Inspired by Fashion - Coach Tour Dress from Modcloth

Hi everyone! For today's post I have this fashion inspired mani to show you from the vault. It was inspired by the buttoned collar of this dress from Modcloth. Doesn't it look gorgeous and comfy? (It even has pockets! BIG plus in my opinion.)

The lovely blue polish is Hema #11. I used tape to make the shape of the collar with Blue Bay from WIC by Herôme and then I completed the look by adding two small buttons. Simple as that!

My mani inspiration: the Coach Tour Dress in Blue from Modcloth.

I stumbled upon more great dresses recently that would serve as excellent inspiration for nail art, so you might see more fashion-inspired manis on the blog from now on. :) Thanks for dropping by!

Floral Bits and a Pink tribal Accent

The weather in the Netherlands has been really gloomy lately. So as a person who's very sensitive to the weather - happy with sunshine and very moody on grey days, I desperately needed a bit of summer here. Enter nail polish! I went for a bright tribal accent nail with flower bits on the rest of my nails. The pretty silver is Hema #845, the purply pink is China Glaze Purple Panic and the teal is China Glaze Custom Kicks. I freehanded both the tribal pattern and flowers with a striper polish and dotting tool.

It's still grey outside, but that's okay, I've got my nails done! It's funny, though. This mani actually reminds me of summer, as the two China Glaze polishes were bought on my last summer vacation in Spain. Ahh, good times. Oh, well. 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!

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.

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?

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!

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!

Tutorial: Holly Leaf

Hello, creative person! Welcome to my holly leaf tutorial. Like the design it is inspired by, the freehand cloud, it's quick and simple to make, even with the small additions. What I like about this design (apart from being very Christmassy ^_^), is that it combines the use of different tools. It's a great way to practice both freehand and dotting skills. But once again, it's pretty simple so I hope you'll give it a try! Continue 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 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 2: Orange

Day 2 of the 31 Day Challenge! This time the challenge was to do orange nails and it was truly a challenge. I had a hard time coming up with something with orange as the main color instead of an accent color. Finally I decided to go with trusty clouds (tutorial here) combined with two shades of green, as I find orange to combine best with certain greens or blues. The lovely pastel orange is H&M's Peach Me Soon, in the middle you see Orly Ancient Jade and I've got Essence Bella on the tips. I look forward to my next challenge: yellow nails! See you soon. :-)

31 Day Challenge, day 1: Red

That's right! I'm finally doing the 31 Day Challange! The task for day 1 is to make red nails and this is my attempt. Okay, so it's just as much grey as it is red. :-P But I decided to allow myself to have a little bit of freedom with this challenge, hope that's okay! ;-) For this simple fifty-fifty tape mani I started with a sexy red basecolor, #85 from Hema (a Dutch department store). When that had dried, I covered half of each nail with tape and painted the other half with a thin layer of China Glaze Concrete Catwalk and Tinsel Town. After removing the tape again, this is the end result; vampy and sparkly, can't say no to that! ^^

Because I'd like to enjoy the results of each challenge for more than just a day, I'm going to have to cheat a tiny bit with the original schedule of a challenge a day. As a compromise I promise to work twice as hard on each little project. ;-) Thank you for reading!

Happy cloud

Hi everyone :) This is how I wore the cloud design after finishing the tutorial. I used Barry M Shocking Pink, China Glaze For Audrey and Essence Let's Get Lost and combined it with Essence Bella on the rest of my nails. I love how it turned out! It's so cheerful and kind of like the opposite of the more serious grey cloud I did last week.

Also a big thank you for all the lovely comments that you guys left on the tutorial, you're the best! It makes me so happy to know it helped or inspired you. And I've really enjoyed all the awesome cloud manis that you shared with me so far, so keep them coming! See you next time. :)

Tutorial: Freehand cloud design

Hello everybody, welcome to this tutorial! This time I'll show you how to make the freehand cloud look. All you need for this quick and easy design is three pretty polishes and the brushes that come with it, so there's no extra equipment needed. Use this layered look on accent nails, for a full mani or... to cover up tipwear from an old mani. :) Continue reading »

Grey cloud

Hi everyone! For this post a grey cloud mani to match with today's weather. On my accent nail I used China Glaze Recyle, a black creme and between those China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, which is what I'm wearing on the rest of my nails too. It's the best grey creme I've got. Just two smooth coats for an even, glossy finish. ♥

I don't wear greys on their own very often, usually I just need some color to go with it. You know, to brighten things up. However, I think today's mani is cute in all its greyness :) Do you wear greys a lot?

Fancy clouds

Hello dear readers :) This post I'd like to share this cloud mani with you. The red I've used is China Glaze Phat Santa, I bought it last Christmas in a set with Jolly Holly and Party Hearty, which I now happily own! (For some really strange reason I thought I didn't need Party Hearty when it came out in 2010, so weird, because it's so pretty!) I'd worn Phat Santa on its own for a day, but the next day I already had subtle tipwear on some nails, so that's when I applied the layered cloud look to cover up things. Another reason why I love this design ;-) The silver and black are China Glaze Millenium and Color Club Where's The Soiree? respectively, two of my most often used polishes.

I've received many requests for a tutorial for this cloud design, so you can expect it soon :) In the mean time you can read how I make the pattern in this post. Thank you for reading!

Nude clouds for New Year's Eve

Hello everyone! Here's a quick little post on my New Year's Eve mani. Initially I wanted to do the festive star pattern again that I wore for Christmas, but in the end I decided to go for something quick and simple instead. I don't like my nails naked, but this semi nude cloud look I like ^^ I used H&M Golden Treasure and Color Club Where's The Soiree? for the clouds and finished with a topcoat.

