[#WNAC2015] September Jewel Tones: Mix N Match

This time my jewel for #wnac2015 is sapphire. I chose to mix two delicate patterns and silver:

Both patterns are from the the ÜberChic stamping plate 1-03 from the Collection 1.These plates are just amazing - just look how wonderfully intricate the patterns are! Me likey! :)


Base color: Tristam by A-England (one thick or two thin coats)
Stamping: patterns from ÜberChic stamping plate 1-03 (ordered from their online shop with shipping to Germany) stamped with Mundo de Uñas Silver.
Silver nail: textured polish Maxibelt Arena Plata, bought on holiday in South America Read More......

New York mani

My hubby and I have just returned from our trip to New York. What an incredible city!  We dreamed about going to NY for so long, I was giddy with anticipation before we left. And naturally I had to do a NY mani!

The skyline comes from the fantastic Bundle Monster plate BM-414. I was so excited, I couldn't stamp straight ;) The resulting image is more like New York fata morgana to be frank ;).
Mani done, I felt prepared to go:

Despite my "wavy" stamping I loved my nails. And it was a huge success in NY ("Oh, I love your nails!" and "Oh, this is New York! So cool!"). Who new that nails could be such a conversation starter! :D

Gradient: Mint Polish Tart, China Glaze Sugar High, CG Fade Into Hue, Essie Midnight Cami over one layer of no-name white
Stamping: BM-414 with A-England Camelot Read More......

31DC2013, Day 28: Inspired by a flag

The flag topic of my never ending 31 Day challenge was a really difficult one. Honestly, what kind of a flag manicure can you wear to work, if you work in a fairly conservative, men dominated industry? Not during the finals of a football championship, but just on a regular business day?..
I gave up and decided to do a tribute to Hamburg - my most favorite city in the world. My colleagues would cope with that ;) My mani features its official flag:

I cheated a bit this time - I used thin permanent markers in black and white. I wouldn't be able to pull off such thin lines with my brush, to be frank. And even with the marker it was difficult. Then - aaarghh, buggers! I don't want a gradient!!! - my top coat started dissolving my castle... The result is quite messy, but thank god, the Hammerburg is still standing ;). So please don't look too close ;)

Base color: A-England Camelot and OPI Big Apple Red (which started getting gooey and had lots of air bubbles from my unwise shaking)
Hamburg flag: thin permanent markers in black and white

Apart from my semi-successful mani, if you're somewhere near or traveling to northern part of Europe, visit my beautiful home town, it's worth it!

Source: wikipedia

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Going gangsta with Hexnailjewelry

After the cute pastel mani from last week I wanted to do something dark and cool for our girls night out. So here are my bad-ass gangsta nails I wore last weekend :D :

The B*ch charm is from Hexnailjewelry. It is pretty small, so unless people look at it very closely,  no one is noticing what's saying. I even wore it to work today. Pencil skirt, silk blouse and professional expression included. This charm kept me grinning all day :D

This time I didn't cover it with top coat as I did here, just pressed into a wet top coat. The charm was pretty flat at first, so I bent it over a pencil to match the curve of my nails.

Base coat: A-England Camelot

Glitter: China Glaze I'm not A Lion

Charm:  Hexnailjewelry bought online (they deliver to Europe and the shipping costs are absolutely ok!)

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31DC2013, Day 27: Inspired by artwork

The end is near for my first 31 Day challenge. This time my mani is inspired by art, by Piet Mondrian to be exact. Currently there is a Mondrian exhibition in Hamburg, so posters with this picture are everywhere. After seeing the posters for a couple of weeks on my way to work, I basically HAD to do this! :)

I used acrylic paint, a striper brush and a very thin detail brush to fill out the squares. For my other hand I created decals as shown here. Perfect solution if you, like me, are not very good with your non-dominant hand.

I loooove how they turned out! I think black is the perfect complimentary color here - it lets the pattern really pop. It took me some time to do this, but apart from getting the lines straight - this was annoyingly difficult as always - it was actually quite easy.

This mani was a huge success at work. Even my male colleagues recognized the pattern and asked me about my nails! And lets be frank, normally software engineers are not the type of men who would even notice nail polish! ;)

Base color: white Cult Nails Tempest and black A-England Camelot, both in just one coat!

