Playing with nail stickers

I was really looking forward to the August theme of the Nail Challenge Collaborative. The theme was "Tea Party" and it sounded like so much fun - I voted for this theme too. In the end, I struggled quite a bit. Especially, because I didn't really have a lot of time to paint the detailed stuff I originally had in mind.

So here's the first manicure. I used some of the nail stickers I bought at Daiso a couple of years ago instead of painting the roses. Despite the low price, they're really really nice. Quite thin and flexible. You can even reposition them when you're careful. Lately, we mostly see water decals, but stickers are actually quite nice to work with too. Maybe I even find it easier. No need for the water. And I kind of like the 3D feeling some of the stickers have. Sadly, I didn't find stickers such as those the last two times I went to Japan. Not sure this will be any different when we're going there next year. (I'm sooo counting the days!!)

Sadly, I only have the pictures I used on Instagram...

"My first manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's month of August. The theme this time is "Tea Party". I used essie "French Affair" as my base, topped with the new essence "Sparcle Sand" topcoat and then I just added dots and a couple of rose shaped stickers. Haven't used those in ages... effortless nailart!"

Practising the art of water marbling...

...and actually getting a little better at it!

I remember that I chose the manicures I wanted to recreate for the Nail Challenge Collaborative under the aspect of "trying again". This is another one that might not look like a total failure, but it basically is. The first one was painted, because I couldn't get the marbling right, but I liked the color combination so much, that I did it the simple way. But this time I managed to do a pretty decent water marble. Yay!

"And the third manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's month of July. Another recreation. In this case a failed #watermarbling that worked out so much better this time. But it's never going to be a go-to nail art technique for me. Polishes were the same as in 2011! Essence - Replay, Manhattan - 51K, p2 - virgin."

The original manicure can be found -->here<--


I still like the original manicure. :) But... I had nubbins! That's like half of my current (December) nail length!

Practising the art of stamping...

...and still not getting much better. But I have been practising ever since and slowly... I'm getting a little better. I love the possibilities you have with stamping. Not just the images, but all kinds of different techniques, for example making your own decals.

Here's another manicure I have only posted on my Instagram so far.

"Second manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's month of July. We are recreating some of our earliest manicures. I chose a different stamping plate this time. Otherwise not that different. The base is #essie Lapis of Luxury, the stamping plate was Pueen46."

My original post can be found -->here<-- It's even older than the first manicure I recreated.

Catching up... again

Hi everyone,

first post in half a year. My longest break so far. I just didn't feel like writing anything. Some might follow me on Instagram and know that I have been posting a couple of manicures there. Sometimes I find it a lot easier, sometimes I feel restricted, because I can only choose one picture and text is not really what matters. The latter not being that big of a problem though. xD
Lately, I feel that I want to write a bit more about my manicures, so my little project is to catch up with my recent manicures on this blog. That's half a year worth of manicures plus there's still a ton I  could post "from the vault".

So the first posts are going to be about manicures I posted on Instagram before. I'll try to include a couple more pictures. That's going to be hard, because I took way less pictures and the few I took look like crap.

Anyway, spring this year, we had a month of recreating our earliest manicures in the Nail Challenge Collaborative. This is the first of those.

"This is my first manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's current monthly theme. This month we're supposed to recreate 4 of our earliest manicures. I have already replicated a couple of my earliest ones, so I chose one of the missing ones. This one started my hunt for the perfect off-white polish, so I was looking forward to see if I have found it yet. All the basic colors are the same except the white!"

You can find the original manicure -->here<-- Look at those pictures.... o.O"

TNCC - Untrieds #4 - Orly Halo, Kiko 394 (Olive Green)

Hello everyone,

today, I want to show you my final manicure for the untried theme. Honestly, I could continue with this theme for a year and would probably still have a couple of polishes left (even when not buying any new polish). It's crazy, I know!

To be exact, this manicure killed a total of three untried polishes, but I'll only count two, because one isn't exactly visible. This mani was inspired by a manicure I saw on Pinterest (this one). I really liked the color combination and I knew I had matching colors in my untrieds.

I chose Orly Halo, which I recently found at my local TKMaxx, and Kiko 394, another Kiko from my haul from last fall. The Kiko is still available, but it seems to be one of the soon-to-retire shades. It applied well, drying time was fast, but it didn't dry very shiny. I'm wearing three coats here, but they aren't necessary. I took my pictures after a day at work and simply applied the third to cover the hints of tipwear.

