Nude clouds for New Year's Eve


Hello everyone! Here's a quick little post on my New Year's Eve mani. Initially I wanted to do the festive star pattern again that I wore for Christmas, but in the end I decided to go for something quick and simple instead. I don't like my nails naked, but this semi nude cloud look I like ^^ I used H&M Golden Treasure and Color Club Where's The Soiree? for the clouds and finished with a topcoat.

Have a great New Year's Eve and I'll see you in 2012! :)

Glitter V-gaps


Hi everyone! :) For this post I have a glittery V-gap mani to share with you. As my base color I used two smooth coats of the lovely murky green China Glaze Westside Warrior. Normally I love to combine Westside Warrior with a gold like I did in this post, but this time I wanted to try something different so I picked multi-colored Rain Glitter from Amour for the V-gaps. It's a very suitable polish for tape manis, as the glitters are very dense, so just one coat was enough to cover the taped shapes.

In the bottles, Rain Glitter and Westside Warrior looked amazing next to each other, on the nails however I expected the glitter to pop more against the green so the V-shape would be more visible. I'm really enjoying Rain Glitter though, I have such a huge weakness for anything with lots of color, especially when they're this sparkly... But I'm sure many of you feel the same way ^^

What do you think of today's tape mani?

Shine like a star


Hello everyone! I hope you're having a merry Christmas with your loved ones. This year I'm rocking this star pattern that I made with a new image plate from Essence. It's only available in a set including a stamper and scraper, which I already have, but I really wanted the star design. The star shapes I have on other patterns are quite small which makes them harder to work with and less recognizable. (And besides, €3 for the whole set is a pretty good deal!) I used Color Club Where's The Soiree as my black, as usual, and the gold is China Glaze 2030. This look isn't very Christmassy per se, but I love it anyway. So much that I might even wear it again for New Year's Eve ^^ Happy Holidays!

Sweet Snowman


Hi guys! For this post I've made this chubby little snowman design by Rins from Simply Rins. I saw it on her blog just a little while ago and fell madly in love... I couldn't stop looking at all ten of them on her nails, because they're just too cute! So many, many thanks to Rins for this adorable design! Seriously, don't you want to hug it? ^^ I used acrylic paint to draw the snowman and the base color is Essence Viva La Green. I love the color because it's not that typical mint green that we've come across many times in the past few years. It's a bit darker and quite vibrant, although it doesn't really show in the pictures (where I'm holding OPI Spark The Triomphe as decoration heehee). Rins also made a tutorial for this design which you can find in the orignal post here. Make sure to check it out, as well as the rest of her blog, she's created plenty of other amazing (freehand!) looks, very inspiring.

Thanks for reading and see you soon :)

Abstract Christmas tree


Here's a little bonus post that shows the design from today's tutorial "in action" :) The green is China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses on top of OPI Jade Is The New Black and the gold is China Glaze 2030. Good night everyone!

Tutorial: Abstract Christmas tree design


Hello everyone! Recently I posted my second Holiday tutorial, which shows you how to make a traditional Christmas tree shape. But for this tutorial I have an abstract take on the Christmas tree, for the more modern nail art fans who are looking for something different. All you need is two polishes, tape and something to act like your tree topper. I used a rhinestone, but you could also use one larger (star shaped) glitter, a sticker, a stamping design and so on. Be creative ;-)
Continue reading »

Purple glitter fest


Good evening! As you may have noticed, I am feeling pretty glittery lately, for today I have a purple colored glitter mani to share with you. I remember not really being into purples at the start of this blog, but as time went by I got more and more used to them, to the point of even loving them ♥
In this post I'm wearing Essence Purple Magic, a beautiful medium blue-toned purple shimmer. (You can see swatches of it by itself here.) I decided to combine this little gem with my recently purchased W7 glitters and a champagne gold glitter, and I really like the outcome! The color scheme of purple, blue and pink has always intrigued me, and using it with glitter only makes it better ;-)

From left to right: W7 Blue Diamonds, W7 Purple Dazzle, W7 Pink Dazzle and Paris Memories #250

And now you probably want to see the matte version right? Yeah, me too ^^
As usual, I used my favorite matte topcoat from Essence.

Christmas Fever


Hello everyone :) For today I have the mani I made after finishing the tutorial for the Christmas tree design with tape. The tutorial already received many comments, so thanks a lot for that! :) The beautiful red base color is P2's Fever. I love how elegant Fever is, the shimmer's just gorgeous and the finish is especially great for this month of the year. In the pictures you can see that the bottle has a golden glow, however that's not the case in real life, just a plain and perfect red shimmer! For a higher party-factor, I added a coat of Milani Gems. It looked fine with the glossy finish, but I mattified it anyway, so I could see all the different colors better ^^ Thanks for reading!

