Fall into Autumn 13: Fall Flair

With this post, I'll finish yet another challenge. Time sure goes by... 13 weeks for the Fall challenge and they're over already! But I don't really feel sad, because the next challenge is just around the corner and I'm looking forward to this one as well!

So without much further do, here's theme numero #13: Fall Flair. Actually, I had no idea what fall flair is supposed to mean... I still don't. But on the challenge chart it said "your choice" in brackets and that saved me somewhat. I decided to experiment a little, and luckily, it turned out quite nicely!

Last year around this time, I got two bottles of flocking powder I intended to use on a craft project I never realised in the end. Even though flocking is nothing new, I still hadn't tried it despite having the materials at hand. With this challenge, I wanted to change this fact.

I started without any plan what I wanted to do, so I just pulled out the flocking powder, chose matching polishes from my stash: Misslyn Copper Twist (chocolate brown, imo...) and Woo 665. Don't ask me why I bought brown flocking powder. I think they only had those two colors left and they were on sale or something. But it matches fall... Anyway, I painted my nails with one coat of those two polishes and started sprinkling the flocking powder on top. It worked better than I thought! It's a messy process though. Clean-up is a bit tricky... sorry for the flocking around the cuticle area.

But in the end, I was left with flocked nails and no idea what to do next. After a while, I just started putting nail polish on top of the flocking and that actually looked nice! I used a dotting tool and tried to paint little leaf shapes. Afterwards, I added some details in matching colors, the two base colors, China Glaze Riveting and a mixture of OPI The IT-Color and Catrice Browno Mars. Yes, the same I used for yesterday's mani. I still had them on my table.

I carefully topcoated my leaves with essence BTGN Top Sealer and my dotting tool to make them a little bit more shiny and blend the colors together. I was quite satisfied with the result. It looks like the leaves are floating. The texture of the flocking underneath adds something very interesting to the overall look. Not sure if I'd liked it as much with simple polish as my base.

The flocking was weird on my nails. I'm used to matte polishes, but flocking is different... it's not in the way, but I kept touching to make sure those are my nails. Sadly, I had "tipwear" quite fast... The flocking disappeared and I was left with the base color underneath. At least, not very visible "tipwear".

What do you think about the results of my little flocking experiment? Have you tried flocking powder? What's your opinion?

Fall into Autumn 12: Harvest

So here's another manicure I did for the Fall into Autumn Challenge. Only one more theme to go and it's the Winter Challenge already! But before that, I have got to show you my harvest mani.

I really wanted to do something inspired by my work&travel experience in Japan. But that turned out more difficult than I thought. At first, I wanted to do cabbage inspired nails. We would cover them in newspaper to store them. Sounds like a nice twist to a green mani... but then there was work and I was too tired to tackle the newspaper technique. Then I thought about the Kaki strings we would do. I have no idea if other countries do it too, but in the region I worked at, they would kind of sew Kaki fruits to strings and hang them in front of the windows to dry them. They are supposed to get moldy with a special kind of mold. I didn't get to see that, but I spent some days preparing those strings. But... no nice Kaki orange in my stash.

And then, there was the buckwheat harvest. That was actually quite fun because we did it in a big group. I'm not happy with the result of this idea, because you can't tell that it's buckwheat. But it looks like harvest, so mission accomplished.

My basecolor for this mani is Color Club Earthy Angel. The shade doesn't go with my skintone, but it seemed nice for my buckwheat field. I continued sponging the lower half of my nail with China Glaze Riveting, BeYu 084 and a tiny bit of OPI The IT-Color. I just got Riveting in the mail and I'm soooo in love with it! Gorgeous polish!

Next, I'd take my tiny brush and a piece of sturdy paper on which I put a couple of globs of Catrice Browno Mars, OPI Glitzerland and Color Club Rebel Spirit. I swirled them together to get a couple of shades and painted tiny stripes to form the buckwheat bundles and the rope around them. That's it.

