Tutorial: Vertical Lightning Bolt

Hello everyone! Welcome to my vertical lightning bolt tutorial! You may have already tried its siblings the lightning bolt French or double lightning bolt, if you like those but want to step it up a notch, then this fellow is the right thing. It involves more individual tape strips and precision than the previously mentioned designs, so using it on an accent nail only is recommended if you don't have too much time. But if you enjoy the process as much as the end result, such as myself, why not go all the way for a special occasion? Continue reading »

Sending You A Lightning Bolt

Hi folks! I missed having pink polish on my nails and wasn't ready for my next challenge yet, so I'll be squeezing a couple of pink posts in between the 31 Day Challenge. For this mani I used two coats of my new favorite pink Sending You Kisses from Essence's limited Ready For Boarding collection. The silver is Essence Romeo, the shimmer version. Lately I've been really getting addicted to this 'new' form of a lightning bolt. I don't know why I particularly like lightning bolts so much. Perhaps it's the fierce shape, or the comic feel. Whatever it is, I'm not done with them yet! :-P Anyhow, unlike the lightning bolt French and double lightning bolt, this fellow has a vertical and diverting shape. So refreshing after having done so many horizontal ones. And yes, a tutorial is on its way. ;-) So stay tuned!

P.S. I didn't notice how cruel the title of this post actually sounds when I first came up with it, but I'm sticking with this silly wordplay anyway, hee hee.

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! :-)

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! ♥

Shocking

Hi everyone! :-) For today's short post I have this accent nail mani to show you. This afternoon I did a fresh mani with my favorite purple cream: OPI Funkey Dunkey. A few hours later I wanted to add a little eyecatcher, so it became this silver lightning bolt. It's a small addition, but just what I needed to complete this mani. ^^ Thanks for stopping by!

The Mad Dollies nails

Hello guys! Today's post is another custom mani, I abosolutely love doing these! I got this request from a player from the Greensboro NC roller derby team The Mad Dollies. She asked if I could come up with some fierce nail art designs, in her team colors teal and yellow, that she could use for an upcoming game. She also loved the use of tape for nail art, so the first thing that came in mind was a fierce lightning bolt tape mani! ;-) (Which all went great until my topcoat decided to smudge my hard work!) On my thumb and pinky I have the symbols that two certain players carry on their helmet. I made the star using tape and I really like the design, but it took a lot of precision to get all the tape strips right. So I'm still thinking of a more efficient way to make the design in the future. And the index and middle finger resemble the distinctive tights I saw players on pictures wearing, mostly striped or fishnet. And luckily I had Konadplate M57 to make the last :)

So Kristin, I really hope you like these designs! You can use all five of them or just pick the ones you like best ;-) And good luck with the rest of this season!

I really enjoy working on these custom nails requests I'm getting lately, so if you would like me to make some designs for a special event or just for fun, feel free to leave your idea in the comments or send me an email at: nailside@gmail.com.

Polishes I used in this post:
Essence Stamp Me! White
Essence - Let's Get Lost
Color Club - Almost Famous
Color Club - Where's The Soiree?
China Glaze - Ink

Cute double lightning bolt

Hi guys! I felt like doing a double lightning bolt again :) This time it's a very cute and girly version, kind of like a badass princess mani, lol. I used two pinks from Essie for it: Lion Around and Your Hut Or Mine, from the 2011 Resort collection. I actually bought Lion Around (the lighter pink) just to complete the set of four, but I'm glad I did, because it looks so cute together with Your Hut Or Mine :) And I didn't have anything like it yet anyway. For the gold in the middle I used China Glaze 2030, my favorite, and to make the whole look softer, I applied a matt topcoat. Mine is from Essence. Hope you guys like it, thanks for reading!

Holo lightning bolt

(This is a scheduled post, I'm on vacation!)

