Christmas Manicures

When 1st of December arrived I told you all that I would do one Christmas Themed manicure for each day all the way up to the 24th of December, which is the day we in the Nordic countries celebrate.  

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my nail art through December, and for those of you that missed it, here is a summary. 

For a complete blog-roll of my Christmas themed nails you can find them here. 

Which one is your favorite?

Oh Christmas Tree

Today I have skipped the stamping nail art, and rather gone for a look everyone can achieve.
2 polishes. That is all there is to it.
I am super happy with how this turned out, and I can see myself go back to this combination again.

When I walk to work in the morning it is still dark outside, and I can see Christmas Trees in the windows to the houses that I pass, and in the morning light they look like this. Blackened Green.
So this is a look inspired by the Christmas Trees out there, lighting up my walk to work.

I started out with Barry M - Black Pistachio I chose this polish because of the the blackened green shade. also a sucker for the Gelly range from Barry M. Gorgeous.

Then I layered one coat of OPI - Snow Globetrotter. I was so lucky to come across this polish in a bargain section on one of my many travels around the UK. I always make sure to check any local shops that might have nail polishes for some good deals. This was one of them.

Barry M - Gelly - Black Pistachio with one coat of OPI - Snow Globetrotter

Do you see a Galaxy, or a Christmas Tree in this manicure?

For a complete list of my Christmas themed nails follow this link.

Candy Canes in Stockings

One of my favorite stocking filler is Candy Canes.
So I decided to do another nail art with Candy Canes as a theme.  I know I have already done two other Candy Cane looks, but I am sure you all have room for one more.

For a complete list over my Christmas themed nails so far this year.

This time I swapped things around a little, and used my franken creation; Secretary's - This is My Jam? as a base. I even did a swatch picture.

Secretary's - This is My Jam? (franken polish)

I am so happy with how this franken creation turned out. Just look at that lush red polish. Love it!
I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here if you are curious and want to give it a try.

I did my stamping using Cheeky - Jumbo Plate 6 - Happy Holidays and  Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

Secretary's - This is My Jam? stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White and
Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs, I will continue to do one look each day until the 25th. The 25th I will take a holiday from all the nail art, and spend the weekend with my boyfriend.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Christmas Decorations

A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further to disclose.

Today I have for you a silvery look. I thought to myself that if we were doing Gold, we had to do Silver as well. So here it is.

I started out with my new peelable basecoat from Ünt, and very keep to see how this is going to work for me. My previous attempt on using this basecoat was not successful, so maybe third time's the charm. That's a saying, right?

I started out with 4 coats of 'Ard As Nails - Radiance. I used super thin strokes, as I wasn't sure how this would be to clean up if I messed up with my new basecoat so I was extra careful and had some bald spots on the third coat. Normal application, you would only need 3 coats. As that is what I did on my cindy hand (dominant hand), 3 coats and no fancy base coat.

'Ard As Nails - Radiance is a true silver holographic polish and I absolutely adore it.

To keep things interesting I did 3 coats of China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses as an accent, and stamped using L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine with Über Chic - Plate 3-03.

 'Ard As Nails - Radiance with accent in China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses stamped using
L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine with Über Chic - Plate 3-03

For a complete list over my Christmas themed nails so far this year.


A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further to disclose.

Christmas Presents Under The Tree

A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further do disclose.

I can't believe that I have managed to do one post each day for 20 days on the trot!
When I set out on this 24 Days Of Nail Art Challenge for myself, I wasn't sure I would be able to get through it to the end. Here I am 20 days later, still kicking.
For a complete list over my Christmas themed nails so far this year.

I hope you all have had a great weekend! Me and my boyfriend went to the Christmas Market and drank Mulled Wine and had a nice stroll enjoying the lovely weather we had here in Northern Ireland. 

Before we went out I did my nails and took some pictures, this is what I wore.

Ard As Nails - Glamour. When I first saw this polish I knew I had to own it. The only other Gold Polish that I have is China Glaze - Midnight Kiss, and if you have it, or seen my posts using it, you know that it is on the thin side and requires a lot of coats (I usually end up using between 5-6 coats of CH - Midnight Kiss). This polish on the other hand needs only 2. If you got an unsteady hand, you might need 3.

