Neon geometric Christmas nails

Hi everyone! I thought it would be fun to do a Christmas mani (Christmani XD) in neon colors. I already had the idea of building a Christmas tree and six-pointed star with see-through triangles using tape, and when I stumbled upon China Glaze Surfin' For Boys in my stash, I knew it would be the perfect color for the job. It's so incredibly bright! For these photos I used my iPhone5 camera, it's much more accurate with capturing the true color of Surfin' For Boys than my trusty old Canon IXUS 85 IS, but even in these pictures the brightness is nothing compared to seeing it in reality.

I combined the Christmas ornaments with random triangle shapes in neon yellow, teal and silver. The polishes I used were Orly Glowstick, Color Club Age of Aquarius and China Glaze Millennium. The 'white' basecolor (actually a super light grey) is Essence Enter Wonderland, a very pretty matt polish. To keep that lovely matt finish in the entire look, I finally sealed everything with matt topcoat. Hope you like it and thanks for reading!

Tutorial: Abstract '80s

Hi everybody, welcome to my tutorial for the abstract '80s design! One thing I like about this design is the translucent triangle, for which I can use my sheer polishes. I normally avoid those because they take so many layers to get opaque, but from now on they have a purpose! (Next to glitter sandwiches. ;)) But the sheer triangle comes only at the end, so apart from a sheer polish you'll also need a basecolor and a polish for the angled shape in step 4. Let me show you how it works then! Continue reading »

A Broken Heart

Hi everybody! For this post I have a broken heart for you. Nothing to worry about though, I just thought it would be a cool design as I'm still experimenting with sheer polishes. :) I used my vertical lightning bolt design, then I painted the heart on top with a stencil I made from tape (like I used in this mani). I'm not sure if I like the colors I used, but I'm glad the idea I had in mind came out pretty much the way I wanted, yay! Thanks for reading! :)

Polishes I used:
H&M - Bella's Choice
Essence - Stamp Me! White
Color Club - Warhol

A Fresh Version

Hi everybody! First of all: thank you so much for all the amazing comments you guys left on my last post, my abstract '80s mani. I seriously didn't expect so much feedback, thank you! Also I received many requests for a tutorial and I wanted to let you know I'll happily work on it soon. :-)

I liked the '80s mani myself a lot too, plus it's fun to do, so I made another version. Same idea but in fresher colors. :-) The basecolor is the classic China Glaze For Audrey, I love this polish! (It combines so well with different colors.) I used Color Club Almost Famous for the yellow and the sheer blue is Color Club Chelsea Girl. I really like the bright color of Chelsea Girl, but was so disappointed when I found out how sheer it was (4-5 coats for opacity, if you don't use a white base). However, that sheerness has a purpose from now on. :D What do you think of this blue and yellow mani?

Abstract '80s

Hi guys, another tape mani for you today! Oh, how I love stationery tape. It's so perfect for making geometric shapes, which I happen to love too. ;-)

After (re)discovering the layering possibilities of sheer polishes with my recent springy stripes, I used the same technique in this mani. My base color (H&M Polish Me Happy) was applied the day before, so I could immediately place tape strips on top to form the mint green shapes with Orly Ancient Jade. When that had dried I once again used tape to make the pink triangles with Color Club Warhol and I just love how new shapes are formed where Ancient Jade and Warhol overlap. Speaking of Warhol, it's such a great polish for this layering technique. It's sheer, but covers very evenly and the color is so unbelievably bold! (Also take a look at layered Warhol together with its neon friends in this crackle mani.) And that's it for this post, I hope you enjoyed it. :-)

Springy stripes

Now that spring is slowly starting to appear, I've noticed I like to wear pastels more often now. This week I'd been wearing China Glaze Lemon Fizz for a few days and when I got tired of it I spiced it up with a colorful tape mani. It wasn't my intention to make stripes though, after I did blue tips with China Glaze For Audrey I wanted to add geometric patterns in coral with Essence Think Pink. However, Think Pink was a lot sheerer than I thought, creating different tones of coral with the polish underneath. (The middle two colors are For Audrey and Lemon Fizz underneath Think Pink.) I was so pleasently surprised by this that I continued playing with this layering effect and ended up with these cheerful stripes. :-) Thanks for reading!