Coffee -nails

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

If there is not a tea cup next to me, there is a coffee cup. I love coffee, be it coffee scented candles (my favorite at the moment is Reindeer Brew - Peruvian Coffee Beans -03), a lazy latte or an americano in the morning.

I was organizing my stamping plates recently and found some stamping plates that I have not used for a while. The Cookbook Collection from Moyou London was one of these plates.

I filmed the whole process of this nail art, so if you want to have a look at that, hit that play button below. I made an intro for my videos and very excited about that. Hope you like it.




I started out with one coat of Barry M - Matte - Mocha on all nails, on top of that I added a thin layer of Ard As Nails - Vicky, to add a gorgeous shift, and transforms the look from a basic coffee -nails to something a little bit more glam.
When that was all dry I used Essie - Little Brown Dress, my favorite brown polish for stamping. Moyou London - The Cookbook Collection - 03 as an accent, and Moyou London - The Cookbook Collection - 04 for the rest of the nails.

I used my Magic Mask Liquid Latex that I purchased from Nail-Artisan UK. You can see me use it in the video above.

Coffee -nails using Moyou London - The Cookbook Collection 03 and 04 with Barry M - Matte - Mocha, Ard As Nails - Vicky and Essie - Little Brown Dress.

This is not the first time that I have done coffee nails using the Moyou London - The Cookbook Collection, in fact, last year I did these.

Secretary's Nail Art does Coffee -Nails 2015

If you want to read the whole post about last years coffee nails with a smooch base, follow this link.

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?

For the Love of Coffee

I am a bit late to the party here, but it was Secretary's Nail Art's 3 year anniversary the 1th of June.
I was celebrating with a well deserved holiday in Finland, and I am all Sauna'ed out (if that is even a thing), and ready to hit the keyboard again and show you all the new designs I have made.

I have also completed my Nail Cave aka Office Room at home, so there will be pictures of that coming soon as well. I love sitting here, and working, I feel so at home.

I have almost finished my project on swatching all my nail polishes to swatching sticks, and reorganizing them in alphabetic order in my Helmers, so that will be an exciting post as well.

I am very excited to show it to you all, but for now, that will have to wait.

One of the first nail art designs I did way before there even was a blog was cupcakes and coffee nails, so when I got my hands on Moyou London - The Cookbook Collection - 04 I knew I had to do that again. So since I did a Throwback Thursday  last year, I thought I would do a Coffee Nail. Last years Coffee Manicure was a bit tame, so I decided to turn up the heat.

I chose three different design from the 04 plate, and used Essie - Little Brown Dress to stamp with.

One a plastic surface I placed a few drops of Barry M - Cappucino, Barry M - Matte - Mocha, and Barry M - Gelly - Almond (I didn't have another polish with a coffee related name, so had to choose a non-coffee named polish for the third one). With my Creative Stamper Head I pressed the three shades together and transfered that to my nails. I really like how this makes the background more interesting. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of this step as it was too dark, at that point.
But I have some OttLights on it's way, so that won't be a problem much longer.

Moyou London - the Cook Book Collection - 04 manicure (before topcoat)

Moyou London - the Cook Book Collection - 04 manicure (after topcoat)

I LOVE this design, and could not stop looking at my nails, neither could one of my coworkers. Haha. He was gobsmacked over how gorgeous they where.

Aztec Sunset

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

Do you ever find yourself struggling to name a post? ...and then you have this epiphany moment where you feel like you hooked up to the Mother Server and you had a name for the post?
I had one of those days today, and this manicure started out with me wanting to show off how gorgeous Max Factor - Fantasy Fire is. I didn't have a Master Plan before I sat down to do my nails, I just did them.
When the name hit me, I had no idea where it came from, it just felt so right.

For this manicure I wanted to show off my gorgeous Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire. This used to be "all the rage", a while back, and I must have been to the stores and picked up 15-20 of these the past few years. Everyone wanted one, back home in Norway, and I was gladly a mule for such a gorgeous polish. 

Taken on a polish-hunting trip in Londons outskirts.

The sun was shining bright, and the day called for a polish that could dance with the sun rays, and so it was that this manicure came together.
If you are a frequent reader of my blog you know that I received a parcel from BornPrettyStore for review, it was their plate BP L002 that I decided to use for this look.
This is not the first manicure I to using this plate, you can see the original review over here. 


I started out with one coat of Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck, I really like how deep and rich this purple shade is, and I have enjoyed using it a lot lately. You might have noticed I used it for my Alice In Wonderland manicure as well. Then I followed up with two coats of Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire I find that it gives the best result).

Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top.

Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top.

Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top.

Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top.

Then it was time for stamping. I wanted it to look like a sunset, as the colour shift in Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire reminds me of the sky in sunset. Below you can see the section that I used from the BP L002 plate for this manicure. I used Essie - Little Brown Dress to stamp with.