The maker of Ard As Nails is the lovely Kat from Soap Dodger a fantastic lady that I have had the pleasure to get to know these last few months. I had some problems regarding my first purchase from the site, and Kat had it solved in no time.
One of the things that I always complain about here in the UK is the terrible customer service, and Kat proved to me that some people in this country cares. Thank you Kat for proving me wrong that all of UK gives terrible customer service. I needed that.

Back to Nails.

I grabbed Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. I have used this plate so much this month it has not left my table at all (!). If you want to see them all gathered in one place, check out this link here. 

I stamped two images from this plate using Wet N Wild - Black Creme. One artistic looking Christmas Tree, and some gorgeous presents.

'Ard As Nails - Glamour and stamping done with Wet N Wild - Black Creme using
Cheeky - Jumbo Plate 6 - Happy Holidays.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.


A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further do disclose.

Candy Cane

I pulled out all my stamping plates to find the perfect Candy Cane image a while ago.
Surrounded with stamping plates, I was eagerly looking for anything with stripes and swirls that would work for this delicious look.
In my previous post I used MASH-43, CH4, BM-205 and BM-210, but I had more stamping images that could possibly work for this look, so I decided to do another one.

This time I am using Cheeky - Jumbo plate 3 - European Romance, BM-301, BM-207 and Über Chic - Plate 3-02.

I started out with painting all my nails with Sinful Color - Snow Me White, one coat. Then I grabbed my newest franken creation; Secretary's Nail Art - This is My Jam? from the last post, and stamped over.

I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here if you are curious and want to give it a try.

Candy Cane Nail Art using Cheeky - Jumbo plate 3 - European Romance, BM301, BM207 and Uber Chic - Plate 3-02.

Which nail you do think look the most like a Candy Cane?


I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs only a few days left of the holiday.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

GuestNails: Christmas Tree Mani

My little DIY Christmas Tree

Christmas Eve is just a few days away and I am sure you are all stressing to be done with all of it before it is over us. When it comes to Christmas I am a very organised person, being a Secretary and all. All the parcels have been mailed out, Christmas Letters written, so all I have to do now is to wait for the big day, and maybe bake some more Christmas cookies.

To go with my Mini Christmas Tree, I have for you a Christmas Tree Mani Tutorial.

How to: Christmas Tree Mani

Start out with a nude polish, I am using Color Club - Barely There, and painted two coat to all the nails Then I took a striper brush and made a triangle with China Glaze - Jolly Holly from 'Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Collection Winter/Holiday 2010, way back before I even started blogging (!) I still love this nail polish.
Alternatively you could just add some tape to the sides and do it like that, but I was out and about when doing this, and not in the comfort of my home and stash. 

Then I took 'Ard As Nails - Gold Holo and added one coat of it over the entire nail. I think it looks really nice layered over the green and it gave a nice pop to the background.

With a dotting tool I added a couple of drops to represent the baubles on the tree using China Glaze - Ruby Pumps, and finished the look with a tiny star on top of the tree using the tiniest dotting tool i could find and China Glaze - Midnight Kiss.

Christmas Tree Mani, using Color Club - Barely There, China Glaze - Jolly Holly, Ard As Nails - Gold Holo, China Glaze, Ruby Pumps, and China Glaze - Midnight Kiss

Candy Cane

I pulled out all my stamping plates to find the perfect Candy Cane image for today's nail art.
Surrounded with stamping plates, I was eagerly looking for anything with stripes and swirls that would work for this delicious look.

Candy Cane - Picture by JuttBahi

First I needed the perfect polish for the look.

To get that I grabbed the much hated Ciate - Boudoir that I used for a previous look this month. since I didn't like how sheer the polish was I decided to turn it into something that I could use. I poured all of it in a full sized bottle, and cleaned out the Mini bottle in order to re-purpose it for another franken polish one day.

If you are wondering how to properly clean out nail polish bottles, take a look at this handy link.

