31 Day Challenge, day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

Hello everybody! For today's nails I was inspired by my awesome knitted Pull&Bear sweater. It took me a lot of time to draw the pattern, but I love it so much that I'd be happy to do it again some time. Perhaps only on a few accent nails, then! :-) The red basecolor is Rimmel Riviera Red, and for the triangles I used my trusty striper Ink from China glaze that's actually a dark navy, but mostly looks black, just like the navy on my sweater. ;-)

31 Day Challenge, day 25: Inspired by Fashion

Hi everyone! :-) Today's nails were kind of an experiment. When I saw this super cute Modcloth dress, I couldn't wait to capture the edgy neckline with the starry mesh fabric on a semibare accent nail. I used an image plate (that I bought here) to stamp the star pattern, and later I added the rest with the help of tape for nice and crisp lines. It didn't turn out as awesome as I hoped it would though, the stars made the sharp edges of the 'neckline' fade a bit. So next time I try this, I'll probably leave out the stars. What do you guys think about my fashion-inspired nails?

My inspiration: 'Written in the Stars Dress' from Modcloth

31 Day Challenge, day 24: Inspired by a Book

Hi everyone! Seems like the last couple of challenges were a lot harder than I expected. With the previous two and today's book challenge in particular, it took me quite a while to get inspired. After lots of thinking I decided to go with the character Janneke of the Dutch Jip en Janneke stories by Annie M.G. Schmidt that I grew up with. Fiep Westendorp is the one who brought the duo further to life with her adorable and iconic illustrations in black and white. I absolutely love the simplicity of her drawings which makes the characters so easy to recognize and therefore also... perfect for on the nails! ;-) I paired my freehanded Janneke accent nail with a girly polka dot pattern, using a black creme and China Glaze Designer Satin for the dots. It wasn't the easiest job, but I'm happy with how it turned out. ^_^

Image source

31 Day Challenge, day 23: Inspired by a Movie

Hi everyone! For day 23 of the 31 Day Challenge my nails are inspired by the movie My Neighbor Totoro. It's impossible not to love all the cute characters in it! :3 So on my ringfigner I made the giant totoro. First I applied three coats of China Glaze Recycle (which I'm also wearing on the rest of my nails), then I used a striper polish in black to outline the head and ears. Finally I added the eyes, whiskers and other details and my cutie was complete. ^_^ Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 22: Inspired by a Song

Hey everybody! I'm at day 22 of the 31 Day Challenge, which means I had to pick a song as inspiration. I never thought this challenge was going to be easy, but man, it was so much more difficult than I'd expected! A lot of songs have abstract titles, which are really hard to capture into something recognizable on the nails. And I did want to make something that people were able to recognize, rather than something artsy and abstract that could actually be anything. So I hope you guys indeed saw that pictured on my nails is a train. ;-) The symbolic train of John Mayer's Stop This Train. I think it's a touching song and I especially love the live version of it from his album Where The Light Is.

I really wanted to portray the speed and enormous size of the train, so what better way to do that than making it in Art Deco poster style? :-) The red basecolor is OPI's Big Apple Red, and for the vehicle I used a couple of different polishes and stripers, plus a little sponging for the steam and lights. At last a layer of Essence Matte topcoat and it was finished. Hope you like it!

31 Day Challenge, day 21: Inspired by a Color

Hi everyone! This is day 21 of the 31 Day Challenge and this time I'm supposed to be "inspired by a color". Like many other participants of the challenge I'm a little confused about what exactly is meant by that, so I chose to be inspired by the name of a polish, like fellow blogger Sarah did from Chalkboard Nails (do check out her blog!).

My inspiration, that I just randomly grabbed out of my Helmer, became OPI's Midnight Blue Glitter, pictured below. I instantly liked the name of it and already had an idea of what to make. But instead of using the polish itself for the look, I decided to only use the name as theme, because I really wanted my mani to scream: "BLUE GLITTER!". :3 And although Midnight Blue Glitter does contain beautiful blue (and turquoise and pink) bits here and there, the overall color is clearly charcoal. So I picked OPI Absolutely Alice (on top of Orly Sweet Peacock) to be my blue glitter. Which means my ring finger is indeed symbolizing midnight, with a classical Roman twelve in a clock, freehanded over China Glaze 2030. Hope you like it! :-)

OPI - Midnight Blue Glitter

31 Day Challenge, day 20: Water Marbled

They say practice makes perfect, and I couldn't agree more. I once tried water marbling just after I started this blog: I looked up a few tutorials, prepared the stuff I needed for it and then failed miserably. "Never again." I thought to myself. But since the technique is included in the 31 Day Challenge, I had no choice but to give it another go. So last week I failed again, and again, and again. And again. But I learned from it. And now I can proudly say I can do it. Weeee!
Things I had the most trouble with were finding the right polishes (some dry too quickly), drawing the designs in the water (maybe from using the wrong polishes) and preventing air bubbles. Though I have to admit I completely forgot to follow tutorials first this time, so I ended up rediscovering some handy things that I vaguely remember from the first time I did it. Clever me! :') Guess I was just too excited to get busy.

