Mint Manis for Talia Joy

Savina - Royalty with accent in Princess Lacquer - Reign with China Glaze - For Audrey and Savina - Royalty over, and a baby blue bow.

Words become poor when we are talking about loss of a human being, and Talia was such a huge inspiration for so many people. First time I heard about Talia Joy was on Ellen's Show, she was so energetic and full of life. My grandmother call those kind of people for angels:

Angels shine on us with their light and bless us with their presence for a while, until they have to go back to heaven.

"Finding Dory" is soon hitting the cinemas around the world, and I for one will be sending out a thought to all the lives that Talia touched and to the people she left behind.

For those of you who didn't know much about Talia she was a 13 year old girl that was diagnosed with cancer at a young age. Around the time she was diagnosed she was introduced to makeup. She soon after started a YouTube channel that hit 1,000,000 subscribers. She made beauty videos, vlogs, and cancer updates. She passed away July 16, 2013 after battling cancer for over 6 years. She was a true fighter, a beautiful girl and always reminded us that a little fishy told her to "just keep swimming".

After her death there was a lot of petitions to have Pixar make a separate movie about Dory and dedicate it to Talia.

"You can't change yesterday, you can't predict tomorrow. Live now and don't take it for granted!"
Talia Joy on Twitter

Check out the awesome girls that participated in #anglesfortalia. @dmcastellano @savannanailsit @sittingpolishpretty @taylornails @ice.hard.nails @nails_by_courtney.s @nail.dazed @insomniaccatnails @polishedcalla @ladytheresa28 @missusfroggy @lovelacquernola @nextstagenails @nails_by_kale @lala_lacquer @stormysway79 @theworldofcos @bexdennis23 @ttluvsnails @nailsonparade @fyreblossomnails @mimi35c @sarahs.nail.endeavors @secretarysnailart @nailcraftaddict @melanie.minerva @nailartbylara @nailsbybuttercup @bethcruzan @sezies_nails @nailsby.lily @liberosnails @nails.in.arizona @lacquer_vault @paygebee @glacewing

A photo posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Jul 16, 2016 at 5:50am PDT

There is are also a hashtag circulating for this from when this was originally done back in 2013, which is #MintManisForTaliaJoy, so be sure to check out the other social media sites too - there have literally been thousands of Mint Mani postings, and more to come.

For anyone posting anything about Talia, her family has asked that you use the hashtag #TaliasLegacy as well.

If you want to see the first mani that I did in honor of Talia Joy, follow this link. 

Let's Hit The Beach!

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

It's been very sunny lately here in Northern Ireland, so I was getting in the mood for spring and summer. I would like to start by saying sorry to those in my home country, Norway, that was just hit with loads of snow. So if there is snow in your country, and you don't want to hear about how sunny and lovely the weather is here, you might want to come back to these nails at a later stage.

First I started with two coats of Savina - Coral. This was one of my first polishes that I ordered online, and I haven't used it for a long time. Sadly, it is turning gooey on me, so it will need a couple of drops of thinner next time I pick it up. It is also past half empty, and I am considering getting a new one, or a Coral in a different brand, as I don't have that many coral shades.

If you have a Coral to recommend, please let me know in the comments below.

I then proceeded to take a fan brush and brushed my nails with Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition Yellow and ESSIE - Mojito Madness.

Savina - Coral, fan brushed with  Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition Yellow and ESSIE - Mojito Madness

Savina - Coral, fan brushed with  Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition Yellow and ESSIE - Mojito Madness

The first picture is taken in direct sunlight to really show off how great Savina - Coral looks. It really gives an instant Summer Feeling (even on my winter pale hands).

Of course I could have stopped here, but I had a vision that I wanted to get out.

For this I needed my BP53 plate that I recently received from BornPrettyStore to review. When I first saw this plate, I know straight away I wanted to do something with the summery looking beach balls.
You might not have noticed them on the plate, but it was the first thing I saw. 

I did some freehand using FNUG - Runway, on my stamper and then made a decal out of it to transfer it to my nails easier. I found out that the size of the little green stamping head from Konad is the size of my ring finger nail at the moment. I wrote "Beach Party".

I used FNUG - Runway to stamp with, and made a decal with BP 53 and filled in the beach balls using FNUG - Bandana and Sinful Colors - Exotic Green. I wanted to add something more beached themed and made another decal with Bundlemonster - BM309 and filled that with Sinful Color - Exotic Green as well.

