See you on Instagram!

Hi everyone! In case you've wondered what happened to me and my blog, there is one simple answer:  Alex.

Our little son couldn't wait to see the world and arrived a bit earlier then planned. Since November he's occupying my every free second, so this is my first mani since then :)
I cannot be happier, but there's no time for blogging at the moment. So I decided to take a break and will be posting only on Instagram for a while. So stay in touch on IG!

Read More......

Floral mani with Priti NYC Baby Blue Eyes

Priti NYC is a 5-Free indie nail polish brand from the US. Baby Blue Eyes is such a cute color, I instantly fell in love with it. It reminded me of the Forget-me-nots, which were the inspiration for my floral mani:

My index finger and the pinkie are Baby Blue Eyes, the flowers are acrylic paint. I was really surprised how durable this polish was. My nails are quite soft, but this mani looked good for five full days, which almost never happens to me.

Base color: Mesauda white and two coats of Priti NYC Blue Eyes, bought on Amazon Germany
Flowers: acrylic paint

Read More......

Xmas mani: Rudi the reindeer nails

Hello my fellow nail art addicts, I hope you had great Xmas time :)
My Xmas only felt like Xmas, after I painted my nails :)

My base is a soak-off gel color by Gelish called Arctic Freeze. My hope is that I can remove the design with acenton-free remover and reuse the white base for another mani. I'll let you know if my plan worked in my upcoming Gelish post :)
Everything else is acrylic paint.

Rudi the reindeer was inspired by a cute nail art I saw on @bagheeranails. 

I couldn't paint Rudi with my non-dominant hand, so i went for some Xmas decoration instead. After I was done, I couldn't decide, which design I like more :)

Read More......

31CD2014, Day 04: Formula X Fearless

I'm on holiday, so my posts are a bit irregular again.
I decided to do some free hand practice and paint some leaves for the  31 Day Challenge:

I used Formula X Fearless as my base color. The leaves are acrylic paint. I cannot say I love the look, but better some nail art for practicing then nothing, right? Otherwise how am I suppose to get better? :)

Read More......

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!

Read More......

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 16, Tribal Print

The next topic of the 31 day challenge  (which every one else has finished in September ;) )  is tribal nails. There are so many really cool designs, but my favorites are all kinds of Aztec patterns.  Since I'm still really bad with free handing, I decided to use acrylic paint for lines and then just fill the spaces with neon pink nail polish.
It was really hard to draw the thin lines until I found a solution and used a toothpick instead of the brush! It's almost cheating ;), but hey, we all have to start somewhere! :)

Base color: white Cult Nails Tempest
Tribal patterns: googled for Aztec patterns and free handed with a toothpick and black acrylic paint
Neon Accents: China Glaze Pool Party Read More......

#31DC2013: Day 02, Orange nails

Well it was tough. While thinking of something orange, only carrots , oranges and pumpkins came to my mind. Not really creative ;). Than I thought about all those abstract rounded geometrical patterns in the 60ies or 70ies. Orange and brown, orange and teal... There the idea was born, but with my beginner nail art skills the realization was impossible.
I wanted to use Essie's rich chocolate brown, which is not that pigmented in one coat, so that ruled out any stamping patterns. So I used the dotting tool  (for the first time, btw :) ). Since I was unsure I'll manage to create some circles without accidents, I used acrylic colors. That was unexpectedly easy! So this is the result:

Base color: two coats of pumpkin orange Nyx 114 and rich chocolate color Essie's Lady Godiva
Pattern: acrylic paint in brown and orange applied with dotting tool
Glitters: on thumb, index and pinkie fingers Nfu.Oh #44, which is a flakey golden glitter in orange tinted jelly base Read More......