Inspiration manis for New Year's Eve

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! :)

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!

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! :)

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!

WIC by Herôme - Yokohama

WIC by Herôme kindly sent me their new limited collection Mystic Japan for review! I love all the cheerful colors in it, which I'll happily wear when it finally gets more springy here in the Netherlands.

For this post I picked Yokohama to show you. Yokohama is a medium lavender purple creme (less blue than in the pictures), with a very, very subtle shimmer. I applied two smooth coats and the formula was excellent, as was the opacity. As you can see in the first picture, I added some nail art too. I painted half of my nails with Essence Chacalaca and then added a few gold stripes in the middle with Janet #115. Not very Japan I must say, but cute nonetheless and fun to do! :-)

I'll show the other polishes of the Mystic Japan collection individually as well, paired with nail art like today, so there's a little bit more to see than a swatch! ;-) Thanks for reading!

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide. The product in this post was sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed product.

Double V

Hi guys! I haven't been able to do much nails lately, so I have something from the vault to show you. This mani was made with my new favorite to-go polish: H&M Deep Deep Water. It's been sitting in my drawers for ages, just waiting to be discovered, and now it has been. Pictured is only one coat. One coat of perfectly pigmented, blurple metallic polish. And it dries fast too. ♥ But as pretty as it is, I like my manis with a little extra. ;-) So later I added the triangles with tape. I started with a gold triangle, and when it was dry I made a black one inside, and repeated these steps at the cuticle area. Slowly building everything up with layers. You can imagine this took a while, with so many triangles to dry. But if you're watching your favorite TV show at the same time, there really isn't much patience needed. ;-) Thanks for reading!

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

Gold Ornament

This mani is from a few weeks ago. I was just getting in the mood for the December holidays and added this simple tribal-ish pattern with a striper to go with the rest of my dark nails. I sure have a soft spot for black and gold. ♥

Below are a couple of older manis in black and gold. I thought it would be fun to show these lined up together to compare, isn't it a versatile color duo? ^_^

Fancy triangles, one of my first posts!

Shining like a star on Christmas '11.

Nude clouds for New Year's Eve.

Fierce French

And my recent Art Deco linework. :-)

And for those who are interested: the black creme I use is Color Club's Where's The Soiree?. It dries with a satin-matte finish, but I don't mind since it dries very quickly because of that, and I can always add some glossy topcoat. Another thing is it's a one-coater, so it covers perfectly but therefore can also leave stains on the skin. So I have to be extra careful with the application. Despite of this, it's still my favorite black so far.

Thanks for reading!

Art Deco Sunburst

Closing this year with a big bang, on the nails. :-) Like my last post this mani features elements from Art Deco, a style introduced to me by my father. It took me a while to like it, as I was so in love with and used to the curvy and organic lines of its predecessor Art Nouveau, but now I can't get enough of both. ♥ Deco has these slick and stylized shapes, making it look so grand! It just keeps wowing me everytime.

For the nail art I used the explosion design and a gold striper to freehand the little chevrons. All this on top of two coats of the blue Never On Sunday from Only You (house brand of Ici Paris XL).

Heading off to family to celebrate New Year's Eve now. I wish you all a happy and healthy new year!

Art Deco Line Work

Merry Christmas, dear readers! Here's how my mani looks like this year. Not very Christmassy per se, but liking it anyway. :-) The gold in my hands is Essence A Piece Of Forever from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection. I was only swatching it, but ended up wearing it after liking it so much with the improvised line work, for which I used my trusty striper Ink from China Glaze. Since I'm not confident enough to make such detailed work with my non-dominant hand, I kept my right hand plain black. But it actually looks nicer like this, more balanced I believe.