Hello guys! The lightning bolt's been away for a while, but it's back now! Did you miss it? ;-) For this double lightning bolt, I used the same technique as usual, only now the middle part is diverging, making the whole somewhat playfuller. As my previous attempts on using Gosh Holo as a layering color miserably failed, I used it as the base color this time (clever!). Which is time-saving too since Gosh Holo is a one-coater and fast-drying. Then I taped off the holo part and applied Color Club Where's The Soiree? on top. I must've said this like a gazillion times, but Where's The Soiree? is just wonderful for tape manis. It's so extremely pigmented and even when it's used over another polish, it dries with the speed of light. So quickly after that I was ready to tape my nails again and used Essence Bella for the tips. Done!

If you like this look just have a look at the tutorial for this design if you haven't already. I know it takes a lot of patience but practice really makes perfect and I've already seen many beautiful and succesful attempts from you! They make me proud :) Thanks for visiting!

Malificent lightning bolt

Hi guys! Today is another way too gloomy day. So I've got something from the vault for you. This is a lightning bolt mani I did a while ago. The combination of colors I used looked so dark and mysterious so the whole look instantly reminded me of Disney villain Malificent from the Sleeping Beauty. Man, I just love her. I think she's the most stylish and elegant from all the female Disney villains. As a kid I never realized how cool she was, but after all she was the bad guy, so I guess it's not that strange.

The polishes I used: the base color is Essence Where's The Party?, the purple foil (so gorgeous!) is Forget-Me-Not! from Catrice and the black Color Club Where's The Soiree?, as usual. I also added matt topcoat in the end, but I think that was a mistake, the true colors with a glossy finish would have been prettier. Oh, well! Thanks for reading!

Tutorial: Double lightning bolt tape mani

Hi everyone, welcome to my fourth tutorial! Making the double lightning bolt is actually not that different from making the single one; what you need to do is actually just repeat the steps from the regular lightning bolt tutorial. But because the double version received so many enthusiastic reactions I decided it deserved its own tutorial :) Continue reading »

Funky double lightning bolt

Hello guys! For this post I have another double lightning bolt to show you. I used yesterday's mani for it, which was the beautiful purple OPI Funky Dunkey. On top I used my favorite silver Millenium from China Glaze and for my third color I picked Essence Trust In Fashion. In hindsight I wouldn't have used Trust In Fashion. The color is really pretty but the polish was a tad too sheer for a tape mani, so I had to apply a thicker coat which affected the crisp lines on some fingers. But fortunately that problem was easily fixed with a little touch up using a nail art brush.
I also used this opportunity to make pictures for a double lightning bolt tutorial, so you can expect it this week! Thanks for dropping by :)

How to overdo your lightning bolt mani...

Hi everyone, hope you had a great day. The title of this post pretty much explains it all, hahah. Two days ago I posted the girly lightning bolt and I was satisfied with the way it was but at the same time I was dying to add another color to it, so here it is! The dusty mint green I added is Orly Ancient Jade, a very nice polish. This creme is a one-coater with a thicker coat and formula and drying time were great.

So dear readers, what are your thoughts on this "triple lightning bolt"? Triple yay or triple nay? Lol. Thanks for reading :)

Girly lightning bolt

Hello dear readers, I felt it was time for a lightning bolt mani again :) And it became a quite girly one. The pink base color I used is called Sexy Lady, the silver is Millenium and both are from China Glaze. As my final color I used my favorite black Where's The Soiree? from Color Club. But just black was a little too plain for me today, so I added a black jelly with silver glitters from Hema to it. The silver glitters aren't very visible on the pictures but they are in real life and go well with the silver chrome finish of Millenium, if I do say so myself, haha. Hope you all are having a wonderful day and thanks for reading!

Evil enemy nails

Hello dear followers! After a superhero mani there should of course be an evil enemy mani as well, hahah. It's still a lightning bolt design, but this time it's used vertically instead of horizontally as a funky French. To achieve this look I placed the tape strips as described in the tutorial. Only to make the pattern vertical, the position of both tape strips had to be twisted 90°, so that's basically it. (In this case I also unintentionally mirrored the design, but that doesn't affect the final look, as long as the design's twisted 90° it will come out vertically.) How to "double" the lightning bolt is a bit difficult to explain (and boring to read, lol) so I will make an individual tutorial on how to do that soon, with pics ;)

The gold base color is China Glaze Millenium, the black Where's The Soiree? from Color Club and the dark silver foil is from Hema (a Dutch department store) and looks pretty similar to China Glaze Jitterbug and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous.

