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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My Garden is full of... Carrots

I love carrots, and when I was a little girl I would sometimes pretend to be a bunny.  With two large front-teeth, carrot in hand I would imitate bunnies better than anyone I know. Except for actual bunnies. This is Squee Ember and is probably the most famous bunny that I know in all of UK.

Used with permission from Squee, and Sam Ember.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved carrots.
This is why I decided to make Carrot-nails. Squee approved.

I had been dying to use Ard As Nails - The Chunk from "Here Comes The Boys" Collection from Soap Dodger.  this hunk of a polish is only 3.50£ for a mini or 6.50£ for a full size.
All Soap Dodger polishes are 5-free.

I had bought the full size, which is what I normally do. I always get so afraid of using polishes when they come in mini's as they will run out faster, and thus end up not using them at all...
Logic, right?

I used two coats of Ard As Nails - The Chunk, topped that with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, a franken I had made for me a while back.

If you like the idea of Frankening your own polishes, check out this post for a little Frankening 101.

I did the stamping using Bundlemonster - Secret Garden Collection - BM-705, and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home (link to review of said plate). My stamping polish was Essie - Little Brown Dress.

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot 

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, stamped with Essie - Little Brown Dress with Bundlemonster BM705 and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home.

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, stamped with Essie - Little Brown Dress with Bundlemonster BM705 and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home

What is your favorite vegetable? Do you love carrots as much as I do?

Glitter holo-roses

Today I will show you a look I did a year or so back, that was lost in time and space. It was all...

Source: WaywardDoodles

Let's get our heads out of the Dr. Who show and back to the topic of nails.

This look was inspired by another look that I did using Kiko - 493.  I did one of my coworkers nails while I lived in Madrid, Spain, back when I worked for Electronic Arts. We stamped with a rose stamping image using Kiko - 493, and I wanted a similar look just for an accent.

So this time I chose another rose stamping image, Cheeky - Jumbo plate 07 - Home Sweet Home.
I painted all nails except ringfinger with Kiko - 493 and the accent ringfinger with Kiko - 400.
Stamped using Kiko - 493.

I like how the glitter looks over the gunmetal holographic polish. Think it turned out very well.

Kiko - 493, accent Kiko - 400, stamped using Bundlemonster - BM323

Kiko - 493, accent Kiko - 400, stamped using Bundlemonster - BM323

Discovering this look in my archive was great, and I have many good memories from my time in Madrid, Spain.

Little Miss Piggy

I have seen this hashtag around with #boyfriendpicksmypolish, and I wanted to do it as well.
So I brought him in to the nail room, and asked him to choose a drawer in my Helmers, and pick a polish.
He selected Barry M - Gelly - Dragon.

I didn't want it to be too easy, and just do a plain manicure with this polish, so I asked him to choose an image from my stamping plates. I started with showing him my Cheeky plates, and his eyes found this little piggy on the Cheeky - Jumbo Plate 9 - Wild At Heart (check the link for a full view of the plate).
So I suppose that means I gotta have to show some Piggy-love on my nails. Who better to take inspiration from, than Miss Piggy and do something girly.

I used W7 - White as a background, and stamped the little piggy on my middle finger using Barry M - Gelly - Dragon. The image didn't stamp very well, and showed up very faint on my nails. The lines on the head of the piggy are just too thin.
I redotted the eyes, and took a striping brush and did some lines for the body, and added a button.

On the rest of the nails I made animal prints using a small angled brush.

Barry M - Gelly - Dragon

So there you go! I have done the #boyfriendpicksmypolish for the first time. What do you think?

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.

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. 

Leadlighting flowers

The days are going well here in Spain, life as a gametester is challenging and also a lot of fun. I get to use everything I know about the game, from being an old fan, as well as all the things I have learned as a Secretary. I am really looking forward to the release, when I can lean back, give myself a pat on the shoulder for a job well done.

I have been seeing this leadlight technique mentioned a lot of places, it's totally the rave of the summer.

I didn't bring that many polishes that would be great for this, so I needed to mix the colours I did bring with some clear polish to make this work for me. I didn't quite do it right, but as a first attempt, I think it's a good one. 

So for this manicure I mixed following colours with clear polish to create this look:
Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow
ESSIE - Mojito Madness
Savina - Royalty

All this over 2 coats of Wet n Wild - Tropicalia

I stamped using Wet n Wild - Black Creme, using Cheeky - Jumbo plate - Princess Charming

Leadlight technique

Leadlight technique

Have you jumped on the Leadlight - technique wagon as well?
Any particular polishes you find works the best for this kind of technique?
Let me know in the comment field below!

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. 

Holo-tastic

It was long after I landed in Spain that I felt the forces drag me to the nearest nail polish shop. I found this quirky shop in Alonso Martinez, Madrid, it was full of old polishes. Some Catrice, Dance Legend, China Glaze .. etc. There was no order to the chaos. Needless to say, I loved it!

I didn't want to go completely:
BUY ALL THE POLISH!
...straight after landing, so I limited myself to one polish. Believe me ladies it was hard. Yes, I might have been on a low-buy for 2 years, but it doesn't mean it's easy. Ever.
Well, to be honest, sometimes it's really easy, but not today.

I found this gorgeous Catrice holo. It's somewhere between pink and brown. I got a pink holo, but nothing like this, so it was cleared on my check list for "do I really need this polish?"