The polishes I used for this mani are Sea Spray and Four Leaf Clover, both from China Glaze. They were excellent for water marbling, but next time I'll be experimenting with my stash of too-crappy-for-normal-application-polishes. Because let's face it, water marbling uses up a LOT of polish. Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 19: Galaxies

Hi readers! Today I have my first galaxy nails to show you. I always get excited when I see them on other blogs, but somehow it took me this long to finally do them myself. Now that I have, I'm really happy with them. Look at all those colors! :-)

I started with two coats of OPI Russian Navy (in the bottle in the second picture you can clearly see the red/pink shimmer I'm so crazy about!) Then I balled up a piece of paper towel to randomly dab on OPI Extravagance and China Glaze DV8. Finally I added a few white dots as stars and a layer of iridiscent glitter with OPI Last Friday Night. That's it! Now this may seem like a lot of steps, but because they don't require much precision this mani is very easy to do. Hooray!

To achieve this galaxy look, I roughly followed the steps of Asami's helpful video tutorial. Asami was one of my blogging idols with her make-up and nail blog Nails By Asami, often featuring cute handpainted cartoon nail art. Unfortunately she quit blogging, but you can still find her old video's on Youtube and a few of her designs on Pinterest.

Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 18: Half Moons

Hi everybody! I'm on day 18 of the 31 Day Challenge and today I'd like to show you half moons, something I haven't shared on this blog before. Not surprising given the fact I've only done half moon manis twice so far. Time to change that, because working on it this time reminded me of how fun it is!

With this challenge I also rediscovered my love for OPI Russian Navy. It has that subtle red/pink shimmer which gives this navy polish a nice something extra to look at. I used two coats of it to freehand the half moon gaps and then I filled in the bare gaps with pieces of silver glitter using a dotting tool. I know they're just plain silver glitter, but from a distance I swear they're like little diamonds. Almost like jewellery on my nails and it actually makes me feel a bit posh, haha!

Have you tried half moon manis yet?

31 Day Challenge, day 17: Glitter

Ah, a new year has started. My first resolution? Finishing last year's 31 Day Challenge! :') I must be the worst participant ever! That's why I kept postponing starting on it in the first place. But at least I'm still having fun with it, and that's what counts, right?

For day 17 I did a glitter gradient. My first one actually and I must say I enjoyed it! It's so simple to make yet the results are pretty cool, I like. :) I used two coats of OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ and dabbed H&M Confetti Kisses and a bit of China Glaze Silver Lining on the tips. Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 16: Tribal Print

Hi everyone! Today's it's time for tribal nails with Hema #844 as my basecolor. I was just improvising with a gold striper polish (Janet #115) and this was the result. Not sure if they look tribal per se, though I did recognize an arrow tail in the design when I was done. And that's pretty tribal, right? ;-) The print was really fun to do, and quite easy as well, as it basically just consists of seven straight lines. I can't wait to try it again with bright colors!

31 Day Challenge, day 15: Delicate Print

Hello everyone! Here's my attempt on the delicate print challenge. Initially I was going for a lace pattern using stamping, but I was more in the mood for some freehanding today which brought me to this gothic kind of look. I have a huge passion for typography and calligraphy and love spending time on drawing fonts. So it was only natural for me to include it in nail art someday. :-)

Not sure if it's very noticeable, but the purple is actually a gradient, I thought it would bring more depth to the design. I used H&M Beauty Bandit as basecolor and sponged some OPI Funky Dunkey (which I'm holding in the picture) and Essence Passion For Fashion on top of it. The writing is done with China Glaze Ink, a striper polish. Hope you like it!

31 Day Challenge, day 14: Flowers

Hi everyone! :-) This is day 14 in the 31 Day Challenge and today's theme is flowers. I have to say the whole mani is a little bit too tacky for me, haha, but being a tad different than most of my manis, I enjoyed working on it very much. I used my trusty cloud design method to draw the petals, first with a black, then with Essence Ultimate Pink. Then I added the blue, diamond-shaped glitters for a bit of contrast. I don't use loose glitters often, but I immediately fell in love with these from Essence, named Shine Like A Star!, which I bought about a year ago. It doesn't show on the pictures, but they're actually holographic, which makes them even more awesome. Can't wait to use them again. :-) Thanks for dropping by!