Until next time then! Have a great time with your loved ones. :-)

Holly Leaf

Hi everyone! For this post I have another Christmas themed design to share with you: a holly leaf accent nail. :-) I've always loved the shape of holly leaves, so imagine  my excitement when I found out how easy it could be to have that shape on my nails, just by using a design that's familiar on this blog: the cloud design! You can see I didn't have to add much to make it look like a holly leaf. But those who still want a little more detail of how to make the design can use the tutorial that I'll be posting next. :-)

For the accent nail I used OPI Jade Is The New Black, Color Club Artsy Crafty, a blue striper polish and P2 Fever for the berries. And last but not least, that gorgeous gold on the rest of my nails is Orly Solid Gold with a layer of topcoat. It has an amazing matte fisnish on its own, but adding topcoat makes it so sparkly! Perfect for the holidays. I also did a series of Solid Gold manis a while back, you can find them all here. See you next time!

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 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! :-)

Divergence

Hello lovely readers! For this post I have this colorful divergence mani to show you. In the pictures I'm holding China Glaze Life Preserver, a dusty orange creme. Orange is probably my least favorite color when it comes to nail polish (next to browns), but I actually really like Life Preserver in this mani! It adds that bit of warmth to the whole. The other polishes you see in this tape mani are Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away (absolutely smitten with this polish ♥) and China Glaze 2030, the gold chrome. Thank you for reading! :-)

Solid Gold Stripes

Hi guys! Today I'm showing you the third and last look I made with Orly Solid Gold. The polish dries fast and combines great with many other colors. For these stripes I applied two coats Solid Gold, then I placed two small tape strips on each nail, close to the tips. Finally I applied Catrice New York on top, removed the strips and added a layer of topcoat, voilà! So which one's your favorite? The fifty-fifty mani, the fierce French or today's stripes? ^^ Thanks for reading!

Fierce French

The black part in this picture reminds me of the M of Maroon 5, love them! ^^

Hello everyone! In my last post I used Orly Solid Gold in a fifty-fifty tape mani. I liked Solid Gold so much that I prepared two more looks with it and today's semi-nude look is one of them. I first started with a zigzag in black (tutorial here) and when that was dry I added the gold chevrons with Solid Gold. It dries with a matte finish as you could see in my last post, but this time I went for glossy by adding topcoat. I'm not sure which finish I like most - the edgy matte one or the sparkly glossy one. They're both so cool! :-) What do you think? Thanks for reading!

Fifty-Fifty

Hi everyone! How are you? School's done, so I can FINALLY get back to blogging about nails again, yay! I can't believe how long it's been since my last post. So let's see some nails then!

For this fifty-fifty tape mani I used Orly Solid Gold as my basecolor. I rarely wear gold polishes on their own, but I just love to combine them with other colors. The same goes for Solid Gold. The color on its own just looks a bit weird on my skintone. But I do love the matte, shimmery finish. Plus it dries very quickly so it's a perfect tape mani basecolor. :-) After waiting just a few minutes after applying Solid Gold, I put tape strips vertically on one half of my nails. Then I used the turquoise polish Essence Bella on top, removed the strips and that's it! No topcoat afterwards, because I like the contrast of matte and shiny together. What do you think of today's nails?

Viva La Lightning Bolt

Hello dear readers! I'm still very busy with school, only two more weeks to go! I've still got a lot of things to do, but right now I just want to show you these nails. :-) Yesterday I wore a brandless plain white creme. It took three coats to get opaque and it took forever to dry, but it was totally worth it. Who knew I could like white nails this much! But sadly the polish already chipped after one short day, so today I added these lightning bolt tips with Essence Viva La Green. I hadn't done lightning bolt tips for a long time, I almost forgot how fun they are to make. ^^ Finally I added a bit of glam with OPI Spark The Triomphe. It's so sparkly! ♥

Gold Tribal

Hi everyone! I hadn't done a freehand design in a while so today I made a detailed tribal pattern on a few accent nails. The basecolor is the lovely Westside Warrior from China Glaze and I used a gold striper polish (Janet #115) for the nail art. Though it looks pretty detailed it was really simple to make. I drew a few stripes on each nail and then I filled in the bigger stripes with dots or zigzags, that's it! I hope you like it. :)