I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here


With bottle cleaned out, and empty space in a full sized nail polish bottle, I grabbed StarGazer - 315, a gorgeous glass fleck red polish, and added some. Mixing wise it was 2 parts Ciate - Boudoir and 1 part StarGazer -315.
Together they make a lovely crelly red with glass flecks. It also stamps, so perfect for what I was going for today.

Thanks to the awesome ladies at PAA, and in particular Lori, this polish was named:
Secretary's Nail Art - This is My Jam?

For base I used Sinful Color - Snow Me White.
I used BM-205 (ring finger), BM-210 (little finger), MASH 43 (index), and CH4 (middle finger) for this look.

Candy Cane Nail Art using MASH43, CH4, BM205 and BM210

Which nail you do think look the most like a Candy Cane?


I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

MSMD - Christmas Baubles

Today I have for you a MSMD - Monkey See, Monkey Do I don't know how long it is since last time I did one of these, but I am sure it has been a couple of years now.
So I am bringing it back!

Today I am recreating Celeste Laureen's Christmas Ornament Designs from 2013, she recently recreated it herself, and you can find that over at her Instagram page.  Apparently her original design had been stolen and someone had cropped out her watermark and spread it all over Pinterest with another watermark. Shame on them.
Someone on PAA was asking who it belonged to and I was able to direct them to the rightful owner.

I liked the design so much I decided to recreate it myself.
Celeste Laureen used Essie - Bobbing For Baubles, and even though I have that polish I decided to use a lighter background colour for this.
'Ard As Nails - Mauve. This polish doesn't actually have that name, as it was a Custom Polish, but as it is a mauve shade, more specifically #B784A7 aka Opera Mauve. I am going to call this polish; Mauve for future reference.

It will make it easier for to me keep order in my stash.

On the nails you can see 2 coats of  'Ard As Nails - Mauve you could easily get away with one coat, but the after effects of my sugar craze yesterday has left me a bit shaky, so I needed a second coat. This polish is absolutely amazing, and it wears like iron on me. It has a subtle shimmer/holoness to it, and the shade is just the perfect work appropriate polish.

'Ard As Nails - Mauve 

Then I grabbed China Glaze -Mistletoe Kisses, China Glaze - Ruby Pumps, China Glaze - Midnight Kiss, and OPI - Moonraker, as well as a striper brush and Wet N Wild - Black Creme. I made large round circles with the polishes and traced around the baubles.

'Ard As Nails - Mauve with Christmas Baubles using  China Glaze -Mistletoe Kisses, China Glaze - Ruby Pumps, China Glaze - Midnight Kiss, and OPI - Moonraker

I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

The Hipster Reindeer

After 5 hours of baking I am finally done with 3 different types of Christmas Cookies, and I managed to get a little time for a nail art look for you all. I might be high on sugar, and my belly full of cookie-dough, but I think this look turned out pretty cool.

According to Norwegian Christmas Traditions one is suppose to make 7 different kinds of Christmas Cookies for the big day. With these 3 done, I am now up to 4 different ones, so I only need another session like this and I will be done. Not Christmas without.

Since I have been standing on my feet for so long today, I am going to keep this post short, and I didn't do anything wildly elaborate with my nails today either. I simply did not have enough calm in me to do so.


I started out with a Ciate from my Ciate Mini Advent Calendar.
This time it was Ciate - Hopscotch. This looks like Ciate - Speed Dial to me, so I might have to do a comparison of the two later. Let me know if that is something you want to see.

Ciate - Hopscotch is quite sheer like the rest of the Ciate polishes in the Advent Calendar, for the look today I ended up doing 3 coats. I really did not have enough calm in my body to wait for all those coats to dry, as you can see on my middle finger.. where I smudged off the entire side of the nail. Obs. Girls, don't attempt at painting your nails while on a sugar-high. Not a good combination.

I feel more like running a marathon right now, than painting my nails. Haha. That never happens!

Once it was all dry I grabbed Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays and stamped using Wet N Wild - Black Creme, as an accent I chose Bundlemonsters new BMXL178 from the Work It! -collection.

