Inspired By Pink Floyd

I am super excited to share this with you all. Me and TheHumbleBear from Instagram decided to do a twinmani. We ended up chatting for a long time and discovered that we both grew up listening to Pink Floyd. A lot. 

I used to sit ready with my cassette recorder in case a Pink Floyd, or Sting song would come on the radio, ready to tape. I think I still got some of my favourites on a cassette at mums place. 

I would have them on in the background when reading books, which was something I was always doing (unless I was doing homework). 

Polishes that I used for this Pink Floyd Themed Nail Art

I haven't done a freehand nail art look in a while, so I decided to grab my striping brushes and a box of nail polishes for this look. 

I sat in the living room, trying it out for filming, and as you can see from the video it is not enough light in there and the natural light from the windows is causing a lot of flickering in the light (our house came with 3 over friendly pigeons that like to fly back n forth in front of our windows) Will pull down the blinds and add more light next time. 

Products used:
Wet n Wild - Black Creme
Barry M - Coconut
Barry M - Plum
Barry M - Blue Grape
Barry M - Yellow (Superdrug LTD)
Barry M - Mango
Barry M - Lime Green
L'oreal - Scarlet Vamp
OPI - Sheer Enchantment
Sally Hansen - Pearly Whites

Two thin striping brushes from Bundlemonster

Pink Floyd - Galaxy Nail Art

My main inspiration for this nail art look was Insomia over at DeviantArt. 

When talking about Pink Floyd you can not escape mentioning their album The Dark Side of the Moon, so when me and TheHumbleBear did out nail art looks, we both did one based on the cover of that album.

When I was living in Spain 2 years ago, I came across this wall, and had to take a picture.

I Wish You Were Beer 

Be sure to check out TheHumbleBear over at Instagram, and send her my love. We had so much fun with this twinmani, and hope you liked the looks that we created. 

Pink Floyd 🌈~ One of my favourite bands 💖😘💖 #Art #AcrylicPaint #Intricate #CuteNailArt #Wishyouwerehere #PinkFloyd #RainbowNails #Polish #Asian #NailArt #NormalPolish #NailArtist #Gelish #Manicure #PrestoGel #InkArt #Favourite #Nailstagram #SharingArt #ArtDiscover #like4like #HandPaintedNailArt #Presto #OOTD #AngelPro #GellyFit #NOTD #POTD #Nails #LOVE

A photo posted by BearBearley 🐻 (@thehumblebear) on May 23, 2016 at 5:50pm PDT

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Strawberry

Opulent Essences - Strawberry has been quite the hit on Instagram. Sharon & Zoe, the girls behind Opulent Essences, even  shared a little video that I had compressed from the Live Swatch that I did over at my YouTube Channel 

A video posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Mar 28, 2016 at 1:00pm PDT

I have therefor decided to do a nail art using Opulent Essences - Strawberry first.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry

Whenever I get my hands on a new polish, the first thing I always wonder about is whether or not they stamp. That's why I grabbed Opulent Essences - Lemon and Bundlemonster - ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and BM-219 and tested this theory.

I did not stop to think about what I was stamping on top, I think I should have done that, because I would have realized that stamping neon over neon might not be the smartest idea. Never the less, I did. So that you don't have to.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry  with stamping done using Opulent Essences - Lemon and Bundlemonster ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and BM-219 as accent. 

It was incredibly hard to capture on camera, with the neon stamping on top, to the naked eye, it looked really cool. I decided to change things up a little, to get a nail art look I would be happy with.
I grabbed Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition - Yellow and went back over the Opulent Essences - Lemon. I repainted the accent nail and placed some golden studs instead.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry with stamping done using Opulent Essences - Lemon and Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition over with Bundlemonster ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and golden studs for accent. 

I am super happy with how this look ended up. The golden studs give this a bit of an edge, and I think it pairs excellent with the stamping image. 

Ard As Nails - Dark Knight

Continuing on last post which was Ard As Nails - Kitty's Secret from the Bookouture Girls Collection that was recently launched over at Soap Dodger, today I am showing another polish from the same collection.

Ard As Nails is a 5-free, cruelty free, EU Approved Indie nail polish brand here in the UK.

Ard As Nails - Dark Knight

I started out with 2 coats of Ard As Nails - Dark Knight on all my nails. I have made a Live Swatch video for the entire Bookouture Girls Collection from Ard As Nails, for those interested in that. You can also see the Extended Version for Ard As Nails - Dark Knight below.

This polish was my favorite in the collection, so when the time came to make some nail art on it, there was really only one thing that sprung to my mind.

 I grabbed my MJ JV-2 stamping plate, and my Clear Jelly Stamper that I recently purchased from Nail Artisan UK. The clear holder and the softness to the stamping head was perfect for what I wanted to do.  I used Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition - Yellow and Angèle (a jelly red polish I got in my Glossybox a while back).

Hunger Games.

I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games!

Hunger Games Nails: Ard As Nails - Dark Knight

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favour!

Bright Summer Flowers

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

I wanted to do another bright summery design, it's been great weather here in Northern Ireland lately, and I wanted to celebrate with some bright nails as well.

I recently received some stamping plates from BornPrettyStore for review and among those was the Qgirl - 022 plate.
While I was organizing my stash of nail polishes and swatching sticks I came up with this great combination using Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow, Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black and L.A. Color - Splash. The Qgirl - 022 gave me just the image I had been wanting to use for this combo. 

Maybelline Street Artist - Boom Box Black:
Clear base with large and medium black and green hex glitters, small green bar glitters, and tiny round black and green glitters.

The lighting was acting up a little so here is a picture from last summer showing how Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow looks like.

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow

I was very happy to have several stampers for this design. It would have taken too long, if I had only had one stamper head. With more on their way I am quickly approaching 6 stampers (!), and a month back I only had 2...

