Border and Mosaic Nails

Sometimes I just feel like switching things up a little, and pull out techniques that I haven't used for a while. Since my past two posts on here has been kinda serious, I wanted to lighten up the mood with today's nails.

We are revisiting Border Nails.

I know some people know this style better as Frame Nails, but they are one and the same technique.


For this look I am using three polishes:

H&M - Beige is one of my oldest polishes and I am surprised it is still kicking and hasn't dried all up. It has been with me since the very beginning. No wonder it is also, half empty. 

I actually won FNUG - Love Chic in a competition when FNUG first launched, and I got to choose a couple of shades from their line. Their polishes are amazing, a bit on the pricey side, but the staying power of these babies beats most of my other polishes to the boot. 

W7 - Buff is like the accident polish of this look. I never really liked this particular polish, it is too thin to be worn alone, but it works great for sponging. I think W7 make great polishes but W7- Buff is a dud. 

I also used a thin striping brush and a sponge for this look. 

First I started out with applying one coat of H&M - Beige, and once it was dry I placed 2 drops of H&M - Beige and 3 drops of W7- Buff to my Uber Chic Mat and dipped a sponge in to pick up the two colours. Dab dab dab on to the nails. 

It created a nice washed out marbled look. 

Then I went in with a striping brush and FNUG - Love Chic and framed the nails. 

FNUG - Love Chic Border Nails with H&M - Beige and W7 - Buff sponged in the middle as a washed marble look.

I am still learning to get my lines even with my striping brush, but this is definitely looking a whole better than last years attempts at border nails. 

Practise makes perfect, right?

I wore this look for a couple of days, and decided to switch up up and do Mosaic Nails. 

Grabbing my striping brush again and FNUG - Love Chic, I managed to get a couple days more wear.

FNUG - Love Chic Mosaic Nails with H&M - Beige and W7 - Buff sponged in the middle as a washed marble look.

Which one is your favourite?

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.

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

Throwback Thursday - Cafè Nails

Today I decided to do a throwback, with a re-creation. Before I even had a blog, before I was good at doing my nails (I tried, it counts), I did a nail art creation using a Konad plate and two nail polishes. H&M - Brown, and Depend - 188.

I intended to post this on the blog 2 years ago, but something kept me from doing it, firstly it's not that well done, it looks rugged and my cleanup is not the best. So it never went live. Just been sitting in my "draft" folder for these 2 years. And now I am going to post it. Excited?

This text is taken from the original drafted post:

First I started off painting my nails with Depend - 188, an old favorite of mine. But seeing it as a full mani, I felt it was boring, and needed some fun. I picked up my H&M mini - Brown, and used it on two of my fingers, then I reached for Konad stamping plate M14 and stamped a cupcake on it, using Depend - 188. 

Depend - 188

H&M - Brown, and Depend - 188, cupcake from Konad - M15 stamped in Depend - 188.

Yeah, it's not that great, but we all started somewhere, and this was one of my first stamping nail art looks.
I acknowledge that I was once a complete noobie, and I still consider myself pretty new at these things. We all started somewhere, and that's okay.

So I decided to take this mani, and do something new with it. I kept the stamping plate, added another image, swapped out those terrible polishes, and made it new and fresher.

For this look I used W7 - Buff, and W7 - Royal, Konad - M15 (using the cupcake image) and Cheeky - Jumbo Plate 7 - Home Sweet Home.

It turned out a bit more sheer than I thought it would, but in the right light (under not too bright, artificial light) you can see what it says.

If you where wondering, the stamp stays Tea Time and Cupcakes.

I don't think this is the last time I am doing this. I really enjoyed the lookback, and a bit sad that my hands looks so dry in the picture even though I mosturised them right before taking the picture. Darn you Spain for being so warm and drying me out. 

H&M Gold/white glitter

While everyone in England and Wales is stuck to TV screens in the much anticipated rugby match of the year, the England vs. Wales. I am sitting here, enjoying the sun outside, drinking tea and writing about nails.
Will the turnout be anything like last year (Wales 30 - 3 England), or will the English get their revenge on the homefield? Time will tell.
I am more in aww over this glittery polish.

While on Christmas holiday in Norway I picked up this glittery polish from H&M.
I was originally going to wear a undie, but decided to try it out on its own.

If I had used a dark undie for this polish, I think it would have looked a little bit like looking at a town from afar while it's snowing. The houses giving of a golden glow here and there, but all you can really see is the darkness of the night and the white of the snow.

4th Of July Manicure

I deserve some credit for my dedication. 

I made this manicure 2 months ago cause I was afraid I would miss it. I was just not having it. 

This manicure had to be made. 

I used two coats of H&M - Red Nail, for the french, then made a ribbon using ESSIE - Bobbing for Baubles, and finished it all off with a white nail sticker I got from Ebay.

Happy 4th of July!

Norways National Day - Flag Nails

I needed something special for the National Day, and I wanted it to look different than the one I did for the French National Day. Which also happen to be in red, white and blue. 

On the French National Day, I painted "Le Bastille" over the colors, see post here. So, I though, why not just flag nails ?

And so she did.

I went over with the blue striper twice to build some colour. 

Violet Beauregarde - inspired manicure

Violet Beauregarde, also known as the "blueberry girl" in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

I decided to go for the Original movies when doing this manicure. After all. It's the first. Pictures at the bottom of this post.

This movie is from the inflation scene. 

I had been asked to do a tutorial on this nail art, so here it is:

Hope you liked it :)

Pictures:

An idea takes shape.

First step.

Direct Sunlight.

Indoors.

