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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Diabetes Awareness

Diabetes is a life-long health condition, and in the UK alone there are 3.3 million people diagnosed with diabetes. It is estimated that almost 600.000 people live with the condition never having been tested for it. It is therefor incredible important to raise awareness for this conditions.

There are two main types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2, where as type 1 is the most commen, UK is seeing a rise in the numbers of people with type 2. To explain the differences Diabetes UK has made this illustration.

Different types of Diabetes

When I went to school one of my classmates was diagnosed with diabetes, I remember feeling sad for him when he had to excuse himself from the classroom to take his insulin jab.
Later I would learn that my family has a history of Diabetes, while I am luck to not have the condition myself I know plenty who do.

When Leah asked if I wanted to join in on a Diabetes Awareness link -up I had to say yes.

For those of you who don't know, I donated my blog-income for November month to Pancreatic Research Funds. In total this raised £6.25. Finding a Cure starts with awareness.


Today's prompt with Crumpets Nail Tarts is grey + colour + pattern. My pattern this week is "stamped" so I was very lucky with that.

I started out with 3 coats of China Glaze - Pelican Gray, I stamped over using Ciate - Paint Pots - Vintage with Bundlemonster BM-321 on two nails and BM-315 on the rest.

China Glaze - Pelican Gray

China Glaze - Pelican Gray, stamped with Bundlemonster BM-321 and BM-315 using Ciate - Paint Pots - Vintage

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

Carcassonne - nail art

This picture above here, might make you confused, do no fear. This is a nail related post. 

For those of you that follow me regularly, might remember that it was my birthday not long ago. My boyfriend got me a lot of stuff for my birthday (you can read what he got me in this blog-post), one of those things he got me for my birthday was Carcassonne expansions. Carcassonne is a fun little game about building castles and roads, and it's one of my favorite (board)games in the world. Next to Labyrinth, which is without a doubt my favorite. If you are into boardgames you should check it out.

PS: Maybe not get this specific expansion that is shown with the picture below, it's a bit too fiddly, I prefer the other expansions.

Carcassonne - The Princess & the Dragon

Example of Carcassonne in play.

So my boyfriend told me he wanted to do my nails for my birthday. We grabbed some acrylics, and polish and dived into it. This is not the first time he has done my nails, he did a Serenity (movie) manicure . In the previous mani, we did not use any acrylics, and he has been dying to show of his acrylic skills.

First challenge. He wasn't happy with my selection of green polishes. So I had to go ahead and mix them up until we got the shade we wanted. 2 drops of ESSIE - Mojito Madness and 3 drops of ESSIE - Navigate Her seemed to be the shade he wanted.

ESSIE - Mojito Madness and ESSIE - Navigate Her

4 nails on each hand got painted green, and the thumb was painted grey with MISA - Working Hard, Hardly Working. Stamping using Ciaté - Vintage Paint Pots

The backing of the tiles in Carcassonne and the Bundlemonster plate I used for stamping.

Once the nail polish was all dry we got the acrylics out.

I was sneaky and got some pictures while he was busy doing my nails. 

You can see he has placed out the tiles he was recreating next to him. 

After half an hour we had a break. This is what it was all looking like then. You can see the pieces taking form. It was getting dark outside, so sorry for the terrible pictures. 

He wanted to use more time on this, but I had to draw the line somewhere. He was keeping me busy while he was painting by feeding me white wine, and after a while it got nearly impossible to keep the hands still. 

I did dent my nails over night, so sorry for the rough look, but here are some pictures of them finished.

Carcassonne nail art

Carcassonne nail art

Carcassonne nail art

Carcassonne nail art

Carcassonne nail art

What do you think? Would you wear nail art inspired by a game? 

Let me know in the comment section below. 

Birthday Haul

13th of May! Today is my birthday. I am so excited. The day is going to be filled with cake, and my boyfriend is making me Italian pizza (the proper way). We are having stuffed mushrooms for starters and Vino Verde (my favorite wine in the world!).

Cherry blossom design on my cake

I went to Herefordshire not long ago, to visit some friends and do some shopping. This is what I got:

Not the biggest of hauls, but I needed some more summer colours, and these seemed to suit my mood just fine. I also picked up another nude shade of brown. I have no idea why.

Ciaté - Strictly Legal

Ciaté doesn't really got a good reputation, but since this was on sale, I decided to get it anyway. 

Barry M - Acid Yellow, Barry M - Lime Green, Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow. 

Barry M - Acid Yellow, Barry M - Lime Green, Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow. 

From top: W7 - Fluffy Duck, W7 - Purple Rain, W7 - Buff, W7 - Royal, W7 - Pink Chrome

Claire's - Dizzy and cuticle clipper

There you have it. It's my little birthday haul. I  am looking forward to try all my new polishes, so don't be surprised if you see them again on my blog very soon. 

Until next time. Keep those talons pretty, and have fun!

Manicures using the products hauled:
W7 - Fluffy Duck
W7 - Purple Rain
W7 - Buff
W7 - Royal
W7 - Pink Chrome

Barry M - Acid Yellow
Barry M - Lime Green
Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow

Ciaté - Paint Pots - Strictly Legal

Claire's - Dizzy

Inspired by Fashion - Rag & Bone

I have been wanting to do some nail art inspired by Fashion for a while, but I wasn't quite sure what it should be of. When I saw the new collection from Rag & Bone, I knew what I wanted to do.

Marcus Tondo / Indigitalimages.com

First, I would never wear this myself, but I like the artistic expression in this outfit. The black crop top to the slightly pinkish boyfriend blazer with crop jeans in white. There is something about the cropped look of it all. 

For this look I used Bundlemonster plate - BM303 as an accent, stamping with Ciate - Speed Dial, Sinful Color - Snow Me White, Wet & Wild - Black, and NYX - Matte - Baby Pink.

It's been aaaages since last time I used Bundlemonster plates. I have been so caught up in my Cheeky plates lately. I suppose that's how it is, when we buy new plates all the time. 

Hey ho, that's life. Bundlemonster, you are not forgotten.

I know the pink is not quite right, I first tried mixing a soft pink with acrylics, but it didn't turn out very well. So I had to go with the polish for the finished look.

What do you think, want to see more "inspired by Fashion"-manicures?

Twinpost: The 8 Ball

I was still in the car driving this Friday, and its been a super hectic weekend, with my mother staying over here. So I just couldn't find the time to do this post, but here its if, even thou it is somewhat late.

This is a twinpost is a series of posts done with Mishka from Lacquer of Leave Her!. We have a Cheeky Plate Challenge running, every week we post a mani with one of the images from the plates in the set. One plate each week. We are currently on CH 35, and the image we choose from this plate was the 8 -ball.

Mishka did a really cool mani with it, and you can see her creation "Billiards, anyone?" here.

Do you ever have those days when your camera just doesn't want to cooperate with you? I think my hands must have been shaking a bit, cause every single picture I took was slightly blurred. This is the best of them all. 

For this manicure I used, Ciate - Speed Dial, Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, WnW - Black Creme, H&M - Lemon Tree.