The Orly, on the other hand, was not so easy to work with. It's pretty sheer and even though it looks like you could get it opaque on its own, I didn't feel like it and decided to layer it over Kiko 617, one of the Mirror Metallics. That's the third untried, but you can't tell it's there anymore. It still took three coats of Orly to have me satisfied with the look though.

The stamp was done using the white stamping polish by essence and PUEEN 11. Honestly, I don't remember just how often I tried to get this stamp right. I wanted it centered, obviously. I gave up when the top coat on top of Halo started to wear off. At least, I got the image to transfer in one piece. I'm going to practice this. >_>"

Do you have any tips on how to center a stamping image on the nail? I'm appreciating everything!

Anyway, what do you think of this mani?

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

TNCC - Untrieds #3 - Kiko 311 (Electric Pink)

Good evening everyone,

two more untried manicures to go, and here's one of them. This one was not planned, I just didn't feel like changing the base polish and started doodling on top of it, to make it 'different' from the first day.

The base is Kiko 311, a now discontinued bright pink shimmery polish. Or at least, I can't find it on the page anymore. I'm wearing two coats, but I felt that it needs three to be really opaque when worn solo. That was one reason why I added nail art... to cover up those patches. The color is pretty, but I found it was drying a bit slower than what I'm used from Kiko. So well, I don't regret buying it, but it won't be my favorite Kiko polish.

So I added some simple flowers on the second day using yellow, orange and white acrylic paint. After topcoating, I added a white half pearl to each nail while the topcoat was still wet. They wore better than expected.

Two more days of pink with flowers added, then it had to make room for untried mani #4. I really want it to be summer. xD

What do you think of the color combination pink/orange? Do you find it wearable (not necessarily limited to nails)?

An InLinkz Link-up

TNCC - Untrieds #2 - Kiko 384 (Gentian Blue)

Hi everyone,

as mentioned yesterday, here's another manicure I did at the beginning of March. I used yet another untried, a Kiko from a large order from last fall. My inspiration for this nail art was one of my favorite skirts: A blue skirt with white polka dots and a red waistband/ribbon.

In the bottle, Kiko 384 looks just slightly darker than my skirt, but close enough. It  dries a lot darker though. It's still a pretty color, but far from my skirt. I continued anyway - I was so proud that I managed to sit down and start some nail art!

I believe those were two generous coats of Kiko 384. Application was easy as always with Kiko polishes. I don't remember much about the drying time. I continued with some white acrylic paint as the base for the red, because if wouldn't show up as brightly otherwise. This obviously is a problem, because chalky white at the tips means quick tipwear. But who cares, when you'll probably change your polish after 1-2 days...

I don't remember what kind of red I put on top. It's pretty though. The white dots, obviously made with white acrylic paint and a dotting tool. I'm not so proud of those white border lines... they looked totally straight while painting them, but later, wow, totally crooked.

Here you can tell what I mean with color in the bottle <-> color on the nail

I wore this one longer than two days. Way longer. I just couldn't get myself to paint my nails again. so instead, I repainted the one nail with the worst damage and kept wearing it for another two days. It was bright, really bright, for some reason. And I got some weird comments. Doesn't matter. I liked those nails.

What do you think? Do you find them weird too? xD

An InLinkz Link-up

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

Off season: Nightmare Before Christmas inspired nails

Today, I'm throwing in one of those manicures I did for the Halloween theme last fall: a Nightmare Before Halloween inspired one. I'm still not happy with my tutorial manicures and I'm starting to think that I should just redo them...

So, yeah, this is not the season for either Halloween or Christmas, but I have a friend who loves Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas and she can watch it and sing its songs all year long, so I'm just doing the same with this manicure. I wanted to do a Halloween Before Christmas manicure for about 3 years, but only 2013 I got around to do it. And I haven't even shown it to the aforementioned friend...

Aside from this, I'm choosing this manicure because it also fits the tutorial theme. I can't find the tutorial anymore and I can't even seem to remember the name for the technique, but well, it was inspired by a tutorial too. Maybe anyone knows which tutorial I'm talking about?

I remember that I was quite frustrated while painting the details on my ring finger. I just couldn't paint them fine enough. In the end, I ordered new brushes. ^^;

After one day of wear, I decided to mattify this manicure...

It looks more spooky this way, doesn't it?