May the fork, be with you.

TGIF!

This week has been oh so stressful. It's just been one of "those" weeks, where everything seems wrong and hard. Today has been a lot better, and I was very excited cause its Friday, and that means Cheeky Girl Challenge with Mishka from Lacquer or Leave Her!

Today we are stamping using Cheeky plate CH42 with the cutlery image. Fork, spoons and knifes, the chicken always cluck twice...
(erhhm) maybe not. Trying to be funny there.

Lets get over to some nail art shall we, and ignore my attempt to be funny. Cause it wasn't really.

I used two coats of Kicks - Metro Grey, and stamped using H&M - Red Nail.

K is for Kit Kat

I am so trilled over how this manicure turned out. It will be sad to have to remove it.
I haven't done much freehand manicures since I started with this, but lately I have been drawn to my brushes and pencils, and nail art pens and stripers.

First I painted my nails two coats of Snow Me White - Sinful Color.
Then I went in with a medium pencil and Red Nail - H&M, and did a reverse writing. That means that I only left the gaps that would make the word, and not actually writing anything, just fill out the space around the word. I build it up slowly letter for letter. Tried to get them somewhat alike, and straight.
I allowed it to try for a while, and then when in again with Snow Me White - Sinful Color to correct any mistakes done with the letters. It's not perfect, but I did my best.

After being bent over my left hand for a good 2 hours, I decided to keep my right hand white with random lines of red on them. They remind me of candy, or a simple watermarble. It got some charm.

Spark up the Russian Sage

Spark Me Up - Russian Sage mix today. Not pink, but lilac with some pink shimmer.

2 coats of Misa - Russian Sage, and dabbed on some H&M - Spark Me Up.
Drying time was a bit long with Russian Sage, and was still semi wet 30 min later. Looking at the colour makes it so worth it.
Spark Me Up was a fun and easy to work with glitter. It looks like a tiny firework display. I bet its great over black.

Twinpost: Blow blow up my Blowfish?

This time its CH38, and a blowfish image.
I have to say, this is the funnies I have done so far. I love it.
and I got to try my BO stamping polish from BornPrettyStore.

For this manicure I used:
BO - Olive Green (13)
H&M - Fantasy Ocean
Sinful Color - See you soon
Misa - Toxic Seduction

Forgot to take a picture of the background, sadly.
First I started out with a layer of Toxic Seduction, sponged a bit of Fantasy Ocean, and See you Soon over, to create depth to the background. Then I stamped over using Olive Green.

For those of you, who are interested in how things are going with dating and stuff. Well.

Got this on my door. 

Don't forget to see what Miskha, from Lacquer or Leave Her! did with the image. You can see her post using the same plate as I did, over here. 

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. 

Summer Challenge - Fruit Salad

So this was also one of the Challenges I just didnt have time for, when it arrived.
But here it is.

I used a ton (!) of polish for this.

ESSIE - Licorice  (dots on strawberry)
FNUG - Clogs (dotted grapes)
FNUG - Bandana (dotted blueberry)
L´oreal - Green Couture (leaves on strawberry, top on banana and random "grass")
H&M - Red Nail ( Strawberry)
H&M - Yellow (banana)
Rimmel - Chic Cherry ( grapes)
L.A. Colors - Current (base color)

You might not see what I had in my mind making this, but even thou, its really pretty.
So lets just enjoy the view.

H&M - Lemon Tree

It was about time I got around to do a swatch of this polish.
When I need an orange for sponging, or to wear under a neon, this is the one i pick up.
To see where I have used it before click on "Lemon Tree" underneath, or search for it in the search box --->

Summer Challenges Bumblebee

One of the Challenges I haven't done yet, is the Bumblebee.
I missed out on it, because of work, so I decided to do it today.

For this manicure I used ESSIE - Licorice, H&M - Yellow, and a dotting tool.

H&M polishes

This is what I found, entering a H&M store today..
Both pictures are from the same polish.


eww







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Summer Challenge - Cocktails

Hi girls, I am so glad its finally weekend!
Its been a long week, for sure.

I have been filing documents, and working in the archive all week, and my cuticles are starting to feel it. I had to swap lotion, and have been using Hemp protector from Body Shop since Wednesday, my hands are just so dry. Usually I don`t swap to the Hemp Protector until winter arrives, but it was needed. They feel a bit better, but they will be needing a lot of love and care.

Tomorrow there is going to be a market, close to where I live. A Farmers Market. I love those. And my favorite supplier of Honey is going to be there, and that's good, cause I am almost all out of my lovely honey. And I would die, without my honey in the morning tea.

So, that's why my manicure today, kinda looks like my Hony-mani, I did last month. haha!
I better stop talking now, before I cry over my empty honey jar.

As Michelle from Lacquer or Leave Her, pointed out, I totally forgot to mention how I achieved this look. 

Polishes:

H&M - Yellow

H&M - Lemon Tree

Sinful Color - Neon Melon

Depend - nr. 124

You need:

a plate/sheet of paper, somewhere to pour  polish.

A makeup sponge.

I started with 5-6 drops of Yellow, dabbing it over the nails from the base and upwards. 

Then 3 drops of Lemon Tree, and went a bit higher up, and focused on getting it on the sides. 

3 large drops of Neon Melon and just dabbing all over.  Going in with 124 and the bald spots, and the tips. Some Yellow at the tips at the end. 

I used the same piece of sponge for all of these steps, I wanted it to look like the "muddiness" you sometimes find in some Whiskey Sours. 

To finish it of, I took the wheel I bought at Claire`s in Spain, with Fimo citrus.