Tutorial: Tape Christmas tree design


Hi everybody, welcome to my second Holiday design tutorial! In this tutorial I'll be showing you how to make the classic Christmas tree shape, with the help of tape for perfectly crisp lines. The design isn't too difficult to achieve, but you do need to cut and place many tape strips, so you may want to use it for accent nails only if you'd like to save yourself a lot of work ;-) Let's give it a try, shall we? Continue reading »

China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses


Aaah... China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses  When I first saw this sparkly, green beauty from the 2010 holiday collection online, I knew I needed it! Mistletoe Kisses is pretty opaque, it covers in two coats. But since I was already wearing OPI Jade Is The New Black, I just applied one coat of it on top. The tiny silver glitters add so much glamour, without hiding the emerald green base. Perfect for the december holidays ^^ Do you own Mistletoe Kisses? And what do you think about it?

Blue and turquoise glitter cocktail


Hello everybody :) This is a layering mani I made with China Glaze Concrete Catwalk as my basecolor and a blend of blue and turquoise glitters on top. It was hard to capture how this looked in real life, it was quite pretty. All the hues kind of blended into one undefinable color, full of sparkles ^^ But under the direct light of the lamp which I took this mani under, it's not visible because of the bigger contrast between all the colors. It's still beautiful, but very different.
The bottom picture was taken in daylight the next day, it shows the blended effect a little better. (Excuse my tipwear :)) What do you guys think about this combination?


The glitters I used on top: a nameless blue and turquoise glitter from Claire's and Essence Edward 




Christmas scene


Hi everyone :) For this post I have another Christmas mani. Since I haven't made any Halloween looks this fall, I'm planning on catching up some holiday manis with this year's Christmas ;-) Anyway, this week's been terribly busy, so I've been wearing Essie Your Hut Or Mine for the last three days. But today's weekend, yay! So I finally had time to update my mani. I added a Christmas tree for my accent nail, using tape. You know, if you think about it, a Christmas tree isn't that different from a lightning bolt! I mainly used tape triangles which I placed underneath each other on each side of the tree to create the zigzag lines. For a little sparkle I added silver glitter on top and a larger piece of glitter as my tree topper. On the rest of my nails I made "funky clouds", representing a snow scenery and later I added the "snow" with a dotting tool. In retrospect, I think the dots are a bit too much, so I doubt if I'm going to keep this mani longer than a day. But oh well, that means I can do my nails again tomorrow ^^ Thanks for reading!

Polishes I used:
Essie - Your Hut Or Mine
Essie - Lion Around
Orly - Pure Porcelain
H&M - Confetti Kisses

Christmas nails with lace


Hi guys! These lacy nails were made recently when I was in a very Christmassy and girly mood, can you tell? ^^ I used OPI Big Apple Red and Konad imageplate M71 with Essence Stamp Me White!. This look is a lot girlier than I'm usually going for, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, squealing like a little child when I noticed how they matched red Christmas glasses from the Ikea was part of the fun haha.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tutorial: Snowflake


Hello everybody, welcome to my snowflake tutorial! Snowflakes have such beautiful and delicate shapes that instantly make a cute winter mani. In this tutorial I'll show you how to make a detailed but fairly simple snowflake. All you need is a small nail art brush and two matching polishes. Let's start! Continue reading »

Snowflakes


Hi everyone :) Today I'd like to share these silver snowflakes with you. I was actually feeling pretty uninspired the whole day, sometimes you just have those days when you feel like you've got nothing to wear, even though you've got drawers of polish that could easily color the nails of your entire neighborhood... Anyone recognizes this? ;-) So to make a choice anyway, I just picked two bottles from my collection, with my eyes closed. Those polishes became L.A. Girl Matte Blue Twilight and Essence Romeo (the shimmer version), luckily they formed a great duo and they instantly said 'Snowflakes!'. I only had to apply one coat of Matte Blue Twilight, because it's very opaque and the formula is so smooth. (I'm gonna have to use this one more often!) And because it's matte, it dries quickly too, so soon after I could draw the snowflakes with a nail art brush and finally add top coat for a glossy finish. I'd already finished all my nails before I realized I should've taken pictures in between to make a tutorial. So I'll make new pictures once I've enjoyed this winter mani for a couple of days ^^ Hope you like it too and see you soon!