Let it Snow! Challenge 16: Late St. Patrick's Day

Hey everyone~

With this final post for the Let it Snow! challenge, I'll be done! :D Then, I can finally catch up with everyone else!

So without much further do, here's my "St. Patrick's Day" mani. I was a bit at loss for this one. I just felt like wearing the green polish from the essence Fruity LE from last spring. I think it was called kiwi something? So I went with that and just added a couple of dots and clovers with p2 green palm tree. Dots seemed to be appropriate because of the glitters in the base polish.

Nothing spectacular, really. It was too green for me after one day, so I removed it for another untried. But I wore the kiwi polish ;) It's just kind of sad that my camera was so shy picking up those glitters. They were a lot more prominent in real life.

And two pictures of the polish on its own. I remembered taking them before continuing, haha.

So, with this, I'm finally done with the winter challenge. I basically only finished it 3 weeks late, but oh well. On to the next~ pastels~

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 15: Longing for Summer

Hello~

after showing you the beautiful and summery p2 green palm tree yesterday, I'm going to continue with the second to last Let it Snow! challenge manicure. And this one is probably the first manicure that's out of season, hehe.

Longing for Summer was the theme to work on and I had a couple of ideas. I wanted to do something colorful, but not too bright. I ended up using a couple of neons, but combined them with a French to make it more wearable at work.

I started with four coats of Catrice Cotton Candy At Eiffel Tower. Ridiculous, but that's the closest to the perfect soft white I'm still looking for. The polish behaved very well though! I applied it at night and continued the next day to make sure it's really dry.

I freehanded the tips with a couple of Woo neon polishes I got from my colleague who went to Turkey last year. They are a bit sheer, so the tips got a little thick, but I think that makes those polishes promising for neon jelly sandwiches.

On my middle finger, I used the same neons and a piece of saran wrap (Klarsichtfolie) to create the marbled nail. I placed a couple of dots and lines of each color on the nail and smudged them together by placing the saran wrap on top of the still wet polish. Since the polishes are so sheer, I had to do that three times to achieve what you see. Sadly, the green doesn't really show up. Too weak ;)

That mani was kind of fun to wear. It was so colorful and yet not too much for work. At least at my workplace. What do you think? Could you have worn this to work?

Thanks for reading today as well~

Let it Snow! Challenge 14: Winter Blues

Hi everyone,

until last week I sure had the Winter Blues, namesake for Let it Snow! week 14. But this past week, spring finally has arrived here in Germany. Every day, when I take my dog for a walk it's becoming more and more evident to me. Finally!

But well, there's three Let it Snow! manicures left to show and I'd like to make it one less by showing your my Winter Blues mani. I wanted to do something in wintery colors, but not exactly winter themed. I really liked the concept of the pastel check mani I did past fall and decided to use that as the base. But instead of three colors, I only used a single one.

I used Anny Sporty Snowflake as my base. It's a shimmery grey polish, rather sheer, but thus delicate enough. Then, I picked essie Bikini so Teeny and painted stripes in one direction, waited a little bit and continued with painting the crossing stripes. Bikini so Teeny is quite sheer as well, but once you add a second coat, it builds up nicely. So it's a lot darker where the stripes cross each other. Using Catrice Nautica, I added the halfmoons, dots and thin stripes. I finished with a thick coat of essie good to go and placing a couple of rhinestones.

I liked this design quite a lot and even got nice comments from my family who's still not very fond of my hobby. I just wish my nails had been a bit longer... but they're even shorter now, so I shouldn't complain.

If you look closely, you might notice a little mistake I made on my index. I was rather impatient in doing my right hand and ended up denting my left index nail. I even ended up doing that nail a total of four times. When I noticed my mistake, I just didn't feel like doing it again... Well, for one of the strokes, I seem to have grabbed the other light blue I had picked, essie Lapiz of Luxury. That mistake is a first for me. ^^;

What do you think?
Thank you for reading~

Let it Snow! Challenge 13: Winter Ombre

Hello~

here's number 13 from the Let it Snow! challenge. I decided to do an ombre instead of the other possiblity, gradient, because I'm obviously doing too many gradients lately. I love gradients, because there's not much effort involved for an awesome effect.

