I can't believe New Year's Eve is already tomorrow! Time sure flies. But since 2016 has yet to come, I thought it would be fun to do a couple of New Year's Eve manis in one post to maybe give you some last-minute inspiration on what to wear on your nails. I've got a lot of pictures, so let's get cracking.
Semi-nude nails is something I tend to do more often lately. I'm not sure what it is, but there's just something about that bit of blank space that I find interesting. For the mani above I placed square pieces of tape at the top of each nail (at the cuticles) and painted the tips black. Then I filled in the gaps with gold linework, using a striper polish from Janet (#115). I really had a hard time deciding on how to fill those V-gaps, because the possibilities are just endless. You could fill it with a (stamped) pattern, a glitter polish, or with geometric shapes like in my last Christmas mani here, and even with nothing in the gaps, I think it still looks pretty neat.
For this one I used a dotting tool to make a firework-like pattern. I started with making a circle of six dots and then I added a line of dots after each dot. (Are you still with me?) It's a simple and fast way to create a fairly detailed design on the nails, plus you can easily combine it with an exciting glitter/shimmer/holographic/multichrome/etc. polish for the basecolor. Here I've opted for golden oldy Wild At Heart from Color Club.
Champagne! I like to combine this design with a shimmery blue, in this case Dorothy Who? on top of First Mate, both from China Glaze. You might've gotten a glimpse of this mani already if you've seen my new tutorial. If you haven't, go have a look at it here if you like it. It's easy-peasy to achieve!
Lastly I'd like to include my nude clouds mani from New Year's Eve 2011 to this inspiration post. For this mani I used my trusty cloud design. Again, an easy way to quickly spruce up your nails with just two or three colors. I can enjoy spending lots of time on my nails, but sometimes - especially in the hectic holiday season - a simple but effective design is very welcome! You can find the clouds tutorial here and the full post of this mani here.
I hope you all enjoyed this post and that it may have given you some inspiration for tomorrow night. Since I won't post until the new year, I'm wishing you all a very amazing and healthy new year in advance! See ya! :)
Tutorial: Bubbly champagne glass
Hi everyone! Here's my first New Year's Eve nail art tutorial, just in time for the 31st. In this tutorial I'll show you how to make a simple glass of bubbly champagne. The design is very doable, whether you're experienced or just beginning with nail art. So if you're still looking for a fun and super easy design for the last day of this year, this might just be the one!
Continue reading »
Tags :
Accent nail +
Blue +
China Glaze +
Christmas +
Freehand +
Holidays +
Shimmer +
Tutorial
Abstract Mistletoe
Here's a quick post to show you my Christmas nails and to wish everybody a merry Christmas! I hope you're all having a great time with your loved ones. Tonight I had to work, but the next couple of days I'll be spending some quality time with my family. On my nails I'm wearing classic red, accompanied by glittery pinkies and an abstract mistletoe accent nail that I made with tape. (What else?) The polishes I used were all three from China Glaze: Phat Santa, Party Hearty and Custom Kicks. Happy holidays!
Neon geometric Christmas nails
Hi everyone! I thought it would be fun to do a Christmas mani (Christmani XD) in neon colors. I already had the idea of building a Christmas tree and six-pointed star with see-through triangles using tape, and when I stumbled upon China Glaze Surfin' For Boys in my stash, I knew it would be the perfect color for the job. It's so incredibly bright! For these photos I used my iPhone5 camera, it's much more accurate with capturing the true color of Surfin' For Boys than my trusty old Canon IXUS 85 IS, but even in these pictures the brightness is nothing compared to seeing it in reality.
I combined the Christmas ornaments with random triangle shapes in neon yellow, teal and silver. The polishes I used were Orly Glowstick, Color Club Age of Aquarius and China Glaze Millennium. The 'white' basecolor (actually a super light grey) is Essence Enter Wonderland, a very pretty matt polish. To keep that lovely matt finish in the entire look, I finally sealed everything with matt topcoat. Hope you like it and thanks for reading!
Medieval Mani
I was going for a chic winter mani here but more ended up with this medieval/royal vibe. Didn't expect that! I like it, though. It kind of reminds me of the blue and gold fleur-de-lis pattern, often associated with the French monarchy.
I had high hopes for the blue polish. It's Hema #822, a dusty blue matt polish with bits of bright blue shimmer. The color looks pretty on the nails but it's a lot darker and the shimmer isn't visible at all. That's why I decided to spice it up with the gold lines and crosses, which I freehanded with a striper polish from the brand Janet (#115).
Thanks for reading and see you next time!
Lacey Christmas Nails
Hi everyone! For this Christmas themed post I want to share this green mani with lace accents with you. Although lace isn't something Christmassy per se, I feel like it suits this time of the year well. The fine details - especially in white - remind me of a cosy crochet tablecloth at Christmas dinners, or a crochet rug that goes under the Christmas tree with all the presents on top, or dresses with crochet Peter Pan collars. So yeah, Christmas/crochet associations all over the place! Or maybe that's just me.
Anyway, to make this mani I started with two coats of the green, which is Orly Lucky Duck. I then used a white striper polish from the brand Janet to freehand the lace. I already liked it with just the green and white, but just to add a highlight color I made the little red cross. (Which is obviously a tiny bow. If you squint.)
That's it for today, I hope you like it and thanks for dropping by!