Have a great New Year's Eve and I'll see you in 2012! :)

Christmas scene

Hi everyone :) For this post I have another Christmas mani. Since I haven't made any Halloween looks this fall, I'm planning on catching up some holiday manis with this year's Christmas ;-) Anyway, this week's been terribly busy, so I've been wearing Essie Your Hut Or Mine for the last three days. But today's weekend, yay! So I finally had time to update my mani. I added a Christmas tree for my accent nail, using tape. You know, if you think about it, a Christmas tree isn't that different from a lightning bolt! I mainly used tape triangles which I placed underneath each other on each side of the tree to create the zigzag lines. For a little sparkle I added silver glitter on top and a larger piece of glitter as my tree topper. On the rest of my nails I made "funky clouds", representing a snow scenery and later I added the "snow" with a dotting tool. In retrospect, I think the dots are a bit too much, so I doubt if I'm going to keep this mani longer than a day. But oh well, that means I can do my nails again tomorrow ^^ Thanks for reading!

Polishes I used:
Essie - Your Hut Or Mine
Essie - Lion Around
Orly - Pure Porcelain
H&M - Confetti Kisses

Jitterbug's BBQ

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's already been five days since my last post! This week's been so busy, that after I had removed this mani, I didn't even have the time or energy to repaint my nails. They're actually still naked! But I'm planning on changing that tonight :) Anyhow, for right now I have this diagonal tape mani to share with you. My base color was OPI Mrs O'Leary's BBQ. But when it started showing tipwear, I decided to add Jitterbug from China Glaze to the tips, using tape. The base color was already dry, so it only took me a little while to create a fresh mani.

Talking about Mrs O'Leary's BBQ and Jitterbug, you may have seen this color combination before here, in my (matte) V-gap post, I think they make a happy couple :) Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Vintage clouds

Hi guys! For this post I have another request to show you. A little while ago I received an email from a reader who wanted me to come up with a funky mani for her informal dance soon. A few colors she liked were teal and coral, so I combined them in this "funky clouds" look. I like how simple this design is to achieve. Just pick three matching colors, one for you base color and two for the cloud shapes on top. The clouds are made by applying three strokes of polish next to each other, each smaller than the one before. My tip is to leave enough polish on the brush (but not too much!) so that when it touches the surface it will leave a nice, round dot as start point. This doesn't even need a lot of precision and you can just use the brush from your polish for this. And that's it :) Though I would advise using a fast drying top coat afterwards if you don't want to wait too long for your nails to dry, after all it's three coats of polish. (Four if you include base coat.) I like the way it looks here with plain cremes, but for a more festive look, a layer of (iridiscent) glitter can be added.

Below you can see the same look with China Glaze Midnight Kiss on the tips, which I made first. But after I took the pictures I noticed how Bella matched the rest of the polishes better so I just redid everything, for your viewing pleasure haha. Have a great night!

The polishes I used:
Essence - What Do U think? Version 1 (It looks less orange in real life)
China Glaze - For Audrey
Essence - Bella

Funky clouds

Hello everyone! I was in the mood for some funky nail art tonight but I didn't feel like spending too much time on it. And that's how I came up with these "funky clouds" you're looking at. I'm still no good at making up names for designs so don't make fun of me haha :P I started with two coats of OPI Funky Dunkey and then I applied Essence Bella on top in three quick strokes that form the cloudy shape together. After it had dried I repeated the steps a bit closer to the tips with OPI Silver Shatter, a layer of top coat and there you have it! I think it turned out pretty cute ^^ And I can't wait to use it with other color schemes. Hope you guys like it too! Good night :)

Pyramid tips with Essie Fair Game

Hi everyone! These pyramid chevron tips were made with Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever and Essie Fair Game. Both polishes are amazing to work with. Raspberry Fields Forever is a bright folly red, which has a pink hue that's much better visible in real life. It has the great formula and easy application that I'm used to from most of Catrice's creme polishes, I only used two coats and a layer of Seche Vite, shiny! Because Fair Game has that hint of blue that makes the polish so special, I thought it would look nice next to the pinkish Catrice. I just love the combination of pinks and blues, no matter how subtle ;-) I've never worn Fair Game as a full mani and question if I ever will, because as much as I like it, I just think it works better as an accent next to other colors. At least, on my skintone that is, I bet it would look gorgeous on people with a nice tan!

Turquoise pyramids

Hello everyone! How are you? I hope fine :) I'm alright, but something terrible did happen today! Somehow one nail of my left hand got teared a bit this week. I've been really good and didn't touch it for days but I guess the stress had taken over today, because I kept picking on it and now I've got a little nub there. Boohoo! So I made the rest of my nails shorter too to make it less noticeable. And so I won't be taken any pictures for a little while, because I don't like my nails this short :( But lucklily I still have a few manis from the vault for you. And today's post is one of them.

My basecolor is P2's Groovy. What a wonderful polish! I don't own many P2 polishes but my mom bought me some bottles a few weeks ago. I really loved the elegant shape of the bottles and I love them even more now when I found out how perfect Groovy was. It's a muted shade of teal, with a perfect creme formula and you can get away with one coat of it. Lovely! The next day I decided to add the 'pyramid' design, like I used in the 'military chic' mani. I used Wet 'n Wild Carribean Frost for it, which gave a subtle ton-sure-ton effect, I really like that shimmery teal polish :) And as my finishing touch I mattified the look with the sadly discontinued Essence Matt topcoat. Maybe I'll give China Glaze's Matte Magic a try when I'm through my back-ups. Anyway, enough rambling for today! ;) Have a great night!