[#WNAC2015] October Holos: Splatter

October theme for #wnac2015 is holos. The first prompt was Splatter Nails. Let me tell you these are my first and also last splatter nails! :D

I've managed to splatter the polish EVERYWHERE by my nails at first... This is definitive the messiest nail art I've ever done. No way I'm going through this clean-up-madness again :D
I couldn't take any decent pictures, since I've done my nails at night, but believe me these holo polishes sparkle like crazy.

Base color: berry holo dream called Shock Dance Legend
Splatter: Seche Mémoire (one coater!), SpectraFlair top coat by Silly Lilly
Mega-Glitter: sponged some of the spectacular Queen by F.U.N. Lacquer Read More......

Banana Mani with topa topa

To celebrate the last rays of sun in the face of upcoming autumn and winter (which is all doom and gloom here in Northern Europe), I decided to do a cheerful summer mani:

This mani just made me smile - I kept hearing Minons shouting "Bananaaa!!!" in my head :D
I've created stamping decals with the plate TP01 by topa topa. I love this plate, but somehow I managed to spoil the perfection of this fun banana image by having some bubbles under my decals :-/ (especially on my little finger). Fortunately you can see then only if you are very close ;)

Base color: electric blue Kiko #336
Stamping decals: cheerful banan from topa topa plate TP01 stamped with Mundo de Uñas black and filled in with KBShimmer Chick Me Out. Read More......

[#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......

[#WNAC2015] September Jewel Tones: Dry Marble

These were my jewel toned nails for the last week's topic of #wnac2015. Although I could always do another emerald green, I decided to go for amethyst:

Dry marbling is not my favorite technique - I'm just not the type for these colorful swirls/flowers. So believe me, to do the nails for this topic was a challenge. But in the end I quite like the result. I can imagine doing another mani, I just have to stay in the same color scheme. 

I just had to show you the Dance Legend holo polish in the sun!

Base Color: Essie Lapis Of Luxury, the holo-dream on my ring finger is Dance Legend Fallen Angel (two coats)
Dry Marble: Dance Legend Fallen Angel and Dance Legend Pulsar.

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[#WNAC2015] September Jewel Tones: Stained Glass

I could't resist to join into the last topic of weekly nail art  challenge 2015(#wnac2015): stained glas in jewel tones. I'm in love with my emerald-gold mani! The color and the holo particles are just gorgeous in the sun:

I used acrylic paint to draw the lines. Do you notice, I'm getting better - the lines are almost straight!.Yeeey! :) 

My base color is the beautiful Il était un vernis called In Teal We Trust. This polish is perfection: fantastic formula, almost full coverage in one coat, smooth finish with a lot of depth. I used two coats here.
The glitter polish is not another brand, but In Teal We Trust, mixed with gold holographic topper China Glaze Angel Wings. I mixed a drop of ITWT with two/three drops of Angel Wings and added a drop of nail polish thinner - this way the mix was a bit more fluid and didn't dry so fast.

In the indirect light of my photo box the mani looses some of it glittery magic, but under direct electric light the small holo particles come alive again:

Base color: Il était un vernix called In Teal We Trust
Glitter Polish: In Teal We Trust mixed with China Glaze Angel Wings and a drop of nail polish thinner
Lines: acrylic paint and a thin liner brush

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Stripes with Color Club Pastel Neons

Hey everyone,

I'm back after a small break. Enjoying the last summer days I decided to try out my new Color Club pastel neon polishes and a new technique for stripes:

I like the look, but I must admit I almost got mad, doing all these stripes :D I got the idea from an IG tutorial made by @nailyourideas and wanted to try it for ages. The technique looked pretty easy:

1. Paint some squares with different polishes on a smooth surface and let them dry completely.
2. Peel off the squares and cut them into stripes. 
3. Arrange the stripes on your nails, top coat everything and you're done!

I spend first minutes trying to cut straight stripes with my regular kitchen scissors - a nightmare ;) Then almost an hour putting the stripes on my left hand and top coating it three times... I'd never get such straight lines using a brush, but I guess I don't have that much patience... However, I can imagine using this technique for wider stripes or other shapes.

As for my new polishes, as expected, I really loved the colors. Most colors on my nails are from Color Club Pastel Neon collection. I would have liked a wider brush, but the colors are so cute, I don't care ;) I got the polishes from the Spanish shop Elyt. My first package got lost on the way to Germany, so it wasn't as smooth transaction as I expected, but Carmen - the owner of the shop - was super friendly and arranged a replacement. Thank you!

Base color: white by Mesauda
Stripes: darker violett Essie Sittin' Pretty, thin neon green stripes Nabi Pastel Neon 177, others are Color Club Meet Me At The Rink(blue), Disco's Not Dead(yellow), Feathered Hair Out To There (bubble gum pink), 'Til The Record Stops (pale green), Hot Hot Hot Pants (peachy neon)
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Golden Rose #70 and water decals from Ali Express

Couple of weeks ago I've ordered a huge set of water decals from Ali Express. I don't even know why it took me so long to do a mani with one of the designs. It so fantastically easy and fun to wear!

I wasn't impressed with the wearability of these decals - after a day on my quite soft nails I had a serious tip wear and some white spots where the color had rubbed off. Maybe my top coat layer was just too thin? Let's hope other decals from the set would hold longer...

