Yeeey! Fing'rs decals from ChitChatNails!!!

It's hard to believe, but I won the Fing'rs Nail Tatoos Giveaway from Marta's blog ChitChatNails!!! Yeeey!!! I got the decals last week and had to use them for my mani:

Look at this, this or this post from ChitChatNails. Now you know where my inspiration comes from ;) Marta is the queen of skittlettes - this cool mix'n'match styles, where at least two nails are different from the others. My skittlette obsession started with her blog. If you're not a fan yet - check out her skittlette-tutorial and start following!

Base color:  P2 Sweet Like Sugar and OPI My Vampire Is Buff.
Glitter: Ligne D'Or Azúcar Canela - the best textured glitter I have. Bought for $1,50 during my holiday in South America.
Water decals: Fingr's Nail Tatoos

The rose colored P2 polish is a new addition to my collection - bought it in my local drugstore yesterday. The color is beautiful - slightly dusty rose with some soft shimmer. The formula however is a nightmare for me - thick, streaky, dries quick on the surface and doesn't level itself out much. I had to use tree careful coats to hide bold spots. If you do thin coats and usually manage to paint a nail without going twice over the same spot, you'd be fine with two coats.


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Cute dotty skittlette

After challenging myself for the 31 Day challenge, I decided to take a break and post a fun and easy mani I wore last weekend. Pinterest is full of cute mix'-n'-match nails - aka skittlettes - so it was hight time for me to copy one style or another :)
My choice fell on this cute mani by Adriana at All Nailed Up (what would I give for such a beautiful nail shape.. sigh…)

But hey, even on my wide nails this style looks cute, right?

Base colors: Orly Terracotta(so not terracotta in color!) and China Glaze Liquid Leather
Glitter: China Glaze I'm Not A Lion with a top coat
Studs: 2mm gold studs bought on Ebay

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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 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......

31DC2013: Day 07, Black & White Nails

I must admit, I went a little bit crazy on stamping since I got my Cheeky stamping plates. It's so much fun to stamp with them, that I just cannot stop :D. As you can clearly see on my black-and-white day of the 31 Day Challenge ;).

Except for my index finger, on which I used striping tape, all other patterns come from the fantastic Cheeky stamping plates I ordered online here.
Base color & stripes: Cult Nails Tempest (the "easiest" white I own, bought directly from Cult Nails with delivery to Germany) and Cult Nails Fetish: oh my, it's the grungy, almost matte black. It looked mega cool on its own, so next time I'm feeling like a rock babe, I'm wearing it with studs!
Stamping: Patterns form Cheeky Jumbo plate A and 2013 Plate "Musical Nails" , stamped with Jolfin black stamping polish. Read More......

#31DC2013: Day 06, Violet nails

I had a wonderful holiday in Riga (think Hotel Papa ;) ) and had some quality time with my cute little nephews. Now back in Hamburg,  it's high time to proceed with 31 Day Challenge. I'm totally late, but still determined to go through the themes.
The next theme is Violet Nails. I've been looking forward to try out the China Glaze Ombre set I bought on ebay. I first saw the gradient on Chalkboardnails blog and just fell in love with the beautiful colors. This is how it looks on my nails:

I know, it doesn't look as fantastic as on Chalkboardnails, but hey, that's just me, my limited nail art skills and rather ungraceful roundish nails. Who cares! I matched my mani with a violet silk scarf to work and felt like a diva :D.
But I think I'm rather a skittlette girl, so I used my Cheeky Plates to mix things up the next day:

Base color: Gradient with China Glaze Grape Expectations
Stamping: ikat pattern from the Cheeky Plate A stamped with silver Jolfin stamping polish
Skittlette: pinkie with Essence silver polish and textured P2  Sand Style polish  called "Strict" on my ring finger (I'm in love with Cheeky Plates, btw)

Since I don't have silver studs, I just used some gold ones, which I covered with silver polish as shown at Lucy's Stash Blog, and pimped up my thumbs with them.
It's amazing how you can change your mani with nail art, don't you think?

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#31DC2013: Day 05, Blue nails

As I wrote in my last post, I discovered that random sponging can produce beautiful marble-like results. The green base from Day 04 in this 31 Day Challenge had amazing depth and was so easy to create, that I had to sponge-marble in blue too :)
For this look I used two blue, one white-based jelly, one white and one silver nail polishes.
I used both white polishes and a drop of one blue polish to create the custom light blue shade, which I used as a base color for all my nails. And than randomly sponged the both blue and than the silver polishes:

Base color: blended drops of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu (white-based jelly), white Essence stamping polish and China Glaze Splish-Splash (bright blue with slight shimmer)
"Marble-sponging": randomly sponged China Glaze Splish-Splash, P2 So Cool! (dark royal blue with shimmer) and Essence Icy Princess (silver)
Studs: bought online at Born Pretty Store 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......

Barry M bubble gum gradient

For this cute bubble gum look I used my new Barry M shades - Prickly Pear and Strawberry Ice Cream. The colors are beautiful, if slightly sheer. It was difficult to achieve the gradient effect - there are three coats of the lilac Prickly Pear over the pink base color.

  

Base color: two coats of Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream and Prickly Pear (middle and ring fingers only)
Gradient: Prickly Pear
Glitter: fantastic golden-pinkish holographic flake glitter Nfu.Oh # 49 Read More......

Vivid Lacquer Stamping with Nfu.Oh.

After I saw some amazing mix-n-match nail designs, I found out that the name for this kind of manicure - skittlette - originally comes form Marta and her ChitChatNails blog. I also loved the tutorial made by So Nailicious. Since I'm a newbee  at nail art, I chickened out a bit and went for a subtle color change.

Nfu.Oh. is a fantastic holo polish I bought from Glamournails24, which is the only shop selling Nfu.Oh. in Germany as far as I know. You need Aqua Base (base coat) for this magnificent color to shine like a rainbow. Everything else including Essense's Peel-Off Base coat didn't really work for me - the application was clumpy and the holographic effect was not that great.

Base color: two coats of BeYu #252 (pastel green) and two coats of Nfu.Oh #66 silvery green and holographic
Stamping: stamping plate VL006 by Vivid Lacquer bought on Etsy, peacock pattern and feather stamped with the Nfu.oh. polish and Jolifin black stamping polish. (BTW, the stamping plate is a dream!)
Seche Vite as top coat. Read More......