TNCC - Untrieds #1 - Barielle Myrza's Meadows

Hi everyone,

phew... another 6 weeks without a post.... and I'm not even going to try to defend myself. I totally lost my mojo and truthfully, I haven't found it again - yet. I'm polishing my nails, of course, but mostly plain polish. I'm just really too tired. There's too much going on that's stressing me out and I have even lost quite a bit of weight because of that.

Anyway, "Untrieds", TNCC theme for March, is a theme made for me... and I didn't even vote that time. I can easily show four manicures for this one. Every polish I have been wearing since February was an Untried. ^^; One of the bigger projects I have undergone since February was a set of gel extensions I did on myself. That's why my nails are so long in the pictures below. Just for your information, because the third set of nail art will not have those anymore.

So the first nail art I did on these extensions was originally intended for the February theme, but well... it also matches the March theme. I used Barielle Myrza's Meadows as my base, a long time untried. It's a glittery grass green polish, opaque in three coats and surprisingly smooth. I was inspired by one of my favorite summer camisoles, which has little mirror-like things surrounded by colorful thread.

I tried to show the polish as color accurate as possible. Sadly, that meant a very unnatural skin tone.

Don't ask what polishes I used for the dots. I don't remember. I bought those shiny sequins back in Japan, but I'm pretty sure you can find something similar at Born Pretty Store or the like.

I still like this mani. It's kind of fun and bright, just the total opposite of what I feel like these days. ^^;

What do you think? Do you wear greens like these?

An InLinkz Link-up

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #1

Hello everyone~

yay, I'm (kind of) in time with this month's challenge!! The theme for December is "Inspired by Art". That sounds fine at first and of course, I voted for it too. But in the end it caused me quite a headache. For today's manicure, I scrolled down the long list of art-themed pictures on Pinterest and stumbled upon a watercolor picture that I have used as my inspiration.

Diesen Monat bin endlich mal wieder im offiziellen Zeitraum, um meine Nail Challenge Collaboration Kreationen zu posten. Das Thema für diesen Monat ist "Inspiriert durch Kunst". Das klingt erst mal gut und ich habe auch dafür abgestimmt, aber letztlich hat es mir doch ganz schön Kopfschmerzen bereitet. Letztlich habe ich Pinterest bemüht und bin dort für die Mani fündig geworden, die ich heute zeigen möchte.

I thought about using actual watercolors for this manicure, but I couldn't find the box with my watercolors. So I ended up with my usual acrylic paints.

Ich hatte mit dem Gedanken gespielt tatsächlich Aquarellfarben zu benutzen, konnte meine aber in meinem Chaos leider nicht finden. Also wieder meine üblichen Acrylfarben.

Products used / Verwendete Produkte:
- Barielle Enduring (white base, 3 coats)
- China Glaze Keep Calm Paint on (the light turquoise brush strokes behind the flowers)
- blue, green, black and yellow acrylic paint

And of course, this was the picture that inspired me. Sadly, I don't know who painted this, but I really like it!

Thanks for reading!!
Please take a look at the other girls' manicures too.

TNCC - Favorite Color - #4

Hi,

since I finally finished my first manicure for the December theme, I feel like I have to rush this post a little bit... This is my final manicure for the Favorite Color month of the Nail Challenge Collaborative.

I tried making stamping decals for the first time. I ordered my first MoYou plates a little while ago and this one image on Suki plate #6 actually reminded me of a pattern I saw in Japan. I guess I shouldn't have tried doing full nail decals when trying for the first time, but I think the manicure turned out okay. Of course, there's a lot of room for improvement, but I think you'll see me try again with stamping decals. There are some nice combinations possible - especially with the MoYou plates I got....

Sorry for the crappy pictures. All of them were taken on day three, hence the damage at the tips.

Products used:
- essence gabriella (from the first range of nail art twins)
- essie good as gold
- Barielle Pin Up
- MoYou London - Suki plate #6

For the stamping process itself, I followed this tutorial - the first that pops up when you search for stamping decals on google. ^^;

What do you think? Have you tried making stamping decals and do you have any tips to share?
Thanks for reading!

TNCC - Favorite Color - #2

Hi everyone,

gah, time just passes too fast without me realizing. And here I wanted to improve my posting habits...

For this manicure, I didn't have any particular plan. I had played with some polishes and noticed she sheerness of the purple and blue I ended up using for this manicure. I then remembered that I haven't done any checkered nails in a while and also have this cute matching topper from Japan in my untrieds... that's how this manicure was born.