After a lot of waiting the decals was ready to go on my nails.
I simply added a coat of clear polish to make them bond, and topped it off with some topcoat.

I added a little dot of Savina - Coral to the beach balls and it was all done.

Here is the final look.

Beach nails using BP 53 and BM309

All ready for the beach!

Which look did you like the best? Here is a snap of the before, so save you the scrolling. 

Fan brushed nail art over Savina - Coral

I really liked to work with this stamping plate,  BP53 has a lot of cool images on it. I have some other ideas for manicures using this plate. For one, I would love to make a decal with the petal flower on this plate, as I think that would be totally awesome. And the "watermarble" looking heart image would be really cool for Valentines. To throw out some ideas to you all. 

You can find BP53 by following this link.   it cost 2.99 $. It comes with a protective blue film that needs to be removed before usage, and it also has a protective backing, so no sharp edges here. 

If you will be placing an order, feel free to use my 10 % off coupon: RAMG10

There are plenty of products to choose from at their site, not just nail related items, and the prices are very affordable and they have free worldwide shipping.

Click the image below and you will be taken to their site. 

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

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!

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?

O'Keeffe's Freudian interpretations

Over at Llama Nails on FB we are doing the Inspired by an Artist Challenge, second artist out is the Mother of American Modernism. Georgia Totto O'Keeffe. 70's feminists celebrated her as the "originator" of "female iconography", and her art, specially from her New York -time has been of Freudian interpretations.
I have kept that in mind when doing my nail art for this challenge.

So without further ado, this is my interpretation of O'Keeffe's paintings.

Sinful Color - Pink Forever

From the outer edge to the middle. Savina - Dazzle, nailart striper in hot pink, Sinful Color - Pink Forever.

As you can see on my nails and hands this was taken a while ago, I actually did this manicure as soon as the challenge was posted, which is a while ago now. I hope you liked it. It did not stay long on my nails, I can tell you that, there is something about wearing vagina looking designs, that just don't appeal to me.

MSMD - Color Blocks

This manicure is inspired by Lovely In Lacquer : Designer Inspired: Kate Spade Color Blocks, and tiny bit inspired by The Nailasaurus Half/Stud/Half which I though was such a cute idea.

 Great bloggers both of them.

For this manicure I started out with one coat of FNUG - Fashion Show, my go-to nude color. I picked up ALL my neons. Which basically means I got all four of them.
My neon collection might be small, but they are good colors. I like them. If I see more neons from Sinful Colors, I'm thinking about getting them, but we will see. This is the third, or fourth manicure using neons.
Savina - Dazzle, Sinful Colors - Neon Melon, Sinful Colors, Irish Green, and Sinful Colors - Summer Peach.

I taped half my nail, colored one part with the neon, leaving the rest in the nude polish, next time I do something like this I will use a white between those two layers to make the neon pop more, as the Neon Melon changed color.
Looking away from that little mishap I am very happy with how this manicure turned out.

To finish of the look, I added studs.

C is for Capitalism

So I wanted to play catch-up on one of the groups I am in. And one of them is an ABC challenge.
So if A is for Anchors, and B is for Bubbles, next up is C.

So why not Capitalism?

(this will also be my E for Economy-manicure)

For this manicure I used Bundlemonster plate BM319. Cheekyplate CH54, and CH55.

Polishes:

Misa - Working Hard, Hardly Working
Misa - Office Polish-tics
ESSIE - Mojito Madness
Savina - Coral
Wet n Wild - Black Creme (stamping)

Misa - Working hard, Hardly working

How you enjoyed this manicure, and if you are wondering where my inspiration comes from.

<3 Wikipedia

Depression Awareness Nail Art

Greetings Girls.

Today I want to share with you a manicure I did for Depression Awareness. Usually one would see a Depression Awareness mani, with green in it, cause the Awareness logo is green.

To me, green represents Envy, and there is nothing to Envy when you're Depressed.

It's taken me a while do actually post this. First of all, cause it's very personal, and I wanted to make sure I didn't share too much. I suffer from Depression. I have for a very long time. I don't think I can remember a time where I wasn't. We all have our good and bad days. The last few years I have been luck to have fewer bad days. I don't take any medications for it, seeing my mom eat her pills like candy, kinda put me of. It's a choice I made. There is no right or wrong with Depression.

