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.

An Essie watermarble

I wanted to experiment with water marbles, specially since I have been seeing so many of them in my feed recently. I wanted to go with green shades since I live in Northern Ireland, and it's all about green.

Essie Watermable starting point, still in the cup

As I wanted to have more control of each nail, I used the decal method. Which means that I did the marble as normal in the water, but instead of dipping my fingers in the water, I allowed it to dry completely over night, before sticking it to my nails.
This also allowed me to make more than one design, and rather spread it out when I was wearing them.

Essie Watermarble - Allowed to sit over night, picture taken before patted dry

I used a handful of polishes for this design, and they where all ESSIE polishes.

ESSIE - Navigate Her
ESSIE - Mojito Madness
ESSIE -  School of Hard Rocks
ESSIE - Turquoise & Caicos

Essie watermarble manicure - cut to fit, and after clean-up

As one of the nails didn't turn out the way I had planned due to bad positioning of the decal, I made a flower using NYC - Flat Iron Green. First I stamped using MASH 46, but it didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, so I traced it with a brush, and made the flower a bit bigger, using an angled brush to make the petals the way i wanted.

Essie Watermarble manicure - with an accent, and added topcoat

I am quite pleased with the end result. A lot of work went into this manicure, even though it kinda look effortless...

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. 

Eye Be Watching You

Ages ago, or shall we say a year ago, my friend Mishka (Lacquer of Leave Her!) made an Egyptian manicure that kind of stuck to my memory. Golden glitter polish with the Eye of Ra/ Eye of Horus (wha-ever you wanna call it). There was also hieroglyphs, but since I don't have a stamping plate with that, I decided to have some fun (hopefully not making any Egyptian Era fans out there angry with me).

I used W7 - Golden Shimmer as base, and stamped with MASH 36 using Wet n Wild - Black.
Golden Shimmer covered in two coats. I also tried a technique I never have done before. Mirror-image stamping. It was about time really. I haven't fully mastered it yet, but a first attempt was over-due.

What do you think?

Cheeky Girls Challenge: Ship o'hoi

It's time for another Cheeky Girls Challenge. Summer hit in an a ship loads of other challenges so we completely lost track of this one. But we are back. Today me and Mishka from Lacquer or Leave Her! will be showing you two different ways of using this plate.
We selected the ship image on this plate.

To be honest. I did one ages ago (03. may), but wasn't very happy with how it turned out, so I got two for you today.

Let's start with my fail manicure.
I used Sinful Colors - Kissy, it took three coats for full opacity. Then I stamped with Mash - 50, using Wet n Wild -Black. I finished it off using various versions of Cheeky plate - CH49. Two full stamps and two isolated pictures.

Taken and edited 3rd of May, so still with the old watermark.

That's just too messy. Can't use that. I was thinking. See those tiny black spots on my skin? That's thorns. I was gardening like crazy, and had loads of tiny thorns all over my dinky little hands. I feel so sorry for them.

So, when I chatted to Mishka recently, we agreed to take this challenge up again, and really stick to it, and finish the series. We are on CH49, not that many plates left. If you are interested to see all the manicures I have done using the Cheeky Summer Collection you can either enter Cheeky -> in the search box over here, or you can visit my FB page, and there is an album there with all the pictures. 

And now for the second manicure made using the CH49 plate from Cheeky Summer Collection. Let's make this one count shall we?

I started out with two coats of Depend - 246. I think this is the second time I use this polish. Kid you not.
I then grabbed a handful of different colors and got a palette out for some mixing. The colors where as following (I don't have a step to step guide for this).
Sinful Colors - Exotic Green
Beauty UK - Glam Nails Nr. 67 - Bon Bon (sheer orange)
Claire's - 152 (sheer sheer bright yellow)

Since all the colors are somewhat sheer, they work great for this kind of projects.
Mix mix mix and look what we get.
Then I stamped using W7 - White.

And there we have it. A fresh, summer-y pirate manicure. For Mishkas manicure head over to Lacquer or Leave Her!. 

Easter Nails - A skittle adventure

Happy Happy Easter.
And here are some happy nails. I started out with 3 coats of pastel yellow, this is Miss Sporty - 453.

I made this manicure using a set of stamping plates.

Index finger: BM 310
Long finger: BM 317
Ring finger: BM 208 and BM 314
Little finger: Mash 45

Stamped using Wet n Wild - Black Creme, as always. Then I took a green nail art pen and dabbed in some jagged lines on the ring finger, and added some more depth to the grass and the egg on the thumb.

I'm squaring at you

Hi girls.

It's Sunday, and it's cloudy outside. I really wanted to shoot a video this weekend, and try that out, but the weather has not been my friend. The forecast says it will brighten up later today, so I'm crossing my fingers for that.
Even thou the sun isn't showing it's pretty face, I decided to put some sunshine on my nails. Here is Kiko Holographic 400.

Barielle - Katalicious

I wanted to try out Katalicious from Barielle.
It looks so gorgeous in the bottle, and I was just dying to try it out.
The coppery red goes perfect for autumn.

Then I decided to stamp with my new MASH plates. I decided to go for swirlies, and picked out MASH 45. I wanted a subtle stamp, and used Barielle - Blackened Bleu.

It reminds me of a pattern I found in a book about "Designs through history".

Isn't it gorgeous?

US Haul

Mishka has been so nice to help me out getting my hands on some US polishes.
<3

Here is what I got.

Barielle
Razz Berry
Hidden Hideaway
Blackened Bleu
Passion Pirouette
Elle's Spell
Katalicious

Orly
Flagstone Rush
Fowl Play
Mermaid Tale
Mysterious Curse
Preamp
Purple Pleather
Sweet Peacock
Viridian Vinyl
Sashay My Way

MISA
Candy Girl
Chocolate Icing  #65
Date Night to the Twilight
Girl Next Door
Office Polish-tics
Russian Sage
Speed Of Life
Toxic Seduction
Working Hard or Hardly Working
Misa Like It Like That

And M.A.S.H plates

Surprises:

WoW, look at this. For sure the coolest bottle evva.

CANDY!

Avon Mosaic Effect top coat, can't wait to try it out.

Chocolates and eyeshadow duo