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Free hand practice or how to pimp your Briarwood

I bought A-Englands Briarwood ages ago. Bought, admired and forgot for months. I decided it's time to wear this beautiful polish. I wore it on its own for a day, but felt my mani was missing something. Apparently I just cannot wear a polish without nail art anymore :D
Surprisingly, on my nails Briarwood looked more brown then dark red. Nail art with brown?!? Ok, let's practice free-hand painting!

Indoors the golden shimmer and scattered holo particles are very subtle. The magic of this rich deep-red-brown color truly reveals itself in direct sunlight. The problem is, you don't see that much of it in February in Northern Europe... ;)

See what I mean with more red then brown? It looks more dark rosé in a bottle, doesn't it?

I'm still a beginner with acrylic paints. My hand shakes like crazy and when I try to create lines, they are neither thin nor straight ;)  Clear case here: practice free-handing!
I've always liked the delicate swirly pattern on a Bundle Monster BM-314 plate, so I decided to do some swirls on my Brairwood canvas.

I thought maybe a thinner brush would help with finer lines. I cut a small nail art brush as shown in this tutorial and hey! Look at my lines! Almost all of them are thin!!!

Do you have any tips and tricks for free-hand painting? Read More......

31DC2013, Day 21: Inspired by a color

Ta-daaaa! Please welcome the fantastic Dragon, an absolutely marvelous, shimmery, warm, forest (dragon-) green nail polish made by A-England.

I thought about this polish as soon as I've seen the "Inspired by a color" topic of the 31 day challenge.

Think about perfection polish-ified: great formula, opacity in just one coat, scattered holo effect, warm golden shimmer. Ohhh, I'm about to drool now! :-D But look at it! It is impossible not to, right?!?

I painted two coats - more out of habit than for coverage.
The cute fly is from Hexnailjewelry  and it's actually a bee ;). I first saw this charm on a fantastic gradient mani done by Sarah from Chalkboardnails. I loved the green-gold combination and had to have the charms as well!  I ordered online and it worked like a charm (pun intended ;-) ). I paid something like $2 for shipping of 16 charms to Europe - a really great price compared to some other shops.

I used nail glue, but after three days, the charms still didn't fell off. I had to use brute force to remove them and ruined the charms :( Next time I'll just put the charms on my wet top coat.

This post marks the end of the easy part of the challenge.  Next comes the "inspired by ..." section - inspired by a song, book, movie... Damn... Since I'm still really bad with free-handing, I'd have to think of some creative ideas to cover the upcoming topics... Well, it is a challenge, right?..

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31DC2013, Day 14: Flowers

I'm back from my holiday. My hubby and I spent three and a half weeks backpacking in Ecuador, but we could have stayed longer - sun, fruits, fish, salsa dancing... The darndest thing about holidays is that they are over so quickly and you have to work again to be able to enjoy such a fleeting, but absolutely marvelous time again ;). So we're back in Hamburg, already working hard for our next holiday... (Damn, why don't I have a rich grandpa somewhere... ;) )

The autumn is almost over and I'm still in the middle of the September challenge. Who cares, I'm going in my own paste! :) The next topic is flowers. I had an idea of free-handed violets done in acrylic paint, but a) I'm still really bad at free-handing and b) I'm not really a flowery type. So I decided to stick to my favorite mix-n-match mani style - skittlette.

Base color: two coats of my favorite lilac Barry M Prickly Pear and just one coat of A-England Elaine on my ring finger
Roses: water decals from Born Pretty Store
Texture: on my poor broken pinkie nail - textured polish from p2 Sand Style - 080 lovely

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31DC2013: Day 11, Polka Dots

I'm still determined to go through the September's nail art challenge. Unfortunately I can just do 2 or 3 manis a week - so I'm proceeding at snail's paste ;)
I only remembered the "dots" as the next topic, so I've made a dotticure, but not one with polka dots... So what, I decided - dots are dots! ;)

Base color: 2 coats of Essie's Midnight Cami
Dots: A-England Holy Grail
Glitter: Northern Lights Top Coat

The Northern Light top coat has some beautiful holographic glitters. But it is not so dense to overpower the design you've made. It just adds some sparkle to your mani. Love it!

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31DC2013: Day 08, Metallic Nails

I got a fantastic Barielle set of 6 nail polishes for just EUR 9,99 at an outlet store. Barielle is not common in Germany, so I was really happy to get the set, which included this pale gold goddess color.

Base color: Barielle Gold Digger
Stamping: patterns from Cheeky plate A stamped with A-England Dorian Grey (dark grey)
Studs: golden studs bought on ebay Read More......