Secretary`s Nail Art: home sweet home

Showing posts with label home sweet home. Show all posts

18 November 2015

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?

16 November 2015

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

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

12 June 2014

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.

9 June 2014

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.

14 July 2013

Jumbo Plate 7 - Home Sweet Home

There was so many great images on this plate. I am totally heads-over-heels in love with the fact that I now get a coffee bean stamping images!!

This plate gets the geek out of me, with the cake image. *points at herself* Portal-fan.

First thing I noticed with this plate, is that it has a lot of vegetables and fruit images, here you get; bananas, aubergines, tomatoes, strawberry, apple, cherry, kiwi, carrots and onion / garlic images. Good selection there, for manicures using this plate, click on here.