This is an awesome look, and I immediately snapped a picture and sent to my favorite hipster here in Northern Ireland. The manicure earned themselves not one, but two thumbs up from a real hipster.
I think that is pretty awesome.

Ciate - Hopscotch, stamped using Wet N Wild - Black Creme and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays, and BMXL178

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Midnight Kisses in the Snow

If you are one of those thinking that the look I created yesterday was a little too much work I am toning down the amount of stamping plates used, and keeping to only one plate. Bundlemonster - 323. Flying solo.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I know I said I was going to stay clear of snowflakes, but it is hard. Specially when the snow is falling outside. That's right. There was a little glimpse of snowfall here today, so snowflakes nails it is.

I started out with applying two coats of China Glaze - Midnight Kiss to all my nails, and topped it over with 'Ard As Nails - Gold Holo. This is the second time this polish I being used this month, and I really love the extra holo on over these gold nails. If you are curious on how 'Ard as Nails - Gold Holo would look like on it's own, check out this post.

I then proceeded to stamp using Sinful Color - Snow Me White using Bundlemonster BM-323.

China Glaze - Midnight Kiss topped with Ard As Nails - Gold Holo and Bundlemonster BM 323 stamping using
Sinful Color - Snow Me White

Only 10 days left until the Nordic Countries are celebrating Christmas, which is on the 24th. I have sent out all the Christmas presents, and Christmas Cards, so now all I have to do it sit and wait for the day to come so I can cook all the amazing food, and eat all the cookies.

Tomorrow is going to be baking day over here, and a Finnish friend of mine is coming over to assist in the Christmas cookies baking. Traditionally we would make 7 different types of Christmas cookies, so I am aiming at getting at least 5 of them done by the 24th. 

I absolutely love these nails! What do you guys think?


For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

GuestNails: Snowflakes

GuestNails is back and today we are doing a snowflake look for her Christmas Dinner.
To mix things up a little, we are filming the process so that you can join in on the fun, and if you are new to stamping, learn a little in the process.

Today's look have no less than three stamping plates.

BM - 323

Konad - m59
Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays (link to review)

First we applied one coat of H&M - Metallic Grey to all her nails, then we applied one coat of A England - Morgan Le Fay. This removed any streaking from the silver polish as well as adding a luminescent white silver shimmer on top. It really reminds me of freshly fallen snow.

When that is all dried we stamped using Collection - White French and used one of the snowflakes from Konad - m59 to all nails except the middle finger. To the middle finger I stamped using BM - 323. Then I added the smaller snowflakes from Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays around the Konad - m59 snowflake to fill in the empty space.

Then we added some topcoat and cleaned up around the cuticles, and that was all there was to this look. Hope you enjoyed this little video, if you did, make sure to subscribe to my channel.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Guestnails: Snowflake look using three stamping plates, and silver background.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Natalie's Christmas

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me and it contains product previously sent for reviewing purposes and affiliate link. For the full review of the 3D Christmas Sticker from BornPrettyStore, click here. Nothing further to disclose.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Today's look started out with 3 coats of Ciate - Encore!, it came in the Ciate Advent Calendar I bought, and if you want to see all the looks I have done using products from the Calendar, check them out here.  A warning has to be mentioned about Ciate - Encore!, it is a stainer. Though yellow nails are not in any way dangerous, it is ugly, and we would all prefer it if our nail polishes didn't stain our nails.

Ciate - Encore!

Since I can't leave anything alone, I topped it with Ard As Nails - Natalie, hence the title, and stuck some Christmas Stickers from BornPrettyStore in Gold from the TY114 section. In my initial post I was complaining about some bleeding that I discovered, and that was not the case with this look, which I am very glad for.

Ciate - Encore! with Ard As Nails - Natalie and BornPrettyStore TY114 Christmas Stickers

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me and it contains product previously sent for reviewing purposes and affiliate link. For the full review of the 3D Christmas Sticker from BornPrettyStore, click here. Nothing further to disclose.

Happy Holo-days

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.