Tutorial: Reindeer Rudolph
Rudolph, the Rhinestone nosed Reindeer
Hi everybody! Christmas is around the corner, so I've prepared a couple of Christmas themed nail art ideas that I will share with you in the upcoming posts. Among them is this cheeky Rudolph accent nail. I used OPI Get in the Expresso Lane for the head, a couple of striper polishes for the details and to top it off I added a shiny rhinestone for the nose. On the rest of my nails I'm wearing China Glaze Ingrid and I decorated it with little gold stars to match Rudolph's antlers. Hope you like it and thanks for reading! :)
Tags :
Accent nail +
Brown +
China Glaze +
Christmas +
Freehand +
Gold +
Holidays +
Metallic +
Taupe +
Winter
A little Surprise from the Vault
Hi everyone! Recently I reorganized all my old nail pictures and I came across a bunch of never posted manis, including this lovely tape mani from literally years ago. Brown has never been my favorite color when it comes to nail polish, but I actually think it works well with the colors I used here. The gorgeous matt taupe is OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede and I believe I used China Glaze 2030 and Orly Sapphire Silk for the unusual chevrons. No topcoat, because that would ruin the different finishes in all the layers. ;) Thanks for reading!
Chevrons with a Hint of Shimmer
Hi everyone! This post I have chevrons to show you. Chevrons on nails is something I never seem to get tired of, even after all this time. They can be so subtle and yet give your nails something edgy at the same time. I just love it!
For this mani I combined a murky purple-grey color with a nice shimmer to add a bit of elegance. The green-blue shimmer polish is H&M's Lady Luck. I applied one sheer coat of it, which dried quickly so after a couple of minutes I was able to make the chevron shapes, using trusty tape strips and a layer of Bleu Asphalte from Bourjois.
I hope you like it, and if you would like to see more of the chevron manis I've done, just head over here. Thanks for reading and see you soon!
Laurel Leaves
Okay, so technically these could never be laurel leaves, as they're pointed at the ends in real life, but hopefully you get the idea. :P I wanted to do a festive winter design on my nails, that doesn't scream "CHRISTMAS" per se. And I actually think this one fits that category quite well. Not that I don't like Christmas, but I like to wait just a little longer until I pull out my full-on Christmas nails.
This laurel design was pretty easy to make. You don't need much precision for it, which is nice. As you can see the individual leaves aren't exactly perfect, but that's okay, because with this design I think it's the whole that counts in the end anyway. I started with two coats of Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ from OPI for the red basecolor. Then I drew the stems with a silver striper polish and with a dotting tool I drew the leaves, I used Essence's Romeo for this.
So there's my take on a festive winter design. For this mani I used a red and silver polish, but I can already imagine it in tons of other color combinations to fit with an outfit or even another season. What do you like to wear on your nails around this time of the year?
As always, thanks for reading!
Not dead
Hi everyone!
I haven’t been around for a LONG time. Not to be a downer, but I’ll just be straightforward with you. Lots of things have happened in the mean time. Good things, but also different not so good things that pretty much lead to a long period of depression and existential angst. Not so much fun, but it is the truth. So at some point polishing my nails was the least I could worry about. Let alone keeping up my blog.
As time passed and I started to feel better again, I also started to do my nails again. It’s surprising how much joy that little bit of color on the tip of your fingers can bring. And one day I realised it was time to come back to blog. I’ve really missed everything; the creativity, the community, the sharing, the glitter… (I hadn’t painted my nails for over a year!) Reading your thoughtful messages every now and then really lifted my spirits. So thank you for that. :)
This mani is for my friend Bas, who I promised a mani ages ago on the day we bought the greyish blue color together. It's #05 from Hema, which I used for the base color. On top I applied a bunch of simple strokes, using Be optimistic! from Essence, OPI Russian Navy and H&M Silver. I love how the warm copper pops against the other cool tones. So there you go, Bas!
I haven’t been around for a LONG time. Not to be a downer, but I’ll just be straightforward with you. Lots of things have happened in the mean time. Good things, but also different not so good things that pretty much lead to a long period of depression and existential angst. Not so much fun, but it is the truth. So at some point polishing my nails was the least I could worry about. Let alone keeping up my blog.
I am sorry, though, that I couldn’t pull myself together to at least give you a heads-up of where I suddenly went or what was going on. There was a lot on my mind at the time. And to be honest I never thought I’d be gone for this long! Several times I tried to sit down to write you a post along the lines of “Hey, I’m alive, don’t worry. I miss you and I’ll be back soon.”, but it just never happened and after a while it just felt too awkward to say anything at all. Isn’t that weird?
As time passed and I started to feel better again, I also started to do my nails again. It’s surprising how much joy that little bit of color on the tip of your fingers can bring. And one day I realised it was time to come back to blog. I’ve really missed everything; the creativity, the community, the sharing, the glitter… (I hadn’t painted my nails for over a year!) Reading your thoughtful messages every now and then really lifted my spirits. So thank you for that. :)
Now this wouldn’t be a comeback without nails to show right?
On another note, you may have noticed that the blog went through a little makeover. I actually designed the whole look myself and had my boyfriend help out with bringing everything to life in code. We've worked really hard to make everything look good and work as friendly as possible, so feel free to let us know what you think about it!
That's it for today. But I will talk to you again very soon. Thanks for reading!
That's it for today. But I will talk to you again very soon. Thanks for reading!