I messed up the clean-up on my thumb. Didn't manage to do that in quite some time... In case you wonder why the pictures look slightly different than usual: My dear photoshop decided to act up a couple of days ago, so I had to use a web-based editor to work on my pictures. I hope I'll be able to solve the problem soon!

Until then... more swatch posts to come!
Take care and 'til next time!

Fall into Autumn 11: Autumn Dots

It's Friday already and I have been home sick for seven days now... and still not feeling better. And I really have been resting... :( It was convinient for my sister though. She's going to hand in her bachelor's thesis next Monday and since I was sick, I had enough time at hand to proofread it for her. It reminded me so much of my own diploma thesis two years ago. I have to admit though, that her topic was a bit more interesting than mine, hehe.

But I also didn't neglect my nails and did some easy nail art. I said I would catch up with the challenge this week, so one of the manicures was a dotty one for theme No.11: Autumn Dots. I already had a pretty clear idea what I wanted to do, but I still searched the net for some pretty color combinations. I found one that seems to have inspired at least one more lady from the challenge group. It just proves that it is a nice combination!

So here's my retro autumn dotticure:

I'm really proud of myself, because most of the polishes I used for this mani are neglected ones or even unused polishes. I used a total of six different polishes for this.

I started with three coats of essence frosted champaign from the crystalliced LE from last winter. I don't remember if I wore this before. It's a light beige with golden shimmer and some really tiny random red glitter pieces that really irritated me. Frosted champaign levels nicely, but even at three coats, it was not opaque. It seemed to enhance the white tip. I stopped at three coats, because I'd cover up a lot with my dots anyway.

gloomy daylight

 For my dots, I picked five different shades from my stash. OPI Stranger Tides and essie Sew Psyched (green), p2 Honolulu Juicer (orange), Milani Foxy Lady (red) and p2 night out (blue). I think they look nice together.

I used two different methods to place my dots. At first, I'd go color by color and place random dots to create a random color pattern. That didn't work that great as you can see on my ringfinger. The lines are a bit wobbly. Later, I'd do row by row. That involves more polish, but the lines look prettier.

Which one do you like better?

I got some nice comments on these nails and I really enjoyed wearing them. Enough to not paint my nails for three days straight even though I had time to paint them. It was weird to have a pattern like that on my nails. I kept staring at them, thinking I had something odd on my nails. :D

What do you think of my dots?

Please take a look at all these awesome manicures too:

Fall into Autumn 10: Favorite Sweater

Today I want to continue with the Fall into Autumn challenge. I'm a little bit behind the schedule, but I'm going to catch up this week! Next on the schedule is a manicure inspired by my favorite sweater. I loved the idea when I read the schedule for the first time. But it proved to be a little difficult for me. My favorite sweaters are either single-colored or kind of christmas-y... snowflakes and stuff. And even though we had the first snow already, I still refuse to do snow manicures at this point!

But then I decided to base this manicure on a sweater that used to be my favorite sweater before my current favorites entered my wardrobe. It's a classic brown with a white and orange argyle pattern on one side of the front. I thought about painting the argyle pattern the way I did a manicure last year... but that ended up kind of wonky. Since my stamping worked okay for the last Fall into Autumn manicure, I decided to try again - especially because I own a plate with an argyle pattern!

The stamping is not the best and you can definitely see some progress when you compare the nails. I started with my pinky and finished with my thumb.

As my base color, I chose one of the first polishes I bought. I don't even remember why I needed a brown back then... it's not even a color I wear much. Not even now. Anyway, it's from the discontinued essence multi dimension line and is called Spicy. It seemed to be the closest to the color of my sweater. Spicy is a brown shimmer that tends to be a little bit streaky. Careful application solves that problem though.

On top of essence Spicy, I stamped the argyle pattern from fauxnad plate m60 with a white stamping polish. Afterwards, I picked a small nail art brush and some drops of p2 notice me! to fill in the argyle pattern. p2 notice me! really is my favorite orange creme! I filled in some white lines too, because the stamping was inconsistent, but overall, it looked quite nice. Looking at the pictures now... well, it enhances everything and it doesn't look as nice anymore ^^; Yeah, I'm picky... I finished the whole thing with a generous coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer and tried not to smudge it.