I had so much fun with yesterdays sparkly look, so I wanted to keep things sparkly.

With 2 snowflakes stamping looks, and 2 snowflakes water decal looks done, I think we all need a little break from those, or maybe that is just me.


A while back I bought some polishes from Soap Dodger and some of them turned out to be a bit different from the swatching pictures I had seen. So I contacted the maker; Kat and we sorted things out. Kat is an amazing lady and you can tell that she is working hard on her business, and loves what she is doing. This is by far the best customer service I have ever experienced.

When I first tried it on and noticed that it was more like a holo topper I wanted to see if it was possible to build it up to full opacity.
I was expecting it to go all goopy and weird, but actually it dried alright.  Wore this look for 2 days before I decided to switch it around a little.

So on my nails you can see 10 coats (!), yeah, I am not kidding around here. This is serious business. I was about to give up around coat number 7, but those last three really did the trick.

Ard As Nails - Gold Holo 

Since I never got my hands on Out The Door - Northern Lights (Gold), I think this is an excellent substitute. No settling holographics either, so no shaking needed to get great results on your nails.
I love it.


Since this is Secretary's Nail Art, I also did a Nail Art look using this polish.
I paired it up with 'Ard As Nails - Blogger Girl. Gold and purple makes a perfect Holiday manicure.

To show what 'Ard As Nails - Gold Holo would look like topped over another polish, I did one coat over Blogger Girl, then I stamped using Uber Chic 3-03 over the 10 coats of holo, and stamped over it with 'Ard As Nails Blogger Girl for the accent. 

Ard As Nails - Blogger girl with Ard As Nails - Gold Holo as accent, stamped using Uber Chic 3-03.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.


A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.

Sparkle all the way

If you follow my Facebook page you have already seen a sneak peak of today's look. If you are not already following me there and wants more sneak peaks on upcoming posts, you are very welcome to join.

While I was out shopping for nail polishes a while ago, I was gifted this great little pouch with makeup brushes in it from the Seventeen brand. I didn't really care for the brushes, but the pouch makes a great clutch for outings. And it is large enough to fit my credit card, phone and keys. So that's what I have been using it for. So one day I decided to match up with my pouch for a night out.

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice?

This is the look I ended up with.

I started out with a peel off base, and gave each nail a coat of polish before going back using the dabbing method to cover any bald spots. Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? was really gooey and thick, while I had better luck with Ciate - Blizzard with little to no dabbing needed. Which also why Ciate - Blizzard is taking the main focus and Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? is only starring as an accent.

I ended up checking Ciate's webpage and tried finding the polishes from the Advent Calendar 2014 that I had bought, and could only find one: Ciate - Ringmaster , a mini bottle containing red, blue, silver and green hex glitters. Which has yet to make an appearance on here.
The other Ciate polishes are sold for 5 £ for the mini bottles and you can do a "Pick And Mix" 3 for 12 £ and full sized are 9 £.
Bit steep for polishes that can not be measured in quality to other polishes around the 10 £ mark.

After a lot of dabbing this is what it looked like. I also used the Ciate - Suspension Topcoat for this, and think that it did a great job smoothing everything out. So far it's the only thing that came in the Ciate Advent Calendar that I really liked. That being said, I might have to include Ciate - Blizzard on that list as well...

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? 

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice, stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I finished the look with some snowflakes using Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. For a full review, check over here. I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Guest Nails: Shattered Glass

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

This is the third installation of Guestnails! Sam is such a patience soul, and has allowed me to do her nails again. Last time I did her nails we attempted at pond manicure, and made some decals with a Bundlemonster stamping plate.
I stated in the last post, that we wouldn't do something as elaborate next time. Oh, how wrong I was.

It might have taken almost an hour all in all, which is a lot less than the koi fish pond design took, but it did my head in.

Shattered Glass Nails

We started out with a coat of black polish (Wet n Wild - Black Creme) on all the nails, while that was drying I cut up the foil to the width of her nails and then into shards. I did it this way because I wanted it to look more like actual shattered glass, instead of just shards of reflective paper on some nails.
This way when I added them to the nails, it would leave a thin stripe of black showing between the "glass". Neat and tidy, like the OCD person I can be.

