TNCC - Technique Month #1 - Galaxy Nails

Hi guys,

today, I want to show you the first manicure I intended to post for the The Nail Challenge Collaborative's September theme "techniques". I decided to try techniques that I never did before and the first thing I knew I had to try were galaxy nails. I never tried them. I know that they're not very hard to do, but you know, there are so many awesome galaxy manicures floating around the internet... and I seriously love looking at them. I didn't want to try and end up not liking mine... So I kept hesitating. But when this theme was decided, so were my first galaxy nails.

I wanted to start with an easy one, so I did not attempt to recreate real nebulae. (But those are awesome!) I'm happy with my first try and it will certainly not be the last.

It's intersting how different they look just depending on the light. They looked a little bit more awesome in real life, but my camera just couldn't capture the shimmer and the scattered holo bits.

I'm a little sad that I didn't manage to take pictures before going to work... pleae excuse the tip wear. And ignore my sad cuticles too, please. I had tears in my eyes while going through my pictures... o.o"

Materials used:
- p2 eternal
- p2 gigantic
- p2 trouble
- p2 flamboyant
- p2 attraction
- p2 elegant
- Manhattan 124
- Illamasqua Load
- KosmetikKosmo Polarlicht

Yeah, a lot of p2. I had just bought a huge batch of used ones for very little money...

Thanks for reading!

Fall into Autumn 2: Apples (1)

Okay, I was really excited about the new challenge and did my (first) apple manicure last weekend already. Since I'm itching to continue with my challenges, I'm going to show you my apple manicures today. I ended up doing two different manicures, because I couldn't decide... So here's one of the two.

I saw this pretty illustration online that had this handdrawn look to it. I really liked that and tried to attempt something similar with this manicure.

As my base I used the same unnamed white Color Club polish I have used recently. Actually... I think it's not bad at all, because it's quite opaque with two coats. I continued with a striper brush and some black acrylic paint to outline my apples which proved more difficult than it looks, hehe. The green is OPI Green-wich Village, my go-to green lately... I used a medium sized brush to "scribble" it. You can probably barely see it, but the insides of the apples are actually colored. I used a mixture of OPI Bubble Bath and Illamasqua Load to achieve the color. It's very visible in RL. Oh well.

I had to repaint some of the outlines later because they got too covered up, but that was easier than painting them in the first place. I painted a lot of weird shapes apples at first.

I finished the manicure with two coats of my beloved essence BTGN Top Sealer to make it juicy. I really like how this mani turned out. It's nowhere close to the illustration though.

What do you think?

The challenge team got some additions since my last post. Aside from the veterans to the challenges, a couple new ladies have joined. Please take a look at their blogs too!

Stephanie Oblas A Little Polish 
Sue O'Connor Creative Nail Design by Sue
Hannah Fabiny Polished Prisms
Katee Baum A Girl and her Polish
Ashley Rowlands-Vanderzande One Nail to Another 
Karine Assemien Karinea0a
Charlotte-Louise Bennett  Charlottes Nails
Alyson Epstein Beads Nails Food
Sharra Farivar The Blahg
Maribeth Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Becky Barnett Glamfiend
Angie Moore OurPaintedWorld
Sarah Jürgens Dakila's
Alethia Neverending Nailart
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Lisa Oswald Lisa's Nail Obsession

Spring Challenge 12: May Flowers!

There's three more designs of the Spring Challenge for me to post... one of them I'll show you today.

Design 12 was supposed to be "May Flower"-themed. I don't remember if the flowers I tried to recreate actually bloom in May, but I remember seeing them around in our garden this spring. I really wanted to do a manicure that uses the colors at least, but I decided to recreate the flowers themselves for this challenge. I hope you can tell what flowers they are supposed to be... :P

Despite my love for acrylic paints, I actually did this manicure with polishes only. The ones I used are:

- Manhattan Frozen Jogurt
- Illamasqua Load
- Color Club Almost Famous
- essence A Hint of Mint
- Catrice Virgin Forest mixed with A Hint of Mint
- Color Club Incognito
- Woo 665

Color Club Incognito is a light nude shade that looks really violet here. I was a bit surprised and had to check the bottle to make sure it really is Incognito. I think it made a surprinsigly well suited background for my flowers though.

Sadly, I didn't manage to take a solo shot of my thumb nail that wasn't blurry. In my opinion the flowers looked best on my thumb. But can you tell what flowers they are supposed to be? My colleagues mostly guessed the wrong flower... But to be fair the flowers they guessed also exist in this color pattern.

Two more to go... but well, it's all about finally posting them... ehem.
Have a nice day~

Spring Challenge 11: Eggs and Chicks

Sunday, finally. I was soooo looking forward to the weekend! I haven't worked the early shift in a while... I was just so tired when I got off work yesterday. It had a good thing too, though. I had a lot more time on hand to paint my nails, haha.