Catrice - iROSEdescent

Catrice - iROSEdescent

This polish has one of those wider brushes that we know from brands like ESSIE, some of you hate it, and some of you love it. As you can see on this picture its not a C-brush, but more like a V-brush (if there is such a term). I really liked this brush, and found it easy to use.

It covered completely in two strokes.

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Indirect sunlight

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Direct sunlight

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Indoor artificial light

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Half-shade indirect sunlight

I did some nail art as you might be able to see there, I was struggeling to get a good picture of the nail art, cause all the (holo-ness) awesomeness was blinding it out. Below you can see the best picture I managed to snap. It's coffee-beans on all nails. On the thumb I used W7 - Buff, and on the rest of the nails I used W7 - Royal. All stamped using the Cheeky - Jumbo plate - Home Sweet Home.
I think this is actually the first time I use this plate, and that's kinda sad, but it's just .. that I have so many awesome stamping plates.

I brought them all with me on my move to Spain, so hopefully I get to use them a lot more in the next couple of months, since I didn't bring my acrylics, and my selection of nail polish is limited to those I brought with me and the ones I buy while I am here.

If you got any suggestions on where to shop for polishes in Madrid, Spain, please leave me a message in the commentfield below. I am only here for 2 months, and would like to see all the polish-places while I am here.

Jump to the Airport - mani

So there I am, finishes packed and ready to go to Spain. When I noitice something horrible. My nail polish has chipped!!! I don't want to be selfconcious on the entire trip, I want to be able to relax. So those nails had to be done. 

For this manicure I did something cool.

I made a decal!

I ended up using it on my thumb, I forgot how large the image was... Oh well. There is a first time for everything, and everyone. This was mine. I am no longer a decal-virigin. 

I used the Cheeky - Jumbo Plate - Tropical Holiday. It was the only plate I could use really. Tropical Holiday, I was going to Spain, ya know?!

How-to:

Select an image you want on your nails. Transfer it to your stamper. Fill in with colours using a fine brush or dotting tool, Let it dry for 10 min. Apply a generously amount of clear nail polish over, or the background colour of your choice. Let it dry for 10-15 min. Take it of carefully, and apply to wet/tacky polish on your nails. There you go!


Now, enough about decals. Over to the nails. Since I was kinda in a hurry, I forgot the usual step-to-step pics, but you get an idea.

Jump to the Airport - mani

The thumb is the decal I made. I used ESSIE - Navigate Her as base and ESSIE - Moijito Madness for the top of the palm tree and W7 - Buff for the stem
Iindex finger I used Barry M - Lime Green stamped a plane over and filled it in using Wet & Wild - Black Creme
Middle finger I used Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow, and stamped over using Barry M - Lychee with seashells
Ringfinger has Barry M - Acid Yellow as base with Barry M - Fuchsia stamped over with hibiscus flowers
Little finger is ESSIE - Navigate Her and a nail sticker with hipster glasses

Phuuu that is a long list of polishes.

I got to the Airport in time, and got to sit down there for a couple of minutes before take up. UK was raining like all hell was loose as soon as I got in the Airport, and when I landed in Spain, it had just stopped raining.
There was some tubulense on the trip, but all in all, it went good.


PS: If you are planning on taking EasyJet any time soon.. They are planning on denying all liquids on check-in luggage. Just FYI.

Sunflowers - Prado Red - manicure

There is one thing that I want to get better at when it comes to nail art.
Freehand

I took my acrylics out for a test. I'm glad I had plenty of time, cause the stuff I was attempting was a bit harder than I thought. So instead of a one stroke manicure, which was what I attempted first. I went for something a bit easier, and did sunflowers.

My favorite sunflower is the Prado Red. I think they are beautiful. Just look at em!

For this manicure I used Savina - Royalty. This was one of my first nail polishes, and I haven't used it for ages. I felt it was time to give it some love. 

Since I did this manicure long into the night hours, I do not have steps-to-steps pictures on how this manicure was built.

Savina - Royalty needed 3 thin coats to cover all VNL. I added topcoat over Royalty before I proceeded to the acrylic art. I used a deep red acrylic colour for this manicure and a flat brush. I used a stippling motion with the brush to create the petals. For the seeds I used IsaDora - Winter Rose, and a dotting tool. 

I then proceed to the stamping. I used Cheeky - Jumbo plate 3 - European Romance. For stamping polish I used China Glaze - Exotic Encounter. I did a full stamping accent, and isolated some vines on two other nails. This was really tricky, since I wanted the vines to fill in the gaps. I think this was pure luck with how well the stamping came out on the index finger and the ring finger. 

What do you girls think? Do you wanna see more nail art like this?

Damask

I have a love for damask wallpapers. I have, ever since I was a young little girl wanted to have damask wallpaper on my walls. Never been able to have it as a wallpaper, but I used to own a pair of damask curtains. When I received the Cheeky Jumbo plates, I noticed that Jumbo plate 8 - Princess Charming has loads of damask kind-of patterns, and thus I decided to make a damask manicure. 

I wanted it to be quite an intricate design, and opted for an accent background with purple and silver. I really like how it all ended up looking and what I thought was a fail accent, turned out to be so beautiful. 

W7 - Mauve Suede is such a complex color, it ranges from deep deep purple, to a vibrant mauve in different lighting, the first picture is taken with indirect sunlight and it almost looks blue. 

The accent was done using W7 - Silver Suede and some striping take. I stamped with ESSIE - Little Brown Dress. 

Let me know what you think in the comment box below.