31 Day Challenge, day 21: Inspired by a Color

Hi everyone! This is day 21 of the 31 Day Challenge and this time I'm supposed to be "inspired by a color". Like many other participants of the challenge I'm a little confused about what exactly is meant by that, so I chose to be inspired by the name of a polish, like fellow blogger Sarah did from Chalkboard Nails (do check out her blog!).

My inspiration, that I just randomly grabbed out of my Helmer, became OPI's Midnight Blue Glitter, pictured below. I instantly liked the name of it and already had an idea of what to make. But instead of using the polish itself for the look, I decided to only use the name as theme, because I really wanted my mani to scream: "BLUE GLITTER!". :3 And although Midnight Blue Glitter does contain beautiful blue (and turquoise and pink) bits here and there, the overall color is clearly charcoal. So I picked OPI Absolutely Alice (on top of Orly Sweet Peacock) to be my blue glitter. Which means my ring finger is indeed symbolizing midnight, with a classical Roman twelve in a clock, freehanded over China Glaze 2030. Hope you like it! :-)

OPI - Midnight Blue Glitter

31 Day Challenge, day 19: Galaxies

Hi readers! Today I have my first galaxy nails to show you. I always get excited when I see them on other blogs, but somehow it took me this long to finally do them myself. Now that I have, I'm really happy with them. Look at all those colors! :-)

I started with two coats of OPI Russian Navy (in the bottle in the second picture you can clearly see the red/pink shimmer I'm so crazy about!) Then I balled up a piece of paper towel to randomly dab on OPI Extravagance and China Glaze DV8. Finally I added a few white dots as stars and a layer of iridiscent glitter with OPI Last Friday Night. That's it! Now this may seem like a lot of steps, but because they don't require much precision this mani is very easy to do. Hooray!

To achieve this galaxy look, I roughly followed the steps of Asami's helpful video tutorial. Asami was one of my blogging idols with her make-up and nail blog Nails By Asami, often featuring cute handpainted cartoon nail art. Unfortunately she quit blogging, but you can still find her old video's on Youtube and a few of her designs on Pinterest.

Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 18: Half Moons

Hi everybody! I'm on day 18 of the 31 Day Challenge and today I'd like to show you half moons, something I haven't shared on this blog before. Not surprising given the fact I've only done half moon manis twice so far. Time to change that, because working on it this time reminded me of how fun it is!

With this challenge I also rediscovered my love for OPI Russian Navy. It has that subtle red/pink shimmer which gives this navy polish a nice something extra to look at. I used two coats of it to freehand the half moon gaps and then I filled in the bare gaps with pieces of silver glitter using a dotting tool. I know they're just plain silver glitter, but from a distance I swear they're like little diamonds. Almost like jewellery on my nails and it actually makes me feel a bit posh, haha!

Have you tried half moon manis yet?

31 Day Challenge, day 17: Glitter

Ah, a new year has started. My first resolution? Finishing last year's 31 Day Challenge! :') I must be the worst participant ever! That's why I kept postponing starting on it in the first place. But at least I'm still having fun with it, and that's what counts, right?

For day 17 I did a glitter gradient. My first one actually and I must say I enjoyed it! It's so simple to make yet the results are pretty cool, I like. :) I used two coats of OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ and dabbed H&M Confetti Kisses and a bit of China Glaze Silver Lining on the tips. Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 14: Flowers

Hi everyone! :-) This is day 14 in the 31 Day Challenge and today's theme is flowers. I have to say the whole mani is a little bit too tacky for me, haha, but being a tad different than most of my manis, I enjoyed working on it very much. I used my trusty cloud design method to draw the petals, first with a black, then with Essence Ultimate Pink. Then I added the blue, diamond-shaped glitters for a bit of contrast. I don't use loose glitters often, but I immediately fell in love with these from Essence, named Shine Like A Star!, which I bought about a year ago. It doesn't show on the pictures, but they're actually holographic, which makes them even more awesome. Can't wait to use them again. :-) Thanks for dropping by!

31 Day Challenge, day 4: Green

Hi guys, time for some green nails! :-) This week I had a party for which I did simple, stunning, silver glitter nails to match my red dress. I used China Glaze Millenium and a coat of Silver Lining on top, also from China Glaze. I didn't have an idea for my forth challenge yet at the time, but when I saw the dense silver glitter sparkle on my fingertips I just couldn't wait to combine it with a bright green. So the next day I made these V-gaps with Barry M's Spring Green. I love, love, love the color. It's so vibrant! Almost like a neon. I didn't manage to capture its true color in the pictures though, where it looks a bit turquoise. In real life it's more like a Hulk-green, wild and strong. ^^ What do you think of today's green nails?