So today, I want to present my quite uninspired take on the 11th theme of the Spring Challenge, which is Eggs and Chicks. I didn't want to do some cracked eggs and chicks like the ones showing up every year around Easter. But I didn't really have another idea too. I had been thinking about changing the base color to one of the crazy shell colors to be found in my mother's garden. She keeps a few chicken and some of them lay eggs in really interesting colors, e.g. chocolate brown or light green.

But when the time came that I decided to sit down and finally do my Eggs and Chicks mani, I had a light yellow polish on my nails already and decided to go with a classic color scheme.

So my base is Rival de Loop 481, a light yellow creme. I don't have the best experiences with Rival de Loop polishes, so I don't own many. This is actually my third. They are quite inexpensive, but what use is the price if you don't fancy the concistency and/or brush. When I swatched it first, it looked quite opaque, but in the end... 3 to 4 coats on my nails. Boo.

Well, for my manicure, I ripped apart one of those kitchen sponges with the black scratchy side and used that scratchy part to sponge Illamasqua Load and Essie Marshmallow on to my "old" manicure. Aside from the polish, there was some residue from the sponge too, but I liked the effect.

Using black acrylic paint I painted my little chicks and flower pot. They were inspired by a font I stumbled upon the other day. The lady created a few other cute fonts... sadly no free ones, it seems.

What do you think? Did you take a look at the font? :D

Illamasqua Poke

Today, no nail art, but pictures of one of the most beautiful purples I have ever seen! I got this a while ago, when it was on sale at asos.com and I absolutely don't regret spending money on this beauty!
This is Illamasqua Poke, a really beautiful red-tinted purple.

indirect sunlight

Application was really nice. I applied two coats for the coverage on these pictures. No brush strokes and it is quite shiny on its own. I did apply topcoat nevertheless. I just love the extra shine it adds. Drying time is okay too. Aaah, I just love this color! Originally, I got it in search of a more blue-tinted purple.. not exactly what I was looking for, but still... sooo pretty! I wore this with no nail art at all! I rarely do wear polish just by itself, but Poke really was beautiful enough that I didn't feel like something was missing.

direct sunlight

Illamasqua Poke has this very beautiful fine silver and blue shimmer that makes it look a bit frosty. My camera didn't want to pick it up properly though. I guess you can see a hint of it on the second picture. Maybe the shimmer is why I love it so much... I just have a thing for shimmery polishes.

What do you think? Suggestions for a blue-tinted violet cream polish anyone?

Halloween-Mani #3 - mein Beitrag für HibbyAlohas Blog-Geburtstags-Gewinnspiel

Last but not least, today I want to show you my third Halloween manicure. In would actually do this one every other time of the year too (maybe not on Christmas XD), so I don't exactly feel like it's inapropriate to post this now, 3 days after halloween.

Once again, I'm going to dedicate this manicure to another blogger. German blogger HibbyAloha is having her first blogaversary and as a big fan of the US and halloween, she's combining her blogaversary giveaway with a halloween contest. As with Steph's Halloween Contest (which I won, btw~ yay~), I just love the idea and it was such an incentive to actually do another halloween themed manicure.

HibbyAlohas blogaversary giveaway is still open for her followers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It will close midnight November 6. Click -->here<-- to go to her giveaway-page.

With the following manicure, I'm going to enter for Set 2. I would really love to try Burt's Bees cuticle cream - and that's part of the set. :D

On to the manicure~
I have been thinking about doing a splatter manicure for a while now, and with the new Dexter season airing now, I knew that I had to do a bloody one for halloween. When I was thinking about what colors to use, I immediately knew that Illamasqua Load would finally be put to use. Finding a nice red in my stash was more difficult than I thought. For once, I don't own that many... some are jellys and that wasn't what I was looking for. And a lot of the rest were either too violet or just too sheer. In the end, p2 Fifth Avenue was my choice. (It actually really is a blood red. I had the chance to make sure of that when Mio scratched me again...)

 

Illamasqua Load on its own. My pictures aren't really color accurate though... they somehow are a bit too yellow. Load is a really really light yellow. Some still call it a white with a yellow hue, but I think this "hue" is a bit too strong to still call it a white. Excuse the missing clean up, but this was just step 1 of such a big mess, I didn't want to bother with it just now. :D

Doing this manicure was a lot of fun. I still have to work on my splatter technique, but since I planned to do some "smearing" as well, that wasn't an issue anyway. If I hadn't had to work the next day I would have left it just like that. The "bloody mess" looked so much like Halloween.

I somehow liked my right hand better... which is seldom the case. I'm right handed and my right hand usually ends up kinda wonky.

This is after clean up. This time, excuse the tip wear... these pictures were taken on day 3. I somehow thought I took pictures right after clean up...

I kinda love how my real wounds (thanks, Mio; thanks stupid window) match with the manicure... °-°;

What do you think!?