31 Day Challenge, day 13: Animal Print

Hello readers! For this post I'd like to show you my attempt on challenge 13 of the 31 Day Challenge: a very literal animal print. It was a bit of an experiment as I used other materials besides nail polish: a Staedtler permanent marker and an Edding Deco Marker in white. Once the blue basecolor was dry (nameless polish from Claire's), I freehanded the curious animals on top. The markers seemed to attach well on the matte surface, the polish just needs to be completely dry before you can draw on it.

The animals in this print were supposed to be cats, but with a little imagination they can be any animal you like... Dogs, mice, pigs, ferrets... If you squint your eyes, they can even be the little black soot creatures from Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Oh, yeah, definitely going for the squinting. Love that movie! ♥

31 Day Challenge, day 12: Stripes

Hello readers! It's time for my 12th challenge of the 31 Day Challenge, which is stripes! I super love stripes, they make such an incredibly simple but effective graphic pattern. For this challenge, however, I didn't feel very inspired, so I went for trusty random stripes that I made with a striper polish; Janet #119). The design isn't new on this blog, but in the end I was surprisingly happy with the look. I could just stare all day at these nails, just because of the combination of two different finishes... Oh, well, at least I know some of you guys can appreciate that as well! ;-) The lovely matte basecolor is Orly's Purple Pleather, which I used two to three coats of. Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 11: Polka Dots

Hi lovely readers, welcome to day 11 of the 31 Day Challenge: polka dots! I think polka dots are amazing; they automatically make a mani look sweet, plus they look great in almost any color combination. Still I don't wear them often because I'm usually too lazy to make them, either by stamping or with a dotting tool. But I was up for this challenge and decided to use the latter technique. And apart from the weird looking blobs on the pinky, I'm actually quite satisfied with how my dots turned out. :-D Three base colors were used for this skittle, polka mani:

H&M - Wildflower

Essence - Via Airmail!

Essence - Bella

For the silver dots I used Essence Romeo and finally I mattified my look with a matte topcoat from H&M, to make everything somewhat calmer as there was so much going on with the pattern and all the colors. So how do you feel about polka dots? :-)

31 Day Challenge, day 10: Gradient

Hi everybody! :-) It's about time that I continue with the 31 Day Challenge, so here you have my attempt on day 10: gradient nails. And what a terrible attempt it is... I tried so hard and so many times to get the gradient smooth, but so far this was the best I could do. I do like the colors though, and from a distance it doesn't look too awful. So with a lot more practice, I hope to show you a better gradient next time. ;-) I used P2 Funky as my basecolor and used a fine make-up sponge to dab on Essence Sending You Kisses on the tips.

My next post will be featuring polka dots, hope to see you again then!

31 Day Challenge, day 9: Rainbow

Day 9! This time the challenge was to make rainbow nails. I was looking really forward to this challenge, even though I knew it was going to be challenging indeed. In the end I came up with this very simple look with colored strokes. Basically I used the technique I also use to make my cloud manis, only using a different color with each stroke. I really like the end result, all the colors together make me so happy! Maybe also because they remind me of a box full colored pencils. :3

If you like this look, I hope you try it out yourself too. It's a quite easy way to create that oh-so-lovely rainbow effect. ^^ Thanks for reading!

Polishes I used over China Glaze Snow:

Essence - Beauty On Tour
H&M - Peach Me Soon
Color Club - Almost Famous
Catrice - ACid DC
Safari - #100
Essence - Via Airmail!
China Glaze - Gothic Lolita
Essence - Sending You Kisses

31 Day Challenge, day 8: Metallic

Hello everyone! Today I'm showing you what I've made for the metallic challenge. I hadn't done lightning bolts in a while, so I went for those in one of my favorite colors combinations: blue and gold. The muted blue is Orly Sapphire Silk and for the lightning bolts I used H&M Golden Treasure.

Overall the mani is quite dark, but I'm still excited to wear these to a party tonight. That reminds me... I've got to get ready! See you next time! :-)

31 Day Challenge, day 7: Black & White

Hi everyone! Welcome to day 7 of the 31 Day Challenge; black and white. I love black and white manis so I was very excited about this one. I expected myself to do a full nail black and white pattern but eventually these skittled zigzag tips were the result. Basically I made randomly zigzagging black tips and added the white and colored triangles later. It reminds me of the fierce French I did a while back, only funkier. :-) Thanks for stopping by!