But I think an ombre mani is interesting too. Especially if you have a crazy amount of polish. Finding the perfect shades can actually take a little bit. Hehe.

Sadly, my pictures turned out like crap, so there's only one decently presentable one.

I wanted to do some cool colors. If I'd do it right now, I'd probably do pinks?

But hey, for this one, I actually remember what I used!

thumb: p2 590 who cares?
index: Kiko 389 Mint Milk
middle: unnamed Color Club
ring: p2 620 artful
pinky: mix of p2 artful and Catrice Be Pool 

On top is one coat of another unnamed Color Club, an iridiscent white glitter. That made some of the colors almost neon looking. Especially Kiko Mint Milk. p2 who cares looks quite grey, but it's not. It's a really nice light mint creme, but sadly didn't go all too well with my skintone. (My family even hated it on me ;__;)

So that's it! Three more to go and I'll start posting my pastels :D

Have a great day and thank you for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 12: Winter Wonderland

Hi everyone,

I'm still catching up with the Let it Snow! Challenge, so here is my take on the theme for week 12: Winter Wonderland. By the time I finally did this theme, I didn't really feel like winter wonderland anymore even though it was still snowing here.

I ended up compromising between winter and spring somehow.

This is about 4 or 5 coats of Orly Winter Wonderland. It's a sheer polish and probably not really meant to be worn on its own, but I really wanted to wear it solo at least once. Also, since it's called Winter Wonderland, it was the perfect polish for this theme, isn't it?

At the tips, I added random dots in light and dark purple (essence), as well as yellow (beauty uk), to represent a scene quite frequently seen around that time. There were a lot of crocus flowers in those colors peaking through the snow. For me, seeing crocus flowers means that spring is slowly starting up. Hence the compromise.

It was a nice mani. I liked wearing it and got a couple of nice comments on it. I really love Winter Wonderland~ So worth finally having spent the money on it. It was a pain to take off though. Those flakies were quite tenacious. Also, the light purple shows up really well on my pictures, but it was not as obvious in real life. It turned out to be really close to Orly Winter Wonderland in indoor light.

What do you think? Are crocus flowers as common in your country as they're here in Germany?

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 11: Valentine's Day

Hallo zusammen!

About two months late, I'd like to show you my Valentine's nails. Valentine's Day was theme 11 from the Let it Snow! Challenge. I still had some ideas from last year's brainstorming, but I ended up being inspired by another nail artist.

Compared to the original, I changed colors to a couple of untrieds in the purple range. It still works with the silver. I sponged the gradient (yes, another gradient) on top of two coats of white polish. It took two layers of sponging though, because some of the polishes turned out to be quite sheer. The hearts were painted with a dotting tool, because I was too lazy for a brush.

At first, I was kind of worried if those colors make my nails look frozen. But I think it's fine... I got to use my first essie, French Affair, again. I wonder why I always end up using this polish for Valentine's nails..? :D

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 10: Hot Chocolate

Hi everyone,

as I'm going to try catching up with the challenge, I'm continuing with my season-unappropriate postings. :P Today's is going to be about theme 10 from the Let it Snow Challenge: Hot Chocolate.

I love hot chocolate! Hot chocolate is the only form of warm milk I drink... but sadly, my stomach can't handle it well. But since I love the taste so much, I'm kind of used to dealing with the consequences afterwards. ^^;

I'm cheating a little bit for this theme. I didn't really do any nail art, but played around with glitters to create a top coat instead. You see, I don't have any indie polishes in my stash, but I tried to get my hands on one bottle for the first time around christmas. I totally fell in love with the KB Shimmer winter collection. Especially with the shade called Cocoa Nut. I really really wanted that. But I just didn't manage to get a bottle from the shops that send international. KB Shimmer polishes sure are sold out fast...

Instead, I thought about creating something close enough for me to not be too sad about not getting this polish. So I threw together a lot of glitters and applied this creation over a brown polish, I also mixed together from three different brown shades.

I like the look, but it's nowhere close to Cocoa Nut. ^^; I overdid it a little with the density of the glitters. This would be solveable by adding more clear polish. But I wish I had pinker glitters in my stash. The ones I used were mostly rose colored and slightly too big. They just don't pop as much as the ones in Cocoa Nut... So my quest for Cocoa Nut continues...