The section of the BornPrettyStore BP L002 that I used for this manicure.

If you want to get hold of this plate, it is sold for 5.99 USD, BornPrettyStore offers free shipping worldwide, and if you use my code (RAMG10) you get 10% off your order.

The design is very subtle in all the glory of Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire, but I really like it that way. What do you think about subtle designs like this?

Aztec Sunset; Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top using BP L002 stamping plate from BornPrettyStore

Aztec Sunset; Sally Hansen - 640 - Plum Luck with Max Fantasy - 45 - Fantasy Fire layered on top using BP L002 stamping plate from BornPrettyStore

I am currently working on a blog post of my move, and how I transported my two Helmers full of nail polish by the power of a boat and my suitcases. Stay tuned for that. 

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

That one time ... Watermarvel

I think it is important to report the "not so successful" attempts every now and then.
Specially when you can identify what went wrong in the process.

So this attempt started the same way as all the other:
Polish goes in water, spreads, drag needle over, dry over night.
Yet, it turned out quite different.

IsaDora - 179 - Winter Rose
W7 - 140 - Buff
ESSIE - Little Brown Dress

close up few minutes after it was made

15 h later, it looks like this

I could still make a nice manicure out of it, so it wasn't completely ruined, but it baffled me that it turned out so differently. As I hadn't had any failed attempts at all using this technique I wanted to find out what went wrong.
I asked the girls at Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook, and the suggestions ranged from water contamination, to temperature drops, and even air contamination. One suggested it might simply be the polishes I choose.

So I went to the scientific method, and worked on eliminating one and one of these theories.
By using the same polishes in the same order with new water, and with a lid, the problem still occurred. So it could not be air- or water contamination. Though, this was a very good bet.
As I had used the same water all week, there was a possibility that water contamination could be a factor. I would lift the decal out of the water, and make a new one right away, so the water was never changed. However this had not, and continued not to be the problem, so it had to be something else.

I then decided to use the same polishes but to swap out one of them. As I am not the biggest fan of IsaDora - Winter Rose, that was the polish I decided to swap out. This attempt had no errors and can be found following this link:

Vintage Wood - A watermarble adventure

I was twisting and turning on the decal. It wasn't much to work with, and it had gaps here and there. Some of it simply crumbled away when I took it out of the water.

 It's not my best work, hehe, but I made it, kinda, work.

Vintage Wood - A watermarble adventure

I think this post does not come as a surprise to any of you. Specially as it is another water-marble manicure. I have been practicing and practicing all week.
I was trying to identify a problem that occurred with one of my water-marbles, when I came upon this combo. I did a similar one, but was using IsaDora / Winter Rose for that one, and something strange happen to it, so when I experimenting to see if it was the polishes/water/temperature/air that was causing the problem, I used my new Barry M - Vintage Violet.

Instead of alternating every third, like I have done for a while, today I only added ONE drop of the Barry M - Vintage Violet. The rest of the water-marble was done using W7 - Buff, and ESSIE - Little Brown Dress. It really reminds me of woodwork, and I just can't say how pleased I am with this attempt. I have come so far with my watermarbeling decals this month.

The added dusky violet in this manicure lifts it up just that little.

Vintage Wood worked nails - water marbling

I will be uploading my failed attempt as well. So you can see what can go wrong when water marbling, and how I managed to make a mani out of it after all. 

Branches and Leaves

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

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

I still think ti was worth showing you all.

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

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

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

A writers manicure

I was totally inspired by Mishka over at Lacquer or Leave Her! for todays manicure. You can find her post: Review and Before & After: Moyou London Scholar Collection 02 and 06 here.

Quick view of the original.

Property of Lacquer or Leave Her

This manicure is so gorgeous. It's amazingly gorgeous. I can not praise it enough. hopefully my recreation with a twist will get as much love as the original. If you are not already a subscriber of her, I would highly recommend checking her out.

For this manicure I used the same plate as Mishka did in her manicure, but I also added one plate from MASH - 39, for a background image. I wanted my nails to look like notebooks, and since I don't have the Scholar Collection plate 06, I found an image that kinda looks the same on another plate.

I used a several different nail polishes for this manicure. W7 - Buff on the tips over Barry M - Lychee, and ESSIE - Little Brown Dress as an accent. Stamped using Makeup Mekka - Charlotte Grey and Barry M - Lychee, and ESSIE - Little Brown Dress.

This is how it all started.

A writers manicure

A writers manicure

A writers manicure

A writers manicure

Can I just say that I am totally in LOVE with this manicure. I just LOVE LOVE it. And I love how the ink came out, when I used a brush over it to make it look more like it was "wiped" away. 

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.