Wearing one of my current favorites. I love the white poofy things.

What do you think of my newest venture into stamping? The sweater I chose is nothing special. A nice staple and I still wouldn't want to miss it. Which is my problem. I actually have no idea where I put the sweater...

Fall into Autumn 9: Fall Gradient

We really had the first snow yesterday! Until Friday, I doubted that it would snow in my region, because it is considered one of the warmest in Germany, but apparently... not warm enough anymore. So due to the rain and snow this weekend, huge amounts of leaves fell down and I'm starting to feel all wintery... Meh.

I didn't feel a lot like red leaves today, when I was thinking what to do for the gradient mani. I decided to turn it into another Halloween mani of sorts. I wanted to create a sparkly gradient and it turned out to be incredibly sparkly... at least, when the sun hit it.

I wanted to use China Glaze Zombie Zest again and started thinking of other colors from this one. I chose two Milani polishes, Hi-Tech and HD from their 3D Holographic line. Since Zombie Zest is really sheer, I started with painting my nails with three coats and let them dry shortly before moving on. At three coats it still wasn't opaque, so I did it a little differently on my right hand. I didn't take pictures though.

It's interesting how strong the silver looks, even though I barely used it. Hi-Tech is a really nice light green scattered holo and I thought it would be nice for a gradient, but it seems to be kind of overwhelmed by the other two. Totally different story when I look at my nails though. It is green and the gradient is quite smooth. I guess it's my camera again. It seems to hate holos... I really mean that. It turned strong holos like Make Up Store Greta into plain silver polishes. Boo.

Next, I cut a piece out of a kitchen sponge that approximately had the size of one nail. I let it soak some water, so I wouldn't soak up the polish. Whenever I use more than to colors, I usually paint the polishes directly onto the sponge, lightly press them on some paper to mix the colors and then move on to my nail. That's how I did it this time as well. I find it easy this way and it's not very messy. I didn't have a lot of clean-up to do afterwards.

I finished it with one coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer and went to bed... thinking I would be done. But the next morning, I suddenly felt like trying the impossible again. I felt like stamping. I don't know why, but to me, stamping is difficult. I just can't seem to get it right. So I feel that my stamping today was a huge success. Since I'm not much of a stamper, I have no idea what brand the plate is from, but it is called A-37. I used a white stamping polish by Misslyn for the stamp.

The spider didn't transfer very well and was barely visible, so I outlined it with acrylic paint and a fine brush to make it stand out more. I don't like spiders in my house, but I find them quite fascinating when they are outside. I love watching garden spiders, for example. They make the most beautiful spiderwebs! Most of the garden spiders around the house got eaten by birds already, so there is not much to watch anymore.

What do you think? Is the gradient fall worthy even though it's not orange/red? :D

Fall into Autumn 8: Halloween

Haha... it's really fall here now. The flu got its first victims, me among them. Hence a week of no posting... Germany is expecting the first snow this weekend and that feels off, because I have still been wearing short sleeved shirts 5 days ago! Oh well :D

Anyway, I did one more mani for the Fall into Autumn challenge before I got sick and I'd like to show it to you! There are two versions of the challenge, so some participants did a different theme for theme 8. On my challenge chart, theme 8 is Halloween. So here is my Halloween mani, inspired by a design I saved to my inspiration folder last year. I don't remember who did it. If it's yours, please let me know!

Last year, I really wanted to do this design, but didn't have a nice lime monster green in my stash... and okay, I wasn't at that stage yet where I go to buy a polish just to do a design I have in mind! But this year, I have a polish in my stash that seemed fitting: essence Colourbration from this year's spring edition Crazy Good Times. It's a lime green with golden flecks in it. Quite bold on its own, so I haven't worn it solo yet.

On top of two coats of essence Colourbration, I applied one coat of p2 black explosion, a simple black shatter. It didn't break up very well, so I moved some of the black pieces with a fine brush. I'm always surprised how well that works!

