Cool toned Color Blocking

Hello everyone and a happy 2016! After the many darker manis from december I really felt like doing something more bright and cheerful this time. So I've made these color blocking nails with tape and four lovely colors. The lighter pink is Essence Hola, Guapa from the limited Arriba collection, the neon purply pink is China Glaze Purple Panic, the turquoise is Age of Aquarius from Color Club and the navy is OPI Russian Navy. Some of these polishes are matt, so I added a layer of topcoat to make everything all shiny. I like how these turned out. ^^

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!

OPI DS - Glamour

I was going for something plain on my nails, but ended up wearing the most special polish I own: OPI DS Glamour, on top of two coats of Orly Royal Navy. No need to say it's an absolute stunner, look at that! Though it looks even better in real life. I still can't believe how intense the (slightly scattered) holographic finish is, even in the shadow! Sadly this polish is discontinued too, as you might know. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to own it someday. But I must've done something right, because last year I was very lucky to get my hands on one bottle through a swap. (Thank you so much, Viktorija!) It felt like winning the lottery... :3 What's the most special polish that you own?

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

Suzi Skittle

As my recent water marbling attempts for day 20 of the 31 Day Challenge weren't exactly succesful, I'll show you this colorful taped skittle from the vault instead. The grey shimmer is OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede. It dries with a matte finish but with some glossy topcoat it looks just as stunning! On top I did a fifty-fifty tape mani by covering up half of the nails with tape and painting the other half with the following polishes:

Essence - Bella
P2 - Groovy Etos - #118
Essence - Sending You Kisses
Bourjois - Jaune Cab (#85)

In the meantime I'll practise more water marbling, I really want to be able to nail it! See you nex time!

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!

OPI DS - Reflection

This post I want to share a beauty from the vault with you: OPI DS Reflection! Oh, how I love this polish... I often reach for it when I'm in a hurry but still want something really pretty on my nails. There's corally red, there's scattered holo and a bit of gold shimmer. Doesn't it look amazing? I applied two smooth and quick drying coats, but it could do with one thicker layer too. Well done, OPI!

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 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!

OPI DS - Extravagance

Hello everyone! Right now I should be studying, but I just had to share this beauty with you. It's OPI DS Extravagance that I wore a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for a chic polish with a twist and Extravagance was exactly what I needed: a deep plum with a scattered holographic finish. The application is great, I applied two smooth coats and topcoat, then the drooling could start! I already posted about this polish once before, but something this pretty should be seen more often! :-)

Dark Zigzag

Hi everybody! Last post I showed you the amazing suede version of Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees from OPI. Because it dries so fast, it's a perfect basecolor for tape manis, such as today's. I covered half of my nails with triangle shaped pieces of tape and used my trusty black polish (Where's The Soiree? from Color Club) on top. Then I removed the tape strips and felt like a rock star... Rock on!

OPI - Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede

Hello dear readers! I know it's been a while again, my apologies for staying away so long. I've been busy with packing and moving to a new place, and with concentrating on school. Or busy with life, in other words. ;) But my passion for nails is far from dead, so I'm trying my best to get back to posting regularly again. In the meantime I'll share some pictures from the vault with you, starting with OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees, the suede version. I think it's absolutely gorgeous in all its simplicity. I really could look all day at that dark, grainy, matte finish. ♥ This was two coats. The application is alright; like with other matte polishes, you need to work faster because the drying time is quite short. But I like to see that as a plus, it makes this grey beauty an awesome polish for tape manis... ;)

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!

Black and White Tribal

Oooh, more tribal nails! I hope you don't mind. :-) I just love how detailed it looks with only little effort, especially if you use it for an accent nail only. Also it's a cute eyecatcher that way and a great excuse for being lazy, haha. The tribal print was freehanded with a white striper polish over black and the purple is OPI's Planks A Lot. Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Miffy nails

Hi everybody, for this post I have Miffy nails to show you. :) This mani was made for a dear friend of mine who collects Miffies. (I hope you liked it, sweetie!) The base color is OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui and for the little Miffy on my ringfinger I used acrylic paint. You might've noticed the pixeled picture in the left corner of a new tutorial, which is indeed for this design. :) So you can expect it very soon!