My boyfriend thinks the mani is "badass", haha, what are your thoughts?

Superhero nails

Hi guys! On my previous lightning bolt manis I got many comments saying how they have a superhero quality, I really liked the comparison and I do have a thing for stereotypical superhero outfits ;) You know, with the bold colors and graphical patterns. So for today I made actual, intentional superhero nails. And yes, I used my last lightning bolt mani to achieve this look ;) The colors I picked are Diamond Cosmetics Blue Bell, China Glaze Millenium and a red shimmer from Etos, a Dutch drugstore. I really like how it turned out, I think it definitely says superhero! Hahah. This mani would probably work well too with the MAC Wonderwoman polishes, but with a gold lightning bolt in the middle instead of silver. Unfortunately I don't own those cute polishes, but I'll live :) Anyway, hope you guys like it and have a great weekend!

Blue and silver lightning bolt

Hi everyone! Today I have another lightning bolt mani to show, because frankly I'm still hooked :) And I hope you guys aren't bored with this design yet, because I've got more of 'em coming up this week... Mwuahahaha... This time I used China Glaze Millenium for the tips and the blue is Diamond Cosmetics' Blue Bell, which is quite similar to Essence's Chuck, so I'll have to do a comparison of those two soon.

Thanks for visiting!

My Favorite Jeans goes lightning bolt

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a great day. The mani for today's post is an update of the second lightning bolt French I did, it was turquoise with black tips. The day I was wearing that mani I found a polish that I wanted for so long but since it's discontinued I didn't think I would find it again. I'm talking about H&M's My Favorite Jeans. Lately I've been obsessed with foils, especially if they're blue, and that's exactly what My Favorite Jeans is. The first time I had it in my hands, I wasn't that much into nailpolish yet, I thought both color and finish were weird, so I put it back. I can slap myself now for doing that! So fortunately I found one last lonely bottle of it on the bottom shelf of an H&M! My favorite Jeans is a foil with a grey-ish blue base, kind of like jeans, with bolder blue flecks. The flecks are subtle but make the polish less dull. I love it :) And it was also the perfect polish to add some shimmer to the lightnig bolt design I was wearing. I just applied tape again the way I always do for the lightning bolt, only this time I placed the tape a bit more towards the tip, covering up a little part of the black. So that after adding My Favorite Jeans and removing the tape, there's still a line of black visible. Finally I added a layer of matt topcoat, the one I use is from Essence.

I like how the mani came out and that it only takes little effort to achieve the look. If you want to recreate it and could use some help, just check out the tutorial by clicking here or in the tab at the top.
Thanks for reading guys!

Before Mr. Matt

Before My Favoroite Jeans

Tutorial: Lightning bolt French tape mani

Hi guys, it's time for another tutorial! This time I will show you how to make the lightning bolt French. The design is very simple to achieve and perfect for covering up extreme tipwear or VNL (visible nail line). Continue reading »

Struck again

Hello guys! Since I'll be busy celebrating (mostly working, really) all day tomorrow during Queen's day, I'm posting this mani now :) It's another lightning bolt French. (Excuse me for the horribly corny names I come up with for my tape designs, but it's the best, non-confusing way to keep them apart.) The base color I used is Ms Jagger Green from Pieces, it's a really nice, bold teal creme, probably one of my favorite polishes. It applies very smoothly and covers in two coats, but the best thing is it doesn't stain! Which is quite rare for blue/green polishes. So no complaints at all. And the black is Color Club Where's The Soiree, if you've been reading my blog for longer you know it's one of my best buds!

I you like the lightning bolt design, just stay tuned because I've been preparing a tutorial for next week :) The design is very easy to do and great for tape-beginners. I've received some comments from readers that couldn't get my other tape designs done succesfully, so I hope this design will help those people to improve and get the hang of the taping technique. Goodnight!

Lightning bolt French - mattified

Hi everyone! Yes, I mattified my mani, again! Haha. Don't you just love how a matte topcoat can completely change a look, only by changing the finish?! They're especially great for graphical patterns like this one, the matte finish reduces reflections so the pattern is more visible :) Have a great night!