I *might* be cheating Ditty  My mate is a nail technician so I'm sending her all the pics of the nails I want done and if she doesn't have the stuff then I'll buy it and she'll do it for me when I want them done if I can't do them myself.

  cool!

I have to admit, for me its more about the playing & painting, than wearing the end result (the chickens think I am making one hell of an effort for them these days )

I was looking in the numerous nail bars that have suddenly appeared in our town centre...     and they look a bit scary

They are all staffed by really sad looking chinese people, I am not totally convinced they are all there by choice     And all the old established nail bars have suddenly disappeared...     MrD agrees that its looking might suspicious..     though a bit of a random business for certain underworld organisations to choose to go into  

oh....oh....OH.....

reminds me of a certain laptopless, wifi-less, technology killing duck 

Lol there are some great (and ridiculous) designs on these links you've posted.  I've been glued to them!

Speaking of glue.....I've also ordered some PVA to paint my nails with as recommended by someone on those links just to get the glittery stuff off when I do finally get my new stuff and play nail technician on myself.

Doing small gold dots in actual paint would probably be easier than fiddling around with those caviar balls wouldn't it?   Do you know of a good value gold paint that will come out on top of black?

I'd like someone to do it for me I know it would last about 5 minutes though

I am using a really REALLY cheap gold one I already had - one of the Barbara Daly mini bottles (colour is called Fairy Tale).   I only paid a couple of quid for it.

It has really good coverage.

Barry M are supposed to be very good. 

And..   Claires Accessories nail art pens are cheap & do the job as good as any of the more expensive ones (apparently)

Shame you aren't closer to me ...     Ickle & I were begging the boy & MrD to let us do their nails over christmas... 

I was even prepared to have a go at doing MrD's hobbit toe nails...  

if he'd have let me!  

In fact, even the dog should sleep with one eye open... 

Barbara Daly ones are from Tesco btw

Ditty what's this Konad you mentioned?  I see it's stamp plates but what would you suggest I buy?

I swear I'm not taking your thread off topic Saint  I'm buying stuff for nails on ebay.

A bottle of pure acetone is handy too (your nail tech mate will probably be able to give you some of that)...   you need it to clean the stamping plates( & it makes cleaning up round the edges of your nails really easy...   comes straight off using acetone on a small brush)

normal acetone nail polish remover that we buy in the shops has conditioners & is dilute so doesn't work as well for cleaning plates & round the edges of your nails.

ICKLE HAS TAKEN HER ACETONE BACK TO LONDON WITH HER!!! 

I neeeeeeeed some! 

Ells i'm thinking we need a new thread! Ditty!?

I've been looking at Konad and think (on Ditty's advice) this http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/car...ew.html/ref=gno_cart plus something like http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bundle...357603833&sr=8-1

Or even these? http://www.amazon.com/Cheeky-S.../182-0459770-3979728 Although the reviews are either Awesome or totally naff (marmite?)

You can buy various kits containing some or all of the bits, but basically you need.. 

The stamper & scraper

design plates...   either Konad ones (bit pricey for the number of plates you get)..   or the monster bundles are highly recommended 

and the Konad black stamping polish

and, if buying separately, then you will need to get pure acetone to clean the plates 

There are lots of the Konad kits here   and I am fairly sure that the polishes you get in the kits is the special stamping polish.   I am surprised that the kits don't have pure acetone included in them (I got Ickle the Rio Professional stamping kit for xmas...   the stamps & polishes are ok, but not as good as Konad, but they did include the acetone).

And...  ermm...     I know I just gave you all amazon links..  but I am sure Ebay has them too    (in the name of thread topic)

also...  when you get the plates, they have a really really hard to see layer of plastic on them (like you get on your new mobile phone screens)...  

Ickle did not realise this at first, and there was nearly a "this xmas pressie is crap & doesn't work" strop til I noticed her mistake & peeled the film off 

I want these 

though I have no idea what the big fan like brush is for 

hahahahaha... 

yeah, I know... 

but its kinda amusing me doing this in here...   

But...  yeah, feel free Jen..   a nail art toot thread can only be a good thing (especially for me cos I am not watching CBB, or Dancing on Ice) 

And d the bundle monster ones work on the konad plates?