31 Day Challenge, day 1: Red

That's right! I'm finally doing the 31 Day Challange! The task for day 1 is to make red nails and this is my attempt. Okay, so it's just as much grey as it is red. :-P But I decided to allow myself to have a little bit of freedom with this challenge, hope that's okay! ;-) For this simple fifty-fifty tape mani I started with a sexy red basecolor, #85 from Hema (a Dutch department store). When that had dried, I covered half of each nail with tape and painted the other half with a thin layer of China Glaze Concrete Catwalk and Tinsel Town. After removing the tape again, this is the end result; vampy and sparkly, can't say no to that! ^^

Because I'd like to enjoy the results of each challenge for more than just a day, I'm going to have to cheat a tiny bit with the original schedule of a challenge a day. As a compromise I promise to work twice as hard on each little project. ;-) Thank you for reading!

Viva La Lightning Bolt

Hello dear readers! I'm still very busy with school, only two more weeks to go! I've still got a lot of things to do, but right now I just want to show you these nails. :-) Yesterday I wore a brandless plain white creme. It took three coats to get opaque and it took forever to dry, but it was totally worth it. Who knew I could like white nails this much! But sadly the polish already chipped after one short day, so today I added these lightning bolt tips with Essence Viva La Green. I hadn't done lightning bolt tips for a long time, I almost forgot how fun they are to make. ^^ Finally I added a bit of glam with OPI Spark The Triomphe. It's so sparkly! ♥

W.I.C. Frederiksberg & Aspen

Hi guys! Yesterday I showed you two of the four polishes Herôme sent me for review: Roskilde and Hollywood. Today it's time to show the second two, which are my favorites of the bunch!

Meet Frederiksberg from the Denmark collection, a gorgeous smokey purple creme. I'm so in love with the color, but what makes it even more special is the subtle pink shimmer. It was hard to capture the shimmer in the pictures, but if you look at the first one you can see a bit of it at the bottom. On the nails the pink isn't so obvious, but that's fine with me, because this polish already stole my heart with the trendy color. In addition to that, the formula was again just perfect, like it was with Roskilde. Two thin coats were all I needed to get everything opaque and even.

The second glitter I received is Aspen, which is part of the Wickedly Glamorous collection like Hollywood. Aspen is a glitter polish with tiny silver glitters in a clear base. At first it seemed like a 'regular' silver glitter with small round or hexagonal glitters, but when I looked up close I could see they're actually elongated, which creates a slightly different finish. I like it! In the picture below I applied one coat over Frederiksberg. The glitters are dense and spread evenly, though without hiding the beautiful base color underneath. Because of this and the fact it goes with so many colors in my opinion, I can see myself wearing Aspen a lot. For holidays of course, or just to add a tad of glamour during the rest of the year. It would make a great combination with other (smokey) cremes too.

I think it's clear I'm in love with both haha, what do you think of them?

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for  €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide.

W.I.C. - Roskilde & Hollywood

Hi everyone! For this post I have some polishes from W.I.C. by Herôme to share with you. Herôme is a Dutch nail and hand care brand, they first started selling mainly treatment products but now also have a big, colorful nail polish collection named W.I.C. (World Inspired Colours). Each polish is inspired by and named after a big city. I'm a very, VERY lucky girl for having the entire W.I.C. core collection that I won in a nail art contest, but in addition to that Herôme has kindly sent me four new polishes from their latest limited collections from which I'm going to show you the first two today.

From left to right: Aspen, Hollywood, Roskilde and Frederiksberg.

This pretty from the Denmark collection is called Roskilde. Roskilde is a corally pink creme with a subtle pink shimmer. Because the pink is red-toned, it's a lovely warm color which actually suits my skintone, unlike many other soft pink shades. I know it looks pretty much just coral in the pictures, but that's because my camera just won't capture the pink tones in colors like this. The formula was excellent, like I'm used to from their other cremes, and the application was easy with the flat brush. So a great polish I'd say, although it's not unique. The first time I had Roskilde in my hands, it immediately reminded me of Essie Your Hut Or Mine which I also have. They looked so identical in the bottles that I didn't bother to compare swatches. They both have the same color and amount of the pink shimmer. And both need two coats to cover. Although I absolutely prefer Roskilde over Your Hut Or Mine appliaction-wise, since the latter tends to leave bald spots on me with the second coat.

