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!

Little Strokes of Metal

Hi guys, for this post I have these silver strokes to share with you. I just had to do some art deco linework again. I like how elegant it looks, plus painting those thin lines with a striper brush somehow has a very therapeutic effect on me.

The striper polish I used is Janet #201. It's not very opaque, which causes each line to look different in terms of coverage. But I actually like that, I think it makes the look more dynamic. The smokey purple basecolor is How I Matt Your Mother from Catrice. It dries with a semi-matt, so-called "brushed metal effect", which isn't really visible in the picture, but I just loved the color and the formula is great. That was it for today, 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!

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!

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.

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!

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.

Rays of Color

Hi guys! My apologies for posting so little lately! I'm so busy with school at the moment, that I haven't been able to work on my next challenge yet. So instead I'll show you this second, slightly different version of my "divergence" mani, that I made some time ago.

The basecolor I used is H&M Deep Deep Water. It's such a simple yet pretty color, and the fact that it covers in one coat makes it even better! On top I made the red part with Essence Wild Thing (an oldie!), and the turquoise tips with Essence Bella. As usually tape was my little helper for those clean edges. ;-) Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again soon!

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!

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 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 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! :-)

Guest Post at Polish Chest

Hello dear readers! Last week was a very busy week for me, but I did manage to prepare a glamorous guestpost for the lovely Danny from Polish Chest. Please check out the full post here!

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. :)

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!