and so far, it seems fun and a great source of inspiration.

In August I'd love to get a twitter account for this blog set up, something I keep saying but not getting round to! I'd also like to experiment more with different nail varnish techniques (I have one planned for this evening that is very unusual - Olympic themed with a twist! If it goes well that post will be up soon, either tomorrow or Tuesday as a scheduled post as I won't be here) and hopefully earn a few more Amazon gift cards and paypal credits from SwagBucks, to fund my uni books in year 3. I'll need to have a good good clear out; another thing I've been putting off for a while, and make sure that everything is ready to go back to uni with. Where has the summer gone?!