27 January 2015

Fuschia to brighten your day

We all have those days where we just need a quick "pick-me-upper".
Did anyone other than me start humming the "fixer-upper" song from Frozen? No? suppose it's just me then...

Yupp, that is me, making a snowman. Deal with it. Hehe. 


There has been loads of snow in Norway lately, and I kinda wish I was there. Here in Northern Ireland, things are just grey, and cold. Not much snow left on the mountain, as the temperature has been just above 0. The picture above was taken while there was snow on the mountain, and I ran up... well if you call waddling like a penguin running. To my defense I wore my Norwegian (in case of extreme weather) overall. It was NOT cold enough for that.

Back to nail polish, shall we. Try not to imagine me waddling over snowy mountains.
For this manicure swatch, I did one coat of Barry M - Fuschia on my index finger, and two coats on the rest. This shade is perfect for a pick-me-upper when the world is grey and cold. I know it cheers me up. Hopefully this post cheered you up a little as well.





Until next time! Stay safe, stay warm, stay happy.

Over Due - New Years Nails



This manicure is completely over due, but I am going to show it non the less.
I was sporting cute little nubbins this New Years. I was also at work the entire day, and fell asleep really early, so no fireworks for me. Not even a little, not even at all.

The banner, and I hope you like my little artistic expression here today, was made by me, on a very slow work day, using an ink splatter by FlorianHesse from DeviantArt as inspiration. I thought it looked pretty cool with the black and red splatter in the back ground and the pink over it.
Gotta give credit :) Sharing is caring.

I recently bought a handful of A England polishes, and I wanted to do something with them. So for New Year I decorated my talons in A England - Dragon.

I stamped using Cheeky Jumbo Plate 6 - Happy Holidays, using HEMA - 53.





I loved the subtle stamping over A England Dragon. It says Happy New Year if you can't read it.
I know I can't. HeHe.

Until next time; stay safe, stay warm, in this wintery weather I know some of you are having at the moment.

26 January 2015

For Audrey - A Swatch

It was back in 2012 when I sent my first order on the internet for nail polish. That is how long China Glaze - For Audrey have been with me. I remember that "everyone" was talking about it. How gorgeous it was, how much you needed it, so I got it. I was new to the scene, and I wanted to know what this was all about. Curiosity.

I was looking at my blog and noticed that I never actually got around to post a swatch of it. I think I just forgot about it. Knowing that no-one would notice, or get offended by my swatching it.
But for my own archiving sake, I have a swatch for you. Or... well, it's for me.

I know some of you might have forgotten all about this gorgeous polish, so here is a reminder. 

China Glaze - For Audrey
Remember how we raved on and on about this polish? I'd say, it's still worth it. How about you?


23 January 2015

NAYLL - I Found Loot

Nothing to disclose, all items in this post was bought with my own money

Today I have for you a nail polish that I made. A Franken. Well, this one is a bit different, as I didn't mix it myself, but I did choose what was going in it. You might have hear about NAYLL before. If not, you are about to.

For those of you that have followed my blog for a while, knows that I have made my own polishes before. I am not a complete virgin to "Frankening", if you are, I can tell you that:
Frankening (fránk-ən-ing) – The DIY practice of mixing one’s own unique nail polish using glitter, micas, pigments or eye shadow with clear or other polishes.
Makes a bit more sense now doesn't it.
At NAYLL you find a huge list of "ingredients" (glitters) that goes in a polish, so that YOU can get the polish you have always dreamed about.

DESIGN WHATEVER YOU CAN IMAGINE!
 Sara Harvey, Founder, NAYLL

I have always wanted a nail polish called: I found loot. I imagined it with round glitters in copper and gold. Those epic moment when you are playing Dungeons And Dragons with your friends, and you come across a chest lined in red velvet, filled with monies. That is what I wanted the polish to be for me. A bridge between two hobbies. My nerdiness meeting my nails. Tales with epic glory, with epic nails. What more can a girl dream about?

I made two polishes at NAYLL, but for now, I will only show you this one. I will make a separate post when the weather gets better for the second polish. I named the other one "Fields of Marigold", so you understand why I need it to be more spring like outside before I use it.

I made this polish around April/May last year, I believe... The nail polish has been on an adventure before making it to me. It was the early days of the company and they did not have a very good shipping option for us Europeans. For a couple of polishes it will cost you $23.50 (tax incl.).

As I could only afford a couple of polishes back then, being without a job and all, I had it shipped to a beautiful lady in the US, and she sent it to me with a couple of other polishes I also wanted. As Paying shipping for both separately, was out of the question.
We all love nail-mail so I added a picture. 

NAYLL _ NAIL MAIL!

Don't you just LOVE the wrapping?! It was a dream to pick this up.

Sara is so cool that she even included a hand-written letter to me.
Here you can see my two custom polishes. Furthest to the left is "Fields of Marigold", and next to it is "I Found Loot". I remember having a conversation with my nail-friend Mishka that I wanted to call it something else, but I can not for the life of me remember what that was.
Anyhow. The intended full name of the polish I am going to show you in this post is "I Found Loot In A Hopeless Place", but that exceeded the 35 characters you can have on the bottle.



If you where curious as to what I wanted from the US, well... I needed more of the Wet n Wild - Black Creme, as it is my go-to stamping polish, and it was almost empty.