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 9: Snowbears

Good morning everyone!

For the last spam mani, I'd like to show my snowmen mani. Snowmen were the theme for week 9 of the Let it Snow! Challenge. I was thinking about what to do about his one. Snowmen have been done so many times already... but when I saw a rerun of that Coca Cola commercial with the polar bears, I knew that my snowmen would be snowbears instead.

I started with yet another gradient as my base. I chose rather light blue and white polishes and didn't use any underwear this time, so that gradient drove me crazy just a tiny bit. Then I applied the snow and hills. The snowbear was painted using white and blue acrylic paint instead of polish, because you can build up the diluted paints so nicely. I really need to find my watercolors and see how they'd work...

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 8: Icicles

Hello~

I'm continuing with my Let it Snow! Challenge spam! Here we have the mani for theme 8, icicles.

I rarely see icicles here in Germany. I guess most roofs are well insulated and reduce the occurance. I experienced massive icicles back in Japan, but the roofs there weren't insulated at all. But this year, I actually spotted two(!!) icicles in front of my window. Of course I had to take a picture of those 20 cm icicles. Woohoo. That day, I really felt like doing some nail art and painted my icicles - totally out of order.

The base was an unnamed baby blue Color Club topped with Orly Winter Wonderland. The latter had been on my wishlist for quite some time, but I finally added it to my collection. The icicles themselves were painted using white and purple acrylic paint.

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 7: Fireside Glow

Hi again!

I feel like I'm spamming, but I really want to post my Winter manis, haha... I'm continuing with theme 7, fireside glow. The fireside at my house is probably going to keep glowing for at least another month, but it already has a completely different feeling to it than in January. Which is interesting, because it's actually colder now than back then.

Another gradient. I love gradients. I used orange, red and burgundy polishes for this one, but I can only name three of them. One of the Flormar duochrome, Zoya Rica and p2 celebrating red. I still like this mani a lot. On the tips I used alessandro Black Dots, which has a similar effect as OPI Black Spotted. I think it does look a bit like charcoal.

Once again, thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 6: Winter Solstice

Here's one more mani for the Let it Snow! Challenge that's officially ending on March 31st... ^^;

Theme 6 was Winter Solstice and I remember that I was at a loss for this one. I researched quite a bit until I finally had an idea. I had a lot of pictures of this one taken at several steps into the mani, but I don't remember why I took them... lol. So, I'll just add a couple of the finished thing.

I was thinking of a winter sunrise... The nails are basically upside down, because I painted them from my perspective again. The sparkles are supposed to represent the fading stars, white and orange the sunrise, obviously. For the blue part, I tried to do a gradient with jelly polishes. That turned out better than I thought, but it was ruined a bit when my topcoat made the blue shrink. You can see the white underwear at the tips.

Did I ever mention that I love blue jellies?

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 5: Very Late New Year's

Hi everyone!

Phew, it sure has been a while... More than three months to be exact. I don't know what happened, but around Christmas, I suddenly lost my nail polish mojo. A lot of more or less bad things happened in my family and workplace afterwards, so I ended up polishing my nails once a week max... Lately, I feel like my thoughts are going more and more in a wrong direction though, so I want to start anew to keep me distracted at such times ^^ So thanks to all of you who are still following my blog even after three months with zero posts. I hope I can make up from now on!

Since I stopped polishing before Christmas, I didn't really participate in the Winter Challenge. I did most of the themes though and I'm going to post them from now on in a rather fast manner. So Happy New Years on Easter... but I don't really care right now. ^^;

I don't really remember what polishes I used. The base color is a very dark shimmering night sky blue by essence from my stash of untrieds (which didn't grow smaller in the past three months at all!). With a couple of Color Club glitters I painted those fireworks. It was very sparkly, but didn't last long on my nails. Too much for my mood back then. Oh well.

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 3: Ugly Christmas Sweater

Hi everyone!

Today, I thought I'd finally post my third manicure for the Let It Snow Challenge. It was supposed to be inspired by some ugly Christmas sweater. Honestly, I had to google this. All the designs that came to my mind were bordering on nordic prints and I ended up doing one that came close.