Materials used:
- p2 eternal
- my go-to Color Club white
- essie matte about you
- white and black acrylic paint
- acetone

Basically, you paint your nails with your base color (black) and let it dry thoroughly. (You might want to apply one coat of topcoat here...) Then you apply random lines of your second color (white) and immediately dilute them with a fine brush dipped in acetone. You best do one nail at a time here. I managed to smudge my base a couple of times. Luckily, it doesn't show in the pictures.

What do you think about this manicure and the technique?

Thank you for reading!

TNCC - Inspired by a Tutorial #2 - Shooting Stars

Good morning ladies,

I'm continuing my 'back-into-blogging'-plan with my second manicure for the January prompt of the Nail Challenge Collaborative: Tutorials. This manicure just happened. It wasn't planned at all, but I liked them.

Originally, I only wanted to wear one of my new polishes, KBShimmer Turbulence, but something was lacking for me when I wore it. In the swatches I had seen, there was this gorgeous blueish and pink shimmer, but even though it's there, it's hiding most of the time. So I wanted to pimp it up a bit for the second day of wear. And that's where the tutorial kicks in.

After googling around a little bit, I settled with this tutorial for shooting stars. I followed these steps, but chose different polishes for each nail. It's still rather subdued, but a lot more fun than the base on it's own. Turbulence is more of an autumn color I think. Stormy november skies or something.

Materials used:
- KBShimmer Turbulence (base)
- Color Club Sparkle and Soar, Metamorphosis, Sky High, Wing Fling (stars)
- star-shaped rhinestones
- striping tape

What do you think?

Ah... I really want to change my layout... I'm starting to seriously hate it...

TNCC - Inspired by a Tutorial #1 - Butterfly Nails

Hi everyone,

today, I want to show you my very first butterfly nails! There was a time when a lot of people would do them all the time in the blogosphere. Even some stamping plates with the image turned up! I always found them really pretty, but same as the Galaxy Nails, something kept me from trying them. So when the prompt for January was released, this was one of my first ideas.

I don't have a link to a specific tutorial, but I think we have seen them often enough and there are a couple of tutorials floating around, so if you wanted to try, you can easily find them using a search engine. They're fairly easy to do even without the stamp.

Materials used:
- Zoya Crystal
- Nubar 2010
- Color Club Sparkle and Soar
- black acrylic paint

I used black acrylic paint for the wing shapes, but I originally wanted to use my black striper polish. I couldn't find it due to my stash reorganization I did after Christmas. I think the black polish would have been easier. More opaque, less tipwear after a day at work. Because even topcoat can't help a lot with that.

The color combination I chose was nothing original. I didn't save the pic back then, but 2012(?) someone else chose a blue base with a flakie topper to do butterfly nails and I found it so pretty, it burned into my mind ;) I kept looking at my nails all day...

But something magical is gone now... hm.

What do you think?
And one more question to those who read: I actually did most of my TNCC manicures for the fall themes but didn't post them. Would you find it weird for me to post Halloween inspired nail art now!? ^^;

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #4

Hello!

Today, I have my final art inspired manicure to show you.

This one is a bit different from the other manis I've done so far. Instead of an actual painting, I used a doodle I saved to my inspiration folder quite some time ago. It's a doodle by Laynie from LaynieFingers. She's suffering from fibromyalgia, a disease characterized by chronic pain in the muscles and connected tissue. Back in 2012, when things were quite bad apparently, she posted a lot of doodles instead of nail art. Doodling was a way of pain management for her. I find those doodles just as inspiring as regular nail art though. I can somewhat relate to what Laynie's going through, because my mom suffers from fibromyalgia too. Luckily, her's isn't as bad. Going through my inspiration folder I stumbled upon those doodles and decided to turn one of them into the inspiration for my fourth art inspired manicure.

You can find Laynie's original doodle here.

First of all, I sponged a yellow to white gradient onto my nails. The white part looked way to harsh without any further nail art, so I covered more and more with yellow to make it more soft looking - but with the black doodle on top, I can barely tell I used any white... Meh. No idea what polishes I used for this part! I'm guessing my go-to Color Club white, and unnamed yellow from beauty uk and OPI The IT-Color.

For the doodle, I used the black nail art pen from Born Pretty Store. It's my first time using it and I think it's okay. I wish the tip was a little finer. It smudges easily though and of course, I managed to smudge it while applying topcoat.

I didn't even notice that I did two consecutive manicures involving a lot of yellow until I sorted my pictures. And I don't even use yellow a lot... Something my unconscious mind wants to tell me!?