Splosh Splash

For the next Cheeky Girl Challenge, we got CH46. This cosmic plate got a twist on it this time.
I had a fantastic idea, I'm not so sure about the execution of it, but ... All is fair in love and nail art?

I wanted a dark background and so a gradient stamping, using a white and a yellow, letting the stamp on each nail, get more and more towards the yellow.
Sadly, the yellow didn't stamp well.

I used: Miss Sporty - 453
So if you ever wondered .. well ... here is the result.

Head over here, to see what Mishka from Lacquer or Leave Her! did with the design.

Let them eat Cake!

I am back with the twinposts with Mishka at Lacquer or Leave Her!   Before our break we got to plate CH40, in the Cheeky Girl set. and today we will be showing you different ways of using the cake print from CH41.
Mishka choose to do a pop-art mani, you can see her manicure by clicking the link.

I went for something a bit more ordinary and did a neutral background and used the full image.
I used Fnug - Fashion Show, as background, and sponged KIKO - 373 on the tips, and stamped using ESSIE - Little Brown Dress.

I say like Marie Antoinette: Let them eat Cake.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Summer Challenge Independence Day

I happend to have the right  Konad - stamp for this themed mani. The M14.
I wanted to do it cool, but still not having to redo all the nails. So this is my first "recycling mani", I kept the 3 black nails from last night, and painted the two others in white.

So for this mani, I used ESSIE - Licorice, Sinful Color - Snow Me White. I stamped using two images from the M14 konad plate, using H&M - Red Nail, ESSIE - Little Brown Dress ( U.S.A ), and IsaDora - 626 Blue Sky. I could of used a darker blue, but I didn't have a blue that matched.

So I'm still trying to get used to the new camera that I`m borrowing. I swapped the lens, and I am now using a Canon lens, instead of the Sigma lens, that we use when we take pictures of houses. ¨

Don`t mind the paper-cut on my finger, there...

So lets see what we got.

Check out the other girls nail art for today.

Debbie @ The Crumpet - http://thecrumpet.blogspot.co.uk/

Neivys - http://maquiclubgirl.blogspot.com/

Jo @ Northern Nails - http://therockchicksrambles.blogspot.co.uk/

arlene @ http://euzefelus27-nailart.blogspot.com/

Helena - http://nailwish.blogspot.com.es/

Cuti-CLUE-les - http://cuti-clue-les.blogspot.com/

Katee - http://www.agirlandherpolish.com/ 

Alyssa at Fancy Phalanges - http://fancyphalanges.blogspot.com/

Sarah - http://www.ynails.blogspot.co.uk/

bec - http://lacquerdreams.blogspot.com.au/

Misha - http://www.enigmatic-rambles.blogspot.com/

Sharon - http://whatcolorismycoat.blogspot.com/

Melissa - http://www.misadventuresofawannabemartha.com/

Laurie http://dressedupdigits.blogspot.com/

Lucie @ Lucy's Stash http://www.lucysstash.com/

Emma @  http://manicurity.blogspot.com/

Caitlin - http://www.caitlinscreativecorner.blogspot.com/

Jane- http://absolutevarnish.blogspot.com/

Amber http://www.nevernakednails.blogspot.com/

Vic @ Glowstars http://glowstars.net/ 

Jackie- http://memasmanis-jackie.blogspot.com/

Rychelle @ Colorsplash Nails- http://colorsplashnails.blogspot.com/

Stella - http://mywetnails.blogspot.com/m/

Missy @ http://missysmanis.blogspot.co.uk/

Kim @ http://apolishedaddiction.blogspot.com/

Christine @ http://lost-in-my-reverie.blogspot.com/

Angie @ http://ourpaintedworld.wordpress.com/

Bazzia @  http://polishmymind.blogspot.se/

Missy the Manicured Maniac @ http://melissahenderson95.blogspot.com/

Michelle @ http://lacquerorleaveher.blogspot.com/

Nikki @ http://www.lilgreenheart.blogspot.com/

Elizabeth @ http://nailpolishismycrack.blogspot.com/

Ana Cris @ http://www.estacerradaladrogueria.blogspot.com.es/

Shayleen @ http://simplyhandyallyear.blogspot.com/ 

Dina @ http://secretarysnailart.blogspot.no/

Nayade @ Toxic Vanity http://www.toxicvanity.com/ 

Karen @ http://nailsbykaybel.blogspot.com/

Cupcakes Nail Art

For this mani I used a dotting tool, a Warhammer pencil, for the base of the cupcake ( stole it from my boyfriend ), French White from H&M,  NYX Matte Baby Pink, ESSIE -  Little Brown Dress, and a rhinestone from the BM -set I just got.

I didn't want all my nails to have cupcakes on them, so I left the thumb and pinky painted in ESSIE - Little Brown Dress.

Would you ever wear cupcakes on your nails?