The next step would be applying those flat fake eyeball thingies. I didn't have them, which left me with painting them using acrylic paint. Painting those circles was more difficult than I expected due to the uneven shatter surface. Some topcoat on and that's it. Pretty easy, but I still love the effect. I was looking forward to Halloween season just to finally do this mani! :D

I didn't wear it for very long, because I found it not very work appropriate. There were so many people sick last week, that I constantly had to help out with customer service... it just didn't seem very fitting. What do you think? Would you wear it at work?

And on a sidenote. I expected it, because I experienced something similar after swatching this essence polish... but... I just have to mention it: This one is a very very bad stainer! I had lime green nails even though I applied basecoat and wore it for a single day. I moved on to turquoise nails yesterday, but that's a different story. :D

Thanks for reading!

Fall into Autumn 7: Pumpkins

Hello everyone~ Today, on this wonderful cold rainy day, I'd like to add another manicure belonging to the Fall into Autumn Challenge to this blog. Theme 7 is Pumpkins and how could I not think about creepy halloween pumpkins... But since theme 8 is going to be Halloween, I tried to think of something that contains pumpkins and only a touch of Halloween feeling. So~ I got to use one of my favorite color combinations: purple and orange!

For this mani, I applied two coats of essence passion for fashion, a very vivid purple creme. Next, I pre-painted my moon using white polish as a base for the two coats of OPI Fiercely Fiona I applied next. Next, I did the same procedure for the pumpkins. First white as a foundation. Then I used p2 notice me!, my favorite orange, to color the pumpkins. The vines were painted with green and black acrylic paint.

I love taking pictures of notice me! in the light of a beginning sunset. It really starts glowing... But I thought I should also take a picture in daylight. Isn't this a nice purple!?

I noticed one thing about this mani, that really made me laugh while looking at the pictures. I didn't notice before, when I was actually wearing it! I did these one nail after another... the pinky first, because it didn't involve any further polish after the base color. Do you see it too?  xD

Please take a look at all the other awesome pumpkin manis:

Fall into Autumn 6: Autumn Leaves

Today, I'm returning to the Fall into Autumn challenge with the sixth theme, Autumn Leaves. I was postponing this theme a bit, because there wasn't much of an autumn feeling around here. No falling leaves! But last week was quite rainy and windy and all of sudden, there were lots of leaves on the ground and I finally felt like thinking about this mani.

Two years ago, around this time, I was still in Japan and we waited and waited for the leaves in the mountains of Tochigi prefecture to turn red. 2010 was a very hot and long summer in Japan and, in Tochigi at least, the leaves barely turned red. They turned brown at the end of October, when it started snowing a little bit. So sadly, we didn't get to see the burning mountains... But we did a little bit of sightseeing in the region. We were visiting Nikko, for example. I don't remember if I really saw it there, but I remember seeing beautifully painted paravents with fall scenes on them. That's what inspired me.

For this mani, I finally got to use my essie Good as Gold. I'm really glad it dries fast, because I was a bit impatient that night, hehe. On my ringfinger, I used H&M "Blue" as my base. But I guess there are a lot of "Blue"'s out there... I applied it over one coat of Good as Gold, because I wasn't thinking when I was painting my nails... and I was too lazy to remove it...

The branches and leaves were painted with acrylic paint.

The next day, I found my ringfinger a bit too dark, so I re-painted the leaves with essie Good as Gold and Orly Solid Gold to brighten it up. Also, I mattified the mani to make it less shiny.

Which version do you like better? I really like the essie mattified. It looks very pretty that way.

Even though I liked this mani, I consider it a part fail, because half of the people I showed it to, wouldn't recognise my leaves. "Oh, red cherry blossoms! Pretty!" Why would I paint cherry blossoms in October... I wasn't sure if I really needed essie Good as Gold, but after this mani, I'm glad I bought it.

Do you recognize the leaves? Do you live in a region where the leaves turn to a bright red? I don't... just yellow and brown.