That was more difficult that I imagined.

It looked amazing for a little while, then the shards started poking out of the several layers of topcoat, and by the morning after, at least one shard was missing on each nail.
Think If I do this again, I will try it would with a Gel-like topcoat instead...

If you want to try your hands on some Shattered Glass look, you can get the  Shiny Laser Foils at BornPrettyStore for  $6.08. By applying my code RAMG10 you get 10% off all full priced items.
BornPrettyStore always offer free Worldwide shipping.
Remember that it can get really busy around the holidays, so if you send an order out now, it will most likely not make it in time for Christmas, but rather arrive on the other side of New Years Eve.
It can take about a month before my orders arrive, and I am in the UK.

Shattered Glass Nails

What is your experience with Shattered Glass manicures?


For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Shooting Stars

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

Today I have some nudes for you.
We are not talking about the aftermath of a Christmas Company Dinner going wrong here, but of today's nail art that I did for my little Advent Calendar here on the blog.
One new post every day until December 25th.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Yesterday I did a bright red look with cute hearts, and today I am toning it down a little with a nude polish and some gold nail art stickers. I am really trying to cater to everyone's taste  this holiday season.

This time I am back with a polish that I got in my Ciate Advent Calendar, this one was hiding behind door number 4. Ciate - Members only. This polish is very similar to Ciate - Ivory Queen, only difference is that Ciate - Members only is even sheerer. We are talking topper sort of sheerness in this one.  On my nails you will see 3 coats.

To finish the look I applied Christmas Stickers from BornPrettyStore in Gold, from the TY103 section of the sheet. In my initial post I was complaining about some bleeding that I discovered, and that was not the case with this look, which I am very glad for.

Ciate - Members only and BornPrettyStore stickers in TY103

This would actually work really well for a New Year look.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

Stamping Nail Art - Super Placa B - Apipila

I received the sticky marshmallow stamper and scraper, of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Today I have for you a stamping nail art look using the Super Placa B - Apipila stamping plate.

I started out with one coat of Sally Hansen - 85 - Diamonds and Rubies. This polish takes three (!) coats for full opacity, but since I was topping it with another polish I only used one coat.

Then I took Star Gazer - 315, and painted all nails with this gorgeous burgundy glass fleck polish using one coat.

I grabbed my Super Placa B - Apipila stamping plate, Wet n Wild - Black Creme, and my sticky marshmallow stamper and scraper from BornPrettyStore.

Since the image I had picked out for today's design has a lot of thin lines, I wanted to use this stamper as I find that the sticky stampers does a lot better job at grabbing it all and transferring it to my nails.

When stamping with sticky marshmallow stampers I prefer using a rolling motion as to avoid any warping of the image, I have yet to perfect using them.  I really like this stampers, and if you don't have a sticky marshmallow stamper already I would highly recommend getting one. You can get one at BornPrettyStore for $ 5.99, and at the time of writing this it is on sale for $ 3.59. As always BornPrettyStore ships for free, worldwide and for full priced items you can use my code: RAMG10 for 10% off.

What sticky marshmallow stampers are good for:
- Making small images fit larger nails. Stretching.
- Making larger images fit smaller nails. Shrinking.

- Conform to curves. (As I have very curved nails, this is a must)

If you take good care of it, it will last for a long time. So do not use acetone remover, only lint rollers or tape, and place it safe in a box between manicures. 

I am thinking about doing a rundown over all the different stamper heads that I have, and what they do best. It's a lot of work, so we will see about that.

I filmed me doing my nails, so if you are interested, check it out there. If you like this format, let me know in the comments below, and I can do more of them. I had a lot of fun filming this for you guys.

If you want a review of this plate, and a look at what you get for the bucks, check out this link.

If you want to get your hands on this plate as well

UK: Nail-Artisan UK £22.60
US: Beautometry $60.00
BR: Apipila R$99,99

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I received the sticky marshmallow stamper and scraper, of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Super Placa B - Apipila

Today I wanted to show you a new stamping plate that I have gotten my hands on. I am not sure how long this has been on the market, but it was the first time I have heard or seen of this brand.
New to me.