Okay, I failed the checkered part here, but I like those colors together... and the topper ist just sooo cute. I'm glad I bought it. (I need to plan my next trip to Japan <3)

Products used:
- p2 open your heart (3 coats)
- Color Club Evolution (3 coats)
- Barielle Enduring (3 coats)
- Homei Spangle Nail "Princess no Negai"
- white acrylic paint

Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day~

Teacup inspired mani

Hi everyone,

today, I just have a quick manicure to show that was inspired by a teacup sitting on the board over my desk. I bought it in Japan and haven't used it for tea yet... shame on me. It's so cute!

Heute habe ich nur eine schnelle Mani zu zeigen, die durch eine Teetasse inspiriert wurde, die auf dem Regal über meinem Schreibtisch steht. Ich habe sie mir während meines letzten Japanaufenthalts gekauft und habe sie bis heute noch nicht für Tee benutzt. Schande, schande. Dabei ist sie echt niedlich.

Please excuse the tipwear. I took pictures on the third day of wear...
I used two coats of Barielle U-Concrete-Me as my base here, then painted the white part using essie Marshmallow and the polish brush itself. Lastly, I added the red stripes using essence It Peace.
I'm still not sure if I like it on me, but I got a couple nice compliments... so I guess, it's not all that bad.

Bitte die Tipwear mal ignorieren. Ich habe die Bilder leider erst am dritten Tragetag gemacht...
Für diese Mani habe ich mit zwei Schichten Barielle U-Concrete-Me angefangen. Dann habe ich mit essie Marshmallow und dessen Pinsel den weißen Teil aufgepinselt. Zum Schluss kamen noch die roten Strichlein in essence It Peace hinzu, und fertig. Ich bin mir immer noch nicht sicher, ob ich die Mani an mir mag, aber ich habe ein paar nette Komplimente bekommen... von daher war sie wohl nicht all zu übel.

I'll leave you with this for tonight... Tomorrow is Wednesday, so I'll have another swatch for the "Lacke in Farbe und bunt!" collaboration. Thanks for reading! See you soon!

Barielle - Positive Zen-Ergy (Swatch)

Hi!

It's Wednesday again, so I have another swatch for the "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt!" collaborative. This week's color is olive/khaki. I actually don't own many such polishes and most I have worn already. Remember, I'm trying to purposely kill some untrieds this way ;) In the end, I chose Barielle Positive Zen-Ergy.

Und schon wieder is Mittwoch. Darum auch heute wieder ein Swatch für die "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt!"-Aktion. Diese Woche soll es ein Lack in der Farbe Khaki oder Olive sein. Ich besitze nicht sooo viele Lacke in dieser Farbe und die meisten habe ich schon getragen. Wir erinnern uns: Ich versuche durch die mittwöchliche Lackiererei meinen Bestand an unbenutzten Lacken zu dezimieren. Meine Wahl viel letztlich auf Barielle Positive Zen-Ergy.

Barielle Positive Zen-Ergy is a khaki shade in my eyes, lacking the yellowness I associate with olive. It's a pretty khaki with silver shimmer running through. I'm wearing three thin coats and no topcoat here. Drying time was okay considering the three coats. But it's not very shiny on its own.

Barielle Positive Zen-Ergy ist für mich ein Khaki-Ton. Er hat nicht diese gelbe Note, die für mich zu Olive gehört. Er ist jedenfalls ein hübsches Khaki mit silbernem Schimmer. Ich trage hier drei dünne Schichten ohne Topcoat. Für die drei Schichten war die Trockenzeit auch annehmbar. Ohne Topcoat ist der Lack allerdings nicht sonderlich glänzend. Vom essence BTGN Top Sealer würde ich bei diesem Lack als Schnelltrockner abraten. Ich habe ihn bei meinem ersten Tragen dieses Lacks am Montag drübergepinselt... und hatte Dienstagmorgen dann, ungelogen, 1 mm Tipwear, da sich der Lack zusammengezogen hatte. Ohne Topcoat blieb er, wo ich ihn aufgetragen hatte.

Because I had been wearing Positive Zen-Ergy for the third day in a row, I felt the need to change it a little and applied one coat of Rituals Freezed Fantasy, a greenish golden glassfleck polish. It was a birthday present from my grandma last year and I can't remember if I wore it since July 10th last year. My grandma didn't notice earlier though. I wonder if she remembers that she got me nail polish for my birthday last year, haha. My camera hated it... while I think it's pretty!