Fall into Autumn 5: Football

So today, I would like to show my football nails... I did them for the Fall into Autumn Challenge, and well, are supposed to be (American) Football nails, but I decided otherwise. I'm following a fellow challenge member who had the same problem I do: We can't relate very much to the sport. It's not a big thing here. I have never watched a game at all. It's different with football aka Fußball aka soccer though. I'm not a fan either, but I can relate to this sport. It's inevitable here in Germany. :D

What I came up with is still not very creative, but it was fun doing.

My pinky doesn't like to be photographed lately. It likes to hide or bend away from the rest. :D

Products I used for this mani include a grassgreen beauty uk polish (from my untrieds, yay), the every so often used and still unnamed Color Club white, some black acrylic paint and my beloved essence BTGN Top Sealer. I'm on my 7th bottle now!

And because I was asked to do some tutorials on how I do my nail art, I'll try to remember to take pictures while I'm painting. For this one, I remembered, but honestely... there's not much to explain. Hence, just three pictures.

Left: Paint your nails with base color of your choice
Middle: Paint the half moon white. I freehanded, but you could tape it off too
Right: Using black acrylic paint, add the pattern and seal with topcoat

Okay, I'll try to do a better job next time. ^^; This is new to me and I'm not very good at explaining...

Fall into Autumn 4: Cloudy Days

Aaaah, I'm so behind with my nail art this week... I was told last weekend that I have to move to another room in the house by the end of next week. Since I'm not going to be around much next week because of a seminar I'm attending, all the moving stuff has to happen before that. So instead of painting my nails, I was painting walls the last couple of days. I hurt so much every night... I didn't feel like painting my nails at all. But the bright side of the story: The "Kellerkind" (it's an idiom here in Germany basically meaning something like nerd, but if you take it literally means child living in the basement) is going to be an "Attic Cat" starting next week. Btw, has anyone seen this K-Drama?

But today, I want to present my cloudy day nails. They are not exactly cloudy, but when I was thinking what I could paint for the theme, I recollected my childhood and how we would fly kites in autumn when it was windy enough. And well, those days often were cloudy days.

I used Manhattan Lotus Effect 16 as my base color and used white acrylic paint to pre-paint the kite and cloud shapes. For the kite I used an unnamed yellow Color Club, Kiko 386, BeYu 393 and a couple of other acrylic paints. The clouds were painted using my favorite unnamed white Color Club, Priti NYC Oleaster, the already mentioned BeYu polish and pink acrylic paint.

 I really like how the clouds on my thumb look. I might do that color combo again.

But what do you think? Did you fly kites too?

Fall into Autumn 3: School (Spirit)

Oh boy, this mani was a tough task... I had to google the concept of school spirit, because it's not something we have here in Germany. Or let's say, in the schools and university I went to. So, my schools don't have colors or any sports team that would be worth mentioning... neither did my university. My Japanese university probably does, but I didn't feel like finding out - I always get depressed when I think about my time in Japan. Miss it so much. And since I'm not much of a sports fan either, I was really troubled thinking of a theme.

So... I cheat for this one. It's the reason why I put the *spirit* in brackets. What I thought of, without thinking of any special team, was cheerleader uniforms, to be more specific, the skirts. I have seen a couple really nice checkerd ones on TV and I really wanted to do a checkered mani, so I decided to combine that. It was also inspired by a mani from a Japanese nail magazine.

 

This mani was mostly done using polishes. The black is, once again, essence black is back. The blue base is Kiko 386 and the yellow an unnamed Color Club. For the red I chose p2 can't get enough. Those are the colors for the stripes too. The rest of the checkered pattern is acrylic paint. I tried to use thinned  white polish first, but it didn't work the way I wanted it to. Bleeded and so on. The stripes are a little wobbly, but overall, I'm quite satisfied.

Theme 5 will be another difficult one... we don't really have (American) football here. It's not a big thing here. My cousin is a big fan though. He's watching it on pay-TV every year. :D


So what do you think of my checkered manicure? Does is qualify as school spirit themed?