(these things are new to me....are they easy to figure out?)

Jen..  I hadn't even looked on the US Amazon site...  

O. M. Geeeeeeee!

Soooooo many plates 

my wish list is gonna explode

WHOAH hold on with the nail thing

Our eldest LOVES nail art and now you gave me an idea for her birthday.

So in a nutshell

Where is the best place to look at a box set for her to play with?

Y'know all the bits n bobs in one selection box

You start it.... cos you started it

yeah, just think of the bundle monster plate sets as bargain bundles of Konad plates..   people reckon they are exactly the same.  The bundle monster sets are just the design plates...   

The Cheeky ones are looking good, bigger full nail designs than konad apparently and good quality for the price

amazon Ebay i guess

The Rio kits are quite good as a starter kit Renton... 

I got Ickle the Rio printing kit (£20)..  but you can get different ones.

If I were you I'd get her one of the ones with the nail art pens & some gems in.. 

e.g. 

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/...TEL+NAIL+ART+KIT.htm

a really nice pressie for £25 I think  (you might find it cheaper somewhere else)

Invisiable hand is telling me that's £19.99 on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/dp/B...YHXU?tag=invihand-21 (really starting to love that browser ad on)

SOLD

EXCELLENT!

I am dead jellus...     I love the colours in that set 

your sister might not be too happy about the glitter though... 

IT GETS EVERYWHERE 

even my dog is sparkly! 

I was wondering - can you not just get the transfers?

Do transfers exists? and stick 'em on cos she's quite young and might not want to mess with glues etc . . .

you can get decals, and stickers..   and then the full nail foils.

The foils aren't particularly easy (imo).

You'd be surprised how easy the nail pens are...    maybe Mum could help with gluing the odd stone on.

how old is she?

Yep, I've got quite a few sets.  Cheap as chips on ebay!

Ten coming up but is 18 in her head LOL

Claire's accessories vouchers

Hmmmm not sure vouchers wud "wow" her.

That mega monster collection of transfers i just saw for £14.99 looked good from Amazon

I made my niece up a gift box with nail paints, transfers, nail glitter, brushes and gems and she loves it.  All bought on ebay.....the transfers were ordered from Hong Kong but they are very pretty.

I first discovered all this nail art stuff when my daughter got a big tin of stuff called "Lets Have a Nail Party" for Christmas (can't remember who she got it from).     I know she was still in primary school at the time, so was probably about 9 or 10.   

I think it depends on how into it your sister will be, Ickle did do her own nail art..   but we did a lot of it together (yeah, I soooo wanted that tin of nail stuff...    pressie envy )

You should probably get her some nail polish remover or some of the convenient nail polish remover pads as well though, just in case your sister doesn't have any in, and in case the school don't allow them to wear nail polish.

oooh...  the other thing I bought was a cheap plastic placemat (I think you can get Asda price ones for about a quid each)     for her to do all her nail stuff on...    stops any polish going anywhere it shouldn't.

Actually..    given how my brother has really made me cross with some of the stuff he bought my kids this christmas it might be a good idea to run it past your sister first 

My brother thinks he is a lot funnier than he actually is...  

he bought my 15 year old son a proper (not a toy) lock picking set, with a big How To book, on how to pick locks, from door locks, Yale locks, window locks, to car locks (different brands of cars covered....   all required picks included).   And, he then had the cheek to warn my son that if the police caught him with the lock picks on him he could actually be arrested for it.

Total & utter dickhead!

Luckily my boy is probably the most honest person on the planet (bit of a stickler for the law he is ) so he isn't interested in them at all..   but bloody hell..     

That's an odd gift Has the boy shown any interest in that sort of thing before, or did your brother just think it seemed like a great idea? Seems a bit of a specialised interest, and not cheap I'd imagine!

Ooooooh I'd have been cross too  That's not funny - it might be mildly funny as a joke present to a 'mature' adult but it's not appropriate for an impressionable teenager IMO.

Whatever made him think that's be a great gift? What did he buy Ickle?

I still cant get my head around the bucket of KFC wrapped and under the tree Ditty (from same brother)