A few years ago, my mom was at a rehabilitating center, she would paint. Day out and day in. One of the pictures she made was beautiful. We sat in front of it for hours. She would tell me about all the colors she used, and why. That it was her depression, she had painted.
That's why I have chosen to recreate it, in a manicure.

For this manicure I used:

NYX - Matte Baby Pink

Beauty UK - Bon Bon

ESSIE - Aruba Blue

WnW - Tropicalia

Claire's - 152

Savina - Royalty

Coral it Asian

I just adore my coral nails, I have been toying with the idea of putting black hex glitters to it, and pretend its the sun with sunspots. But I found out that I am all out of black hexes (don't understand where they have gone..) I didnt want to paint any, so I decided to go Asian.

As you might remember from yesterdays post I started out with Savina - Coral as my base.

Then I added Make Up Store - Melina to all nails. 

Then I grabbed my black striper, and went for it. Doing tiny strokes at the time, and carefully place it on my nails, and with swift motion, make a line.

I am very pleased with the result. 

What do you think?

Savina - Coral meets Melina - Make Up Store

Good evening ladies.

As you might have noticed, I have made a site on this page, called Sharing is Caring , it contains a form you can fill out if you, come across/ make some beautiful manicures you want to show me. (EDIT: Deleted)

Today I thought I should show you some coral-love. It finally stopped raining all the time today, and I suddenly found myself in some need of some summer on my nails.
I bought Melina a few days ago from Make Up Store, and felt like that was just the colour i needed.
Lets take a look at it.

So the question is, can it be build to full opacity?
Lets test that out.
I started out painting almost all my nails with Savina - Coral, but my ringfinger. Not the smartes move, consider the image. Uncool. Very uncool. Sorry about that.
Savina - Coral is a very nice color, great formula, and this is two coats, so it covers well.

Then I started building Melina on the ringfinger, coat by coat. The rest if the fingers all got one coat of Melina.

At this stage the ringfinger now has 6, (!!) coats of Melina. So if you where wondering... Dont bother, find another coral shade or orange to put under it, its not worth the time. Melina has long dry time, and the more coats, the longer it took.
Even with fast drying topcoat it was long drying time. So stick to one coat over another polish.

But its stunning over the coral. I really like this polish.

Girly Dazzle

According to my Google Analytics tool, lot of people have been searching for Savina - Dazzle lately. I decided to do a mani, using Dazzle in a fun and creative way.

I used two coats of Recycle, and one coat of Dazzle over a pink. Using BM plate 303, and a nail art pen that looked like Dazzle in colour, I created this look.

XOXO - to all you beautiful girls out there, this mani is for you. 

Bunny-mani

A good friend of mine celebrated her birthday last night, and I wanted to do something cute on my nails. She loved bunnies, and have three bunnies as home, and they are so fluffy and cute. Adorable.
So I decided to do a bunny-mani.

I started out with painting all my nails in Savina - Royalty. Picked up Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, and WnW - Black Creme. A dotting tool, and a small pencil.

Savina - Royalty

One of the first polishes I bought from 8ty8beauty,  was this one. Savina Royalty. 

This is 4 tiny coats, and you can still see faintly some VNL. In person, its not visible at all. I love this colour. Its special to me, since its one of the first I had shipped to me. 

I`m acutally on my way to work, but I had to stop by, and show you this lovely colour.

Summer Challenge - Summer Chevrons

So today we are doing Summer Chevrons, in the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge. I have done some chevron manis before, but its time for a summery one. So this is a half neon, half coral.

Sunlight.

Indoor light.

No light, with flash.

MSMD - Dazzle Shine

Hi, girls, its time for some Monkey See, Monkey Do!
This time I`m copying something "I`m Feeling Nail Venturous" did. 

Look at it, isnt it really pretty?!

Yesterday I got my Innisfree polishes as you can see in this post. And I thought it would be perfect to use for this. So, without further ado, here it is.

So I started out with 2 coats with Savina - Dazzle, and finished with 1 coat of Innisfree - 81. Sorry for the pictures being somewhat blurry, my camera is having trouble picking up the neon.


I`m thinking about getting a new camera soon.. 

*****EDIT*****

We are going to give our office a makeover, so we wont be using it for a month, and I got to take the company camera with me home. !!! * squeal*

Look at this!