My final verdict: doodling is a lot harder than it seems!
And, thanks for reading, of course! ^^

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #3

Hi everyone,

so exactly one month ago my last post went online and I really thought I would be back to a more regular posting routine... but far from it! The same day we got bad news concerning my father's health and my thoughts obviously weren't centered around nail polish for a while. The week after, I got into an accident and was hurting badly for a while afterwards. Nothing serious happened, but with constant headache, I didn't feel like adding polish fumes to it. So I resorted to buying lots of polish instead. My pile of untrieds isn't high enough yet! ^^;

To find a way back into a more regular schedule, I'm going to start with the third installment of my art inspired manicures. Inspired by Art was the monthly theme of December for the Nail Challenge Collaborative in case you don't know/forgot.

Inspiration for this manicure is the painting "Hygeia" by Gustav Klimt.

Materials used:
- essence Tip Painter in Natural White (poured into a normal polish bottle)
- yellow and red acrylic paint

I tried my new acrylic paints for this mani, but I'm a bit disappointed in them. I bought them because they're supposed to be really opaque, but even without diluting them they're hardly as opaque as the ones I used before.

Thanks for reading!

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #2

Hi everyone! 

Today, I want to show you the second art inspired manicure I did for the Nail Challenge Collaborative. 

Heute habe ich meine zweite kunstinspirierte Mani für euch! Meine Inspiration habe ich wieder auf Pinterest gefunden. Das Bild heißt "Before Morning" und wurde von Leonid Afremov gemalt. Die leuchtenden Farben auf dem dunklen Hintergrund gefallen mir wirklich sehr gut. Außerdem dachte ich, dass die verwendete Technik sich auf den Nägeln leicht nachmachen lässt. (Naja...)

I have also found my inspiration on pinterest for this one. The original work is "Before Morning" by Leonid Afremov. I love the bright colors on the dark background. Also, I thought that the way it has been painted should make it rather easy to recreate. ^^;

The accent nail was painted using acrylic paints on top of black polish. It's just easier for the details. The rest of the nails were painted with polish only.

Alles bis auf den Akzentnagel ist vollständig mit Nagellack gemalt, während der Akzentnagel fast gänzlich mit Acrylfarbe gemalt wurde. Ist einfach einfacher für die Details und leichte Farbabstufungen.

Products used:

- p2 eternal (black base)

- OPI Jade is the new Black

- Nicole by OPI Daffy Dill

- Kiko 356, 386, 389

- Catrice Nautica

- essence berry me home

- beauty uk nameless yellow polish

- acrylic paint

In general, I think this turned out ok. Sadly, the colors don't pop as much as I had hoped. I didn't want to layer too much, because I think that would have destroyed the effect somewhat. Some of the colors were actually more opaque before topcoat. The yellow for example. 

Mein Ergebnis finde ich soweit ok. Leider sind die Farben nicht so schön bunt wie beim Original. Ich hatte die Befürchtung, dass Schichten dem Ganzen abträglich wäre und habe deswegen jeweils nur eine Schicht draufgekleckst. Seltsamerweise waren auch alle Lackfarben vor dem Topcoat deutlich leuchtender als danach. Ganz stark z.B. beim Gelb.

What do you think?

Was meint ihr?

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 - #3

Hi everyone,

while I'm already researching the next theme of The Nail Challenge Collaborative ("Art"), I still have to show the final two manicures for the last theme. So here's the third.

This manicure was inspired by one I saw in a Japanese nail art magazine, I bought in Japan. It didn't work out exactly how I wanted it. I tried my new acrylic paint, but I feel like my hand is not steady anymore and/or my brushes suck. I already ordered a couple of new ones...

Materials used:
- essence Tip Painter in Natural White (I poured two of those into a normal, empty polish bottle)
- purple, red, pink and white acrylic paint
- white half pearls
- golden buillon beads

So, yeah, the only polishes involved here is the essence Tip Painter and the Top Coat. I really like the essence one. I was curious when they released the natural white variation, because I'm looking for my perfect off-white polish - not too beige, not too grey, not too pink. This one is pretty much the shade I have been looking for. I just wish it was a little more opaque. Those are three coats and it's still not entirely opaque.

I need to find buillon beads bigger than the ones I have. I should have bought that set I saw in Japan. I just thought it's so expensive...... Does anyone know if BPS or some other similar online store has "big" buillon beads? It's hard to tell from the pictures on the web.

Thanks for reading!
I hope you have a great day~