I bought the Super Placa B - Apipila plate with my own money.

Super Placa B - Apipila

This plate is massive! I measured it at 29 cm wide and 18.8 cm tall, which makes just short of 11.5 inch wide and 7.5 inch tall. The images on this plate are 1.8 cm wide and 2 cm tall, except for the bottom row which are 2.1 cm wide and 2.1 cm tall. The corner images are all in various sizes.

If you want to get your hands on this plate as well

UK: Nail-Artisan UK £22.60
US: Beautometry  $60.00
BR: Apipila  R$99,99

I will be back later with a design using this plate, by following this link you can see the designs I have made using this plate.

For Christmas themed nails check out my designs here.

Miss Mistletoe

I am trying to cater to everyone this holiday season, whether you are into stamping nail art, or not.
As the last couple of looks have been snowflakes, stamping and water decals, I thought I would go back to basics, and rather do a much cleaner look with a glittery accent.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Today I have attended to the annual Christmas Show by the Ulster Orchestra preforming The Snowman. If you do not know The Snowman, I would highly recommend checking it out.
It is one of my favorite animation movies for the holidays.

To be honest I always cry when I see it. It is that beautiful.

For this look I used Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir. On my nails you will see four coats (!) and there are still visible nail lines (VNL). Ciate - Boudoir is very sheer, and I prefer it topped over another red for a lush look. On its own it is not to my liking at all.
I'd much rather have a one coater than another crelly red. I sure got enough of those in my collection already.

Since the Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has such small glitters I decided to dab them on instead of doing a glitter placement. Some days you just don't have enough time to do a glitter placement, and this still looks cool dabbed on.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has gold, red, pink, and lavender hex glitters.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Let It Snow

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.


So the part of me trying to only post about one and one of the Advent Calendar polishes, to avoid spoilers for others is going out the window. I got a bit eager on trying them out, so I will just post them as I see fit.

Creating backgrounds for mail art

I started out with Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box, both polishes turned out to be quite sheer so I decided to build them up over each other to create a sort of marbleized background for my nail art today.

First I prepared the Uber Chic Stamping Mat with some base coat, just to note to you there that the base coat from Ciate that you get in the Advent Calendar is not good for this purpose.
Once prepared, I dropped two drops of each polish on to the mat close to each other and squished the stamper head down over them and did a little twist before transferring the polish from the stamper head to the prepared surface on the mat. This process was repeated 5 times in order to build a suitable opacity.

Once the decals where dry, I peeled them of and stuck them on my nails and cleaned away the excess polish.

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together

When it was all done, I added two quick coats of Ciate - Snow Globe over all my nails, and topped that off with 2 coats of topcoat, preparing it for the next step.

...

adding snowflakes, stars, a reindeer, and some extra dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

I am using the BornPrettyStore D264 Water Decals again.

This look took many steps to complete, but I am so happy with the final result. The extra coats over the flakies from Ciate - Snow Globe really helped creating a smooth surface to put the decals on.

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together, with Ciate - Snow Globe over, and dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White and water decals from BornPrettyStore in D264

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together, with Ciate - Snow Globe over, and dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White and water decals from BornPrettyStore in D264

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

BornPrettyStore D264 Water Decals

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

As I have mentioned before I am aiming this year at giving you one new Christmas themed / festive look each day in December all the way until the 25th. It's like my own little Christmas Calendar for you guys.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

... and when we first are talking about Christmas Calendars I wanted to tell you quickly that some of these products that I will be showing you here on the blog will be coming from the Christmas Calendar from last years Ciate Advent Calendar. I will attach a tag to this post if you are interested in seeing all the different designs only using the Ciate Advent Calendar. This will give you an idea as to how it can be used. I picked mine up at a sale at Tk Maxx and heard of several others who have done the same, so I will do my best to not have any spoilers as to what it contains, but I can't promise anything. I might get carried away.