W.I.C. Roskilde and Essie Your Hut Or Mine

Next up is Hollywood from the Wickedly Glamorous collection. Hollywood is a blend of small iridiscent and silver glitters is a sheer pink base. The formula is smooth and the glitters spread evenly, nothing to say there. It looks amazing in the bottle with the pink base, very princessy, though the pink will not show on the nails so I applied it over Roskilde. It looks so girly! ^^

All in all I think both polishes are nice to have, Roskilde in particular, though you won't need them if you've got something similar in your stash. What's your thought on these polishes?

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for  €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide.

China Glaze Designer Satin + Essence Blair

Hello everyone and happy New Year! :-) For my first post of 2012 I have this simple layering combination of China Glaze Designer Satin and the amazing glitter Blair from Essence. Both are polishes that I can't live without. Though there may be many other pinks like Designer Satin, it has a special place in my heart because it was one of my first China Glaze polishes. The deep, berry pink color is timeless and can be both sweet and girly, and funky or edgy (I like it a lot in this mummy tape mani). Blair is part of an Essence Nail Art Twin together with Chuck. The different sized hexagons in a dark silver make it a very special polish, which can be worn over about any color, great over brights but also softer, muted shades like I did in this skittle. Of course everything had to be mattified afterwards, you know how I like matte glitters ^^ Thanks for reading!

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?

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 ;-)

First apply your base color (with a basecoat underneath) and let it dry completely. If needed use a fastdrying topcoat to quicken the drying.
I used a fine glitter as my base color to make it more festive, but you can also use a regular cream, a subtle shimmer polish or one with a foil finish etc. Just make sure it's not too dominating, because you want to keep the Christmas tree the center of attention.

Cut off two regular tape strips which you'll use in step 3, and a few small ones to make the garland in step 4. The best way for me to cut (fine) tape strips, is by cutting off a little piece of the tape roll first which I then stick on the scissorblade, like shown in the picture. I let it stick out on one side (right in de picture), depending on how big I want the strip to be. This allows me to make very thin but also straight strips with relatively little effort.
A tip: to keep multiple small strips the same size, use the thickness of the scissorblade as standard.

When the base color is entirely dry, place the two regular tape strips on your nail, forming a chevron shape.

Then place the small strips randomly accross the chevron to form the garland. Important is to remember the order in which you've placed them, for a quick removal and neat result afterwards. With opaque tape this shouldn't be a problem, clear tape on the other hand... To make it easier with the latter, you can place the tape strips per direction. So first apply the ones going in one direction (upper left for instance), then the strips going in a second direction (upper right). All you have to remember now are the ones lying on top.
When all strips are in the right position, press them down firmly and apply your layering color.

Then right away, carefully peel of all the pieces of tape. Try to remove them individually if you can, because this will create crisper lines. When you're done, give your design a little time to dry.

At last, finish your design with a sparkly tree topper and seal your work with a layer of topcoat. Tada!

Finally some useful tips:

• For my tape manis, all I use is regular stationery tape. (For this particular tutorial I used painters tape for better visibility.) But you might prefer something else, so just experiment with different sorts of tape to figure out what works best for you.
• For your base color you can use any polish you like, however one-coaters will allow you to place the tape much sooner because those are usually fast drying. Of course you can also quicken the drying of polishes that require several coats to cover, by applying a fast drying topcoat. (I use Seche Vite). 
• Your layering color(s) can be either a one- or two-coater. Because you've already applied a base color, most polishes that usually take two coats to cover now will do with one.
• Though I mention cutting the tape strips as step 2, I admit it is safer to cut before applying the base color. However, if you've learned how to cut the tape without having it touch your polished nails, it can save you a lot of time.
• You might want to leave the cut strips somewhere else than the edge of your desk/table, to prevent them from getting stuck to the surface while you're busy. You do not want to have to peel them off with your freshly painted claws!
• Apply your top color in one thin (but opaque) coat, this will create crisper lines.
• When you're removing the tape strips, try to remove them individually, if you can, because most of the time your design will come out neater this way
• Using tweezers to remove the tape strips can prevent your freshly painted nails from getting smudged.
• It's not always necessary to start all over if you've messed up your design, often a little touch-up with a nailart brush can solve the problem.
• If you want to use a matt topcoat, use a regular one underneath. My experience with matt topcoats is that they smudge the design very easily, even when it's completely dry. Applying a normal topcoat first will prevent that.
• Moisterize your cuticles afterwards, because the tape can really dry out your skin!
• You can practice this tutorial on your old mani that you applied a day (or more) before. That way it's certain that the base color is dry.
• Have fun and practice makes perfect ;)

I would absolutely love to see your attempt on my design, so feel free to leave a link to your creation in the comment section!

Polishes I used in this post are China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses and 2030.

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!

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 ♥