As a bonus, Mishka also sent me a franken of her own called "Irish Rain". This is particularity funny, as I live in Northern Ireland. I saw it on her blog, and said it was gorgeous, and she was so nice and sent it to me. I have it in a Plexiglas box on my desk.

She also sent me this very mysterious colour changing blue polish. I LOVE blues, so YAY to me!
I wuvve my Mishka! If you wanna send some love to her, I have added a link to her post about "Irish Rain", and here is a link to her main page. 

I think I have chatted for long enough now. Anyone wanna see what NAYLL - I Found Loot looks like? Below you can see a picture with ONE coat of "I Found Loot" over H&M - Red.



Want to make your own? Head over to NAYLL by clicking _HERE_



Nothing to disclose, all items in this post was bought with my own money

15 January 2015

Branches and Leaves

Or possible the title should have been:
- Hate the smudges, love the mani

It didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it to, but I like the base colours together, and I think I am on to something. Maybe I should have tried to leadlight the leaves or something...

I still think ti was worth showing you all.

I did this mani this autumn, and since I have been in hiatus for so long now, I thought I should share with you, what I have had on my tips, while I was away.

For this manicure I used ESSIE - Navigate Her, and China Glaze - For Audrey, I stamped using Moyou London - Mother Nature Plate Collection 07, I used alternating colours for it, so on top of  ESSIE - Navigate Her, I stamped using China Glaze - For Audrey, and on top of China Glaze - For Audrey i used  ESSIE - Navigate Her. The branches are stamped using ESSIE - Little Brown Dress.




That would be me for this time, I hope you all are surviving the winter cold, and staying warm, moisturized and healthy. 

13 January 2015

Abstract Nails

This is a design I did when I was in Spain (2014) last summer, while working for EA as a gametester. I have been hibernating from this blog long enough. Ever since I got to Belfast, Northern Ireland, things have been hectic. Finding a place, getting settled in the new job, actually have a social life, now that I don't know a single soul around me.
Yeah, it's not been the easiest.

I learned a few hard lessons this Christmas, and I feel much more mentally stable now than I have for a long time. I had to make a few though decisions, but I came through it.

So I thought I would share some of the nail arts I have done while I have been away. For my nails have not been nekkid all the time.

They are abstract. Just blobs really, but seen from afar, they look pretty darn cool. I am so gutted that I forgot to take a picture in the sun, as these polishes was epic under the Spanish Sun.

I had a lot of compliments on this nail design at work as well.

This is the top I wore it too. It just screams for abstract nails, right?

I used:
KIKO - 530
Kiko - 255 - Violet Microglitter
Kiko - 533
Kiko - 493
Kiko - 497


Yupp, I inked myself.


I found this awesome little daylight lamp in Spain, and it worked great to take pictures at night.

Until next time, I hope you liked my manicure. I am so glad to be back blogging, as I have really missed it.

12 January 2015

Leopard prints over gradient

I am sure this don't just happen to me, you sit there with a vision in your head, and when you pick up your stamping plates, you have a plethora of images that could fit the vision, and you have no idea which one to choose (?).

I wanted to do leopard-nails, and when I finally decided on colours to use as background, and grabbed my plate I noticed that I have quite a lot of different ones.

So which one should I choose?

Would I use one of the leopard prints (there are three different ones) from Cheeky - Jumbo plate 9 - Wild At Heart, or CH1?
Would I use the one from Bundlemoster plate BM-221?
Would I use the one from Mash-40?
Would I use the one from my Konad m57?

So I am sitting there with 7 different leopard prints, and I am wondering if I should just freehand them, as I am having a hard time to choose.

While I was thinking hard about what to choose I went and did the sponge gradient I wanted as the background.

I used W7 - Royal and sponged Yes Love - Shiny Glitter - 27 on the tips. Using PVA glue around my nails to make it easier to do the clean up. I am so glad I did, the Yes Love polish was tricky to clean up and I had shimmering particles on my skin for a loooong time after I had the mani removed.







I am sure there are some of you that actually will be able to guess which plate I ended up with here. For the rest of you I can tell you that I used the Cheeky - Jumbo plate 9 - Wild at Heart.

I hope you liked this manicure. It is not like me to do animal prints, but sometimes I am brave and try to embrace the wilder sides of nail art. 

Pink roses over nude - a gelly adventure

I have been in a bit of hiatus from the Blogging world. Life happen. I think I am back, but my camera is acting up, not letting me upload pictures as I take them, so might need a new camera.


We had just finished a game, for some of us, that meant that it was time to go back home, for others, it meant another project. For me, it was another project at EA in Madrid, Spain.

The Nordic girls decided to hang out on day, and get our nails done, as a little celebration of a job well done. One of the girls was sporting gel nails, and we decided to try out some stamping over it.
Here I used Barry M - Gelly - Lychee as base coat did a top coat and some curing before we proceeded to the stamping, and cured again. I have never worked with Gel nails, Curing, and all that before, so this was a very interesting experiment.

The stamp is from  BundleMonster plate - BM-323. I stamped it using  Kiko - 493. Looking really close you can see some flecks from the polish here and there, creating an interesting look to the roses.

I can add that it did wear a bit faster for her. This can also have something with her picking on her fingers every now and then.


I love this picture. It took a while to get the pose right, but darn it, I am so proud of this one. 

Hope you liked this manicure, it has been feeling good to be back blogging again. I am currently working on getting the posts I prepared while I was in Spain, up on the blog.