I think the Advent Calendar was highly overpriced at 50£ considering the quality of the content. It is more worth the 20£ that TK Maxx was asking for it.

Today I have polish that was behind door nr.3 and a glitter polish that was behind door nr.2. So no spoilers today.

The whole look took 2 coats of Ciate - Chincilla, which might be a dupe with China Glaze - Pelican Gray, and 1 coat of Ciate - Glitterball. While Ciate - Chincilla was a bit tricky, Ciate - Glitterball behaved like glitter polishes should act. Smooth application, in one easy stroke. Giving that little lift to an otherwise boring shade of grey.

Stick some water decals on it and you are good to go.

Ciate - Chincilla with Ciate - Glitterball over, and D264 Water Decals from BornPrettyStore

If you will be picking up the Xmas Nail Art Water Decals White Snowflake Snowman Transfer Stickers D264 from BornPrettyStore, they are at the time of writing this at sale for $0.99. Standard price being $2.36. BornPrettyStore gives free worldwideshipping, and if you are sending an order fell free to use my discount code RAMG10 for 10% of all full priced items.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Something Green

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

I promised you girls greens, and Christmas is all about bringing home something green. So today my nails are Christmas Green. Today's product reminds me of the European Silver Fir (Abies Alba), so since I can't go to Norway this year for Christmas like I normally do, I am bringing some of Norway to my nails.

The product I am talking about is this loose glitter from BornPrettyStore in #1209

First I applied my peel-off base coat, then a generous amount of clear polish, and used a funnel to add the powder to my nails, and dabbed with my finger to make it stick better.

The texture of this product falls more on the flocking powder side of things, than glitter. If you are unfamiliar with flocking powder you might recognize it as "crushed velvet" instead. Same thing, just different name, and different target group. While flocking powder is being sold for Miniature War Gamers, "crushed velvet" was sold to nail art geeks like us.
This feels like a more milled version of flocking powder to me. The glitter is very fine.

This means that it doesn't take much for the product to end up everywhere, and the smallest breath or wind will take it away, so turn of your fan when doing your nails.

That being said, I really like how it looks on my nails, and gave me a strange sensation when I stroke my fingers over it.

Green Matte Powder for Nail Art Decoration from BornPrettyStore #1209

Wouldn't it be totally cool to do a Christmas Tree using this powder as an accent?!


1Box 10ml Green Dazzling Shiny Glitter Powder Super Matte Powder Nail Art Decorations
At the time of writing this product is currently on sale for $1.99 and for a 10ml box that is as cheap as it gets. BornPrettyStore gives free worldwideshipping, and if you are picking up this, or other products from there, feel free to use my code RAMG10 for 10% off all full priced items. 

For more Christmas themed nails, check out my other designs over here. 

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Very Berry Christmas

This year I decided to do things a little different than previous years. As I finally have a nail station, and a dedicated room to nail art and crafts, I wanted to bring you a bunch of nail arts for the holidays. To see all the posts gathered check out this link, whenever I post a new look it will be added to this link. So I am aiming at having one new look every single day in December all the way until the 25th of December. After that I think we are all ready for New Years.
Some of the looks will be festive, some will be jolly, but I promise you there will be nail art
..and maybe even a tutorial or two (?), who knows.

I started it all with my Merry Christmas -look.

Today it all started out with 2 coats of Barry M - Berry Cosmo (I think you are all familiar with that polish by now), then a quick coat of Maybelline - 230 - Undress to Impress from the "Stripped Nudes" collection.

For those of you attending Christmas dinners with the office, I would highly advise against following this tip from Maybelline. Undressing will not impress your new bosses. Keep the clothes on, and remember to have fun.

Barry M - Berry Cosmo topped with Maybelline - 230 - Undress to Impress

Then I grabbed my holiday stamping plate, Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. For full review of this plate, check out this link

For other manicures using this plate, check out this link here. 

I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

Barry M - Berry Cosmo topped with a coat of Maybelline - Undress to Impress, and stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White with Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I hope you liked this Berry Christmas look, tomorrow I am going green. How green? Well you will just have to wait and see.