Da ich den Positive Zen-Ergy dann schon drei Tage in Folge auf den Nägeln hatte, verspürte ich das Bedürfnis was dran zu ändern und pinselte mir noch eine Schicht Rituals Freezed Fantasy drüber. Das ist ein grünlich goldener Glassfleck-Lack - ich meine aus einer LE. Ich habe ihn letztes Jahr von meiner Oma zum Geburtstag bekommen und ich kann mich nicht erinnern, ob ich ihn seit dem 10. Juli letztes Jahr mal getragen hatte. Meiner Oma ist er jedenfalls vorhin nicht aufgefallen. Keine Ahnung, ob sie sich überhaupt erinnert, dass sie mir letztes Jahr Nagellack zum Geburtstag geschenkt hat, haha. Meine Kamera hasst ihn jedenfalls. Und ich mag's.

And that's it for today! Thanks for reading!

H+M - Blue

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all having a nice weekend. Mine is almost over, but before it is, I want to add one more nail art post to my little blog.

This mani wasn't planned at all. It just happened after I swatched the base color and found it so pretty that I decided to keep it on. I'll include some of the original swatch pictures at the end of this post.

The polish that I used as the base for this mani is from a mini-set by H&M and it has the awesome name "Blue". I'm always amazed by the creativity of H&M naming their mini-sets with names like that... The other polishes in this set were named "Pink", "Red" and "Black"... Anyway, it's a nice blue, somewhere between medium and dark blue. It's infused with silver shimmer and it reminds me a bit of a summer night sky. It's a bit sad that Blue is only a mini polish, I like it a lot!

After I had decided to keep wearing this polish for the time being, I wanted to add a little to that night sky feeling by adding some sparkles to it. What better polish could there be than Barielle Starry Sky? I hadn't used it before, but the glitter in this one was just as sparse as I hoped it would be. It's simple silver hexagon glitter in a transparent base, but  doesn't it look like stars on the blue?

I continued with a new attempt on the one stroke technique to paint the flowers. It worked okay, but this attempt made me realise that maybe my low quality acrylic paint is one reason for the gradient not being completely blended. I think I'm going to order a nice set of higher quality acrylic paints some time soon. I painted a couple of different flowers to practice different brush movements.

On ringfinger and pointer, I used two sizes of rhinestones to create curved lines. The silver rhinestones are 1mm, the aqua ones 1,5mm in diameter. I didn't topcoat them, because those rhinestones tend to get dull when I do. They stayed on longer than I thought they would. In the center of some flowers, I added a couple of matching bullion beads. Those were topcoated and actually didn't blead this time.

What do you think? Do you have any brand you can recommend me for my new acrylic paints?

And to finish this post, here are two pictures of H&M Blue all on its own!

LDTTWC Day 3 - I remember when...

For the third day of the Time Warp Challenge, we are supposed to create a manicure in honor of an event in history... either well-known or personal. At first, I wasn't sure what to do for this one. There aren't many memories that I could do a manicure on and I had no idea what well-known event I should choose. In the end, swatching my newest Priti NYC polishes gave me the answer.

After swatching Priti NYC Bowles Black, I decided to do a manicure in honor of the first men on our moon on July 21st 1969. It's not something I remember, but it's a very well-known event.

I love how the flakies in Bowles Black show up quite well on my thumbnail in this picture. It's like a million tiny glitter stars plus a few weird looking acrylic color ones. I painted those nails so that they look right for me... and because I thought that using the half moons of my nails as the moon's shape provides a nice coherent frame.

So besides using Priti NYC Bowles Black, the black polish, I also used Barielle Sterling Silver. I applied it on top of Bowles Black as my moon's color. On my middle and pinky nails, I also sponged on some essence rich&pretty as well as grey denim and a mixture of those plus Bowles Black. My egg-shaped planet Earth was painted using my new all-time white, an unnamed Color Club, and Kiko 386.

My astronaut and the foot print were painted using black and white acrylic paint.

I was really happy with these nails. It took a while to paint, but it was worth it! They didn't make it to the end of the day though, because I was too lazy to paint my other hand with pretty moon things too... I just should have painted them, because half of the polish I applied instead came off while I was asleep. Haven't had that in a while. ^^;

What do you think of my moonwalk nails?