Making decals is so much fun, and for this design it gave me the placement of glitter, just the way I wanted, without it interfering with the stamped image.

I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, filled in using L.A. Color - Splash, and dabbed some Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black around the flower. 

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow stamping in Sinful Color - Snow Me White, filled in using L.A. Color - Splash, and dabbed some Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black around the flower. 

 The Qgirl - 022 plate has a nice selection of flowers. I think most of the flowers on this plate will fit great for "scandinavian designs" (see what I mean here), but will also work great for more colourful displays like the one I did today.  The Chic Flower Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate Pattern #Qgirl-022 sells for $ 2.99.

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.

Colourful fields

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

I have been organizing my collection and swatching them out on swatching sticks, while all of this was happening my nail room was filled with polishes over all surfaces. Organized into brands, in somewhat alphabetical order (more on this in a later post).

So when I received my review box from BornPrettyStore, I was inspired to use as many polishes I could within one brand, and therefor not mess up my entire system while doing so.

That is how this accent design was born.

For this manicure I used Qgirl-032 from BornPrettyStore, Barry M - Gelly - Paprika as base colour. I stamped using WetnWild - Black Creme, and filled in my accent using; Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow, Barry M - Vintage Violet, Barry M - Gelly - Mustard, Barry M - Gelly - Mango, Barry M - Gelly - Chilli, Barry M - Gelly - Dragon, Barry M - Beery I/C, Barry M - Fuschia, Barry M - Gelly - Blueberry, Barry M - Gelly - Blue Grape and Barry M - Gelly - Plum.

Phuu, that is a long list.

I bet you are all super excited to see the end result now?

Barry M - Gelly - Paprika with Qgirl - 032 (from BornPrettyStore) stamped over in Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow, Barry M - Vintage Violet, Barry M - Gelly - Mustard, Barry M - Gelly - Mango, Barry M - Gelly - Chilli, Barry M - Gelly - Dragon, Barry M - Beery I/C, Barry M - Fuschia, Barry M - Gelly - Blueberry, Barry M - Gelly - Blue Grape and Barry M - Gelly - Plum. 

I really like this plate and it has a lot of versatility to it, with some Aztec looking design as well as some Chinese looking ones. If you want to get your hands on the Bird Animal Pattern Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate Pattern #Qgirl-032 it is found at BornPrettyStore and it's sold for $ 2.99.
BornPrettyStore also offers free shipping worldwide, and if you use my code (RAMG10) you get 10% off your order.

I am very pleased with the end result of this look, and it took quite some time to fill in all the lines. Stay tuned for the second manicure I did using this plate, coming up later this week/weekend.


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

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!

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.

A single vine of roses

I have been wanting to do a rose manicure for a while, and when I was packing up stuff to go to Wales for a week, I decided to bring along my stamping plates and some polishes to do a rose mani. 

Having seen how it turned out, I am so glad I did. It's a bit unconventional, but I am sure you will all love it.
I wore this nail art together with a ballon-skirt that I bought last year, that is black with roses on.

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Ed. Yellow

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Ed. Yellow

 This is such a bright base, it covered well in two-three coats and went on smoothly. You can no longer find this polish in Superdrug, but I found one at my local Factory outlet for a pound. I wish I had bought this polish earlier, cause it would make a perfect yellow for Easter. This does however mean that my quest for next years Easter Yellow is over (!).

I stamped using Barry M - Gelly - Watermelon and the MoYou-London Mother Nature Collection - 05.
I like it when I can pull together a complete look with only polishes in the same brand. Barry M - Gelly - Watermelon stamped really well. I am surprised over how smooth it all went.

As soon as I finished this manicure, I was ushered into the car, so I didn't get time to take a proper picture posing with the bottle like I always do. This is me stretching my fingertips in the car admiring the mani. 

I did notice that the light the hand you use when transferring the image from the stamper to your nails the lighter the gelly will appear on your nails. The heavier hand, the darker it transfers. Just a thing to keep in mind when stamping with gelly polishes. 

Since I was inspired to do this mani, due to my skirt, I had to take a picture with the skirt and the nails together. I am so proud over this manicure. So pretty. 

Have you ever matched your nails to the print on your dress?
What is your thoughts about it?

- Let me know in the comment section below, I'll love to hear your thoughts about it

Birthday Haul

13th of May! Today is my birthday. I am so excited. The day is going to be filled with cake, and my boyfriend is making me Italian pizza (the proper way). We are having stuffed mushrooms for starters and Vino Verde (my favorite wine in the world!).

Cherry blossom design on my cake

I went to Herefordshire not long ago, to visit some friends and do some shopping. This is what I got:

Not the biggest of hauls, but I needed some more summer colours, and these seemed to suit my mood just fine. I also picked up another nude shade of brown. I have no idea why.

Ciaté - Strictly Legal

Ciaté doesn't really got a good reputation, but since this was on sale, I decided to get it anyway. 

Barry M - Acid Yellow, Barry M - Lime Green, Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow. 

Barry M - Acid Yellow, Barry M - Lime Green, Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow. 

From top: W7 - Fluffy Duck, W7 - Purple Rain, W7 - Buff, W7 - Royal, W7 - Pink Chrome

Claire's - Dizzy and cuticle clipper

There you have it. It's my little birthday haul. I  am looking forward to try all my new polishes, so don't be surprised if you see them again on my blog very soon. 

Until next time. Keep those talons pretty, and have fun!

Manicures using the products hauled:
W7 - Fluffy Duck
W7 - Purple Rain
W7 - Buff
W7 - Royal
W7 - Pink Chrome

Barry M - Acid Yellow
Barry M - Lime Green
Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow

Ciaté - Paint Pots - Strictly Legal

Claire's - Dizzy