What I prefer to do with water decals, is to do the accent nails first and then select the complementary color using my huge swatch collection. No magic or great creativity involved ;)

This time I went for my new Golden Rose polish. This brand is new to me - I haven't seen Golden Rose polishes in Germany and decided to buy some during my trip to Istanbul. Since GR polishes are quite low priced compared to Essie and OPI I didn't have high expectations in regards of quality, but I was positively surprised!
Rich Color collection has a wide brush, which I loved. The formula of this pastel-ish green color (elegantly named #70 ;) ) was great: full coverage in two easy coats, no bland spots or chalky streaks.


Base color for the decals: Essence matte white
Color: Golden Rose Rich Color #70 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

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Uberchic Plate 2-02: gingham check nails

It was really hard to decide which image to take from my new ÜberChic stamping plates. This simple, but cool pattern comes from plate 2-02 from the Collection 2. The image and the etching are flawless, it's my stamping skills which aren't spectacular. ;) It seems, I just cannot stamp straight lines. But I like this mani anyway! Somehow this candy color combination is just cute and reminds me of the  girly dresses from the fifties. :)

Base colors: I'm not 100% sure about which polishes I used, but it has to be Mesauda #91 and matte pink Inglot  #702, which I covered with Seche Vite afterwards.
Stamping: ÜberChic plate 2-02 stamped with MdU polish Holland Blue from the Frozen set.
Studs: pastel colored mini studs from Born Pretty Store


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Summer floral mani

With the sunny days and flowers everywhere, I was in the mood for a light floral mani :)

This mani was super easy - the flowers are basically overlapping dots. I used three pink and two green polishes. I got the idea from this fantastic tutorial by Fallinnailove.

Base color: white Mesauda 03
Flowers: Dance Legend #883, Revlon Bubble Gum, Essie Skirting the Issue
Leaves: random green polishes :) Read More......

Advanced stamping with UberChic stamping plate 1-02

After ruining my nails with water sports during my holiday and suffering for at least 3 weeks afterwords, I'm finally happy to be able to do my nails again. Yeey!

The nail art community was going crazy over the ÜberChic stamping plates in the last months, so of course, I had to have them too ;) The flower image comes from the plate 1-02 from the Collection 1.

I've tried the stamping decal technique before, but never managed to get it right - either I would mess up the placing of the image or the decal would melt on the cuticle line during clean up.

This time I tried a new advanced stamping method - colouring the image and transferring it to the nail directly, without covering it with a top coat first. I still managed to smudge it a bit, but I'm totally amazed how easy it was.
There are tons of tutorials on advanced stamping, one of the first I've seen was this one by Lucy's Stash. Another one of my favourites is by San-tie Nails:

Base color: Flormar Matte White Board and two coats of Pierre René #236
Stamping decal: flower image from ÜberChic plate 1-02 stamped with MdU polish Blue Navy from the Frozen set , filled with Essie Bikini So Teeny. Read More......

Aqua dotticure

Hello ladies, my next mani an aqua colored dotticure:

Couple of months ago I've seen a beautiful mermaid scales mani at one of my favorite blogs -  The Nail Polish Challenge. I thought the idea was awesome and wanted to recreate this mani for ages. I should have looked at the pictures again before dotting away- I forgot to order the dots in the scale pattern. I still like the result, but it's not even close to Kelli's pure awesomness.

I used different shades of teal/mint green and my biggest dotting tool. It did take some time to create this mani, but it was exceptionally easy :) China Glaze Kinetic Candy (lightest aqua shade) Kiko #344 (medium aqua shade) Kiko #387 ("dirty" aqua ) Kiko #527 (aqua shimmer) Kiko #530 (dark glitter) Next time I'm definitely going for more glitter and more darker dots, like in my inspiration :)

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Topatopa stamping plate TP05 review

Hey ladies, I was growing out my acrylic nails, so these are finally my natural nails! Yee-haw!

The 2010 Miu Miu Spring collection showed the famous swallows print, which has been copied by every low priced fashion brand ever since:

Source: miu miu

I used a fabulous topatopa stamping plate TP05 to recreate this pattern. Topatopa is a French brand which somehow didn't show up much in popular US/Canadian nail art blogs. What a shame! Isn't it totally cool?

Source: Topatopa.fr

This plate is absolutely fabulous - even the fine lines of the rose pattern in the middle are perfectly etched (great for decals btw!). The shop delivers internationally, shipping to Europe was very reasonable (€3,55 for 4 plates).
How do you like it?

Base color: Inglot O2 #674
Stamping: topatopa TP05 stamped with MdU Black.  They ship worldwide.
Matte top coat: Wax Me by Cult Nails Read More......

Marianne Nails Africa plate No. 13

Hi everyone,

I've got a beautiful new stamping plate from Marianne Nails called "Africa" and tried something new: grungy tone-in-tone stamping.

I'm not really sure how I feel about these nails, but the plate is superb! The etching is perfect and the patterns are pretty cool.

As for the grungy effect - I was trying to follow Meghan's Dreamcatcher tutorial, but my grungy border got out of hand ;) I guess I'd have to practice more. However I like the idea of tone-in-tone stamping and would definitely try this style again.

Base color: two coats of Barry M Coconut
Grungy effect: China Glaze Foie Gras, thinned with some polish thinner to build up the color towards the edges
Stamping: patterns from Marianne Nails plate "Africa" No.13, stamped with Mundo de Uñas Chocolate.

Read More......