The flowers are supposed to be poinsettias with some leaves, but they look kind of random. The white French turned out way too thick. It actually started crackling away after a couple of hours. What is it with white polishes that this happens so often... The X's are supposed to represent the huge sweater stitches that I associate with this kind of sweater. When I was done, I thought that something was missing, so I added the little hearts for some extra tackiness.

It's interesting how different the polishes look depending on the bottle of polish/not holding polish. My camera sure picks up colors oddly...

For this mani, I layered the blue jelly polish essence Cool and the Gang over essence Stairway to Heaven, because I didn't have the right kind of blurple in my stash. On the upper third I applied p2 grey denim and lined the top with white polish. Using essence berry me home, models own Slate Green and Jade Stone, I painted the poinsettias and the leaves. The yellow dot is Rival de Loop 481. After adding the stitches with white polish, I also added the red hearts using the red essence polish again. Topped with essence BTGN Top Sealer... and done.

Thanks for looking! Please take a look at the other members' sweater manis!

Let It Snow! Challenge 2: Inspired by a Holiday Song

Okay, this manicure is not to be taken very seriously. I admit that I didn't wear it very long after finishing it... we're talking about 2 hours max. But it was very fun creating it while listening to song that was my inspiration. :D

Do you know Rolf Zuckowski? He's a german composer and probably most known for his children's songs. My sisters and I used to have loads of tapes with his songs and we listened to them until they were done for. The most memorable songs to me are from a collection of Christmas songs and the most outstanding is called "In der Weihnachtsbäckerei" (christmas bakery; the server might be slow...). I still love that song so much! It's basically about children baking christmas cookies, the difficulties they're facing... but mostly about the mess they're creating.

So here's my Weihnachtsbäckerei-manicure. :D

I wanted to use a cookie dough colored polish as my base, but it appears that I don't own one. Probably, because the color doesn't go with my skintone. Anyway, I ended up mixing my cookie dough base. I think it turned out quite nice.

Next, I  thought about which parts of the song I wanted to recreate on my nails. On my pinky, I picked up the refrain "zwischen Mehl und Milch", so I sponged on some white and white glittery polish to represent that. On ring- and middlefinger nails, I splattered some brown polish to represent the chocolate they're using in the song. I also added the spilled egg from the song on my middlefinger. My index is more of creative interpretation of the decoration... basically remembering how it was when my family made cookies. All sorts of sprinkles and chocolate to create the ultimate decoration (= more or less unrecognizable mess)!

Honestly, I can't say what polishes I used for this manicure. I just grabbed and used what I wanted. At least I can proudly say that I did not use acrylic paints this time, haha.

Now that I wrote this post, I probably can't get the song out of my head for the rest of my day again. That's how addictive it is. :D

Do you have similar Christmas songs in your country? Or Christmas songs from your childhood that you still love? I would love to hear them!

Let It Snow! Challenge 1: Snowflakes

...or: In Memory of my favorite sweater.

I guess it was to be expected, but I'm going to participate in the newest seasonal challenge by same group of bloggers who did the past three challenges. The group decided to name itself The Nail Challenge Collaborative from now on. Makes it easier to refer to the group. So two weeks late, I'm starting to post my first manicure for the new Let It Snow challenge.

At first, I wanted to do something totally different. I bought a new skirt last winter and I loved the snowflake print on the label. I wanted to recreate this print, but failed somewhat. I can't find the label after my last move... -.-" But the same day, I got some sad news... my favorite sweater was ruined... A pair of new green jeans discolored my snowflake sweater. Even after trying to reverse the process three times, the white parts stay bright green. So in memory of this sweater, I did another snowflake mani - a more or less classic one.

Excuse the following pic spam... :P

I used only few materials for this mani, obviously. On top of two coats of essence Black is Back, I painted my white snowflakes using acrylic paint. One coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer on top to seal it.

While painting these nails, I thought once more that I really want some more pigmented white acrylic paints. I got a couple of paints for free at work yesterday and I hope some of the brands are worth the money I usually would have had to pay for them. :)

And here two pictures of the first snowflake mani I did. The other one looks nicer, right!?

For this one, I used essence trendsetter, essie Good as Gold, Orly Solid Gold and Kleancolor Metallic Pink.

Thanks for looking!