My first braided mani!

I've seen so many amazing braided manis around lately, I finally decided it was time for me to tackle this design! I expected it to be complicated, but it's really as easy as it looks - the hardest part for me was trying to keep the "overlapping"area centred (failed on that one). Not unlike a fishtail braid, it also took quite a while to do. I knew I wanted to do thinner stripes, just to see what it would look like, but I had no idea that it would take me much longer than in the video tutorials.  

31 Day Challenge, Day 31: Re-create your favorite Challenge!

The very last day of this challenge! I had the hardest time deciding on a mani to re-create for today, I looked through all the pictures in the interlinks for hours. I also woke up feeling like death warmed over, but that's another story.  In the end, I had to pick something to accomodate my limited skills and stash. Here you see my re-creation of the stripes mani by Polished Criminails! 

The only polish that made it from the inspiration over to this mani is the base, Essie A Crewed Interest. The stripes were originally done in other colors of the same collection, but I just used whatever came closest in my stash. You see P2 Drama and Scandal, Essie Nice is Nice and Catrice Sold out Forever (1st version). 

I love how colorful this mani is and got a lot of compliments on it today (doesn't happen often!). 

I'm so happy to have taken part in this challenge, it was a great learning experience for a newbie like me. I'm so overwhelmed with how many people came to see my manis every day, and especially the comments! I hope some of you stick around, and that I can still come up with manis on my own :D 

Thank you very much for sticking through this challenge with me! 

31 Day Challenge, Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

We've reached day 26! Only a couple of days more and then the challenge is over! Unbelievable!

Today we're doing patterns, so I picked my favorite pattern of the Bundle Moster stamping plate set, paisley. I've also been seeing a lot of super cute saran wrap manis, so this is my first try!

I started with two layers of China Glaze Papaya Punch and the "sponged" P2 Drama on with the saran wrap. As soon as that dried, I stamped the pattern from BM-315 with Yes Love #876 (my favorite stamping polish right now!). One coat of Essence Better than Gel Nails top coat, and it's what you see up there.

I'm really happy with this mani, I love how bright it looks. The background is basically on fire! I hope you like it, too and thanks for stopping by :)

31 Day Challenge, Day 16: Tribal

Today I'll show you my first attempt at tribal nails. I had seen this type of design on various blogs for months now, but it never struck me as a "gotta do that!" mani. Now that I tried it, though, I think they're not only pretty to look at, but also fun to do.

More details after the cut!

31 Day Challenge, Day 14: Flowers

Today is flower day at the 31 Day Challenge! I love flowers, but only the ones you put in a vase for a week and then throw out. I have zero talent in actually keeping something alive that doesn't remind me to be fed/watered.

This is actually one of the manis I was a little sad to remove after a day. Pink is one of my favorite colors and I really love what happened on my nails here. I used two coats of Essie A Crewed Interest as a base, and then stamped on the flowers of the Konad m26 plate with P2 Scandal, a magenta color. Since the image is only three of the flowers, I stamped each nail twice or three times.  After that, I applied a thin coat of Essence Cotton Candy, a sheer pale pink, for the stamping sandwich effect, like on day 7. 

But this time, I didn't stop there! 

As soon as that stamping sandwich was done, I added a layer of OPI Nothin' Mousie 'Bout It, but was careful not to catch any of the hearts. I almost think the purple, pink and orange shimmery base of this polish would deserve a bottle of it's own, but it's fairly easy to just spot the hearts when one lands on your brush and wipe it off on the neck of the bottle. 

At this point, I topcoated the whole thing with inm Out the Door to help it dry faster, for the second round of stamping.

Using the same image, I stamped over the nails again, but this time with P2 Passion. I originally wanted to use Essie Cute as a Button for this step, but it was to sheer to stamp. But Passion is a fairly similar color, only without the jelly finish and therefore more opaque. 

To finally finish this mani off, I added one last coat of Essie Matte about You. 

Here's a close up in the shade, so you can see how pretty the (glassfleck?) shimmer of Nothin' Mousie 'Bout It is. 

I really love how this mani came out, so I couldn't stop myself from taking a couple more pictures:

I would love to hear your thoughts!

31 Day Challenge, Day 9: Rainbow, or: Use ALL the polishes!

Finally, rainbow day! Finally, not because I've been looking forward to it, or I had a great vision of my mani today, but because I had 2 complete fails before I finally came up with this. I had lost hope, I really didn't think I'd be able to come up with something I half-like, and here I am, in love with these nails.

Long post with many pictures and all the polishes I used ahead:

31 Day Nail Challenge, Day 7: Black & White

We're already on day 7 of the challenge today, that was fast! I feel like we got the easier ones out of the way and now make our path onto more intricate nail art territory.. exciting! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, here.

I decided to do stormy nails today, with a technique I haven't done before: a stamping sandwich! Just like a glitter sandwich, only with stamping instead of glitter.

I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Extreme Wear White On and stamped with Jordana Black Charm and BM-312. Then I topcoated everything with inm Out the Door before I applied one coat of P2 Virgin, a very sheer white. As a last step, I topped my nails with Essie Matte About You. 

It's still summer here, and we'll likely stick above the 20 degree C mark for a while, but due to the humidity, every morning I feel like I'm waking up in Silent Hill. It's so foggy, and recently there was even a wildfire that covered our balcony in ashes. 

This mani perfectly describes my view when I get up in the morning, and I love the cartoon-y clouds. But don't worry, I get a different one in the evening that makes up for all the clouds and fog:

31 Day Challenge, Day 4: Green

Welcome to day 4! I have something very dear to me to show you today, my second franken ever!

You see, green is not really my favorite color, but I somehow can't stop buying green polish. There's just so many shades, and they're all so different! What I didn't have until last night, though, was a nice, deep, bottle green. And I wanted one, on my nails, right that moment (or at least in the immediate future). So I made one myself. 

These I the polishes I used, from left to right: Essie Pretty Edgy, Maybelline Dark Chocolate, P2  Dangerous. I got out a less half full bottle of clear nail polish from the dollar store and poured a third of Pretty Edgy into it. This was about the time I realised how yellow toned Pretty Edgy is and it became clear that I couln't just darken the whole thing with black to get my perfect bottle green. So I got out the dark tealish Dangerous and added about a quarter of the bottle. Much better. Then I added a couple of drops of Dark Chocolate, swatching in between to see what exactly I was actually doing. I can't remember how many drops it took, but as you can see, the bottle is still pretty full. 

This is three coats in the sunlight. I had some bubbling, as you can see near the cuticle of my ring finger, but I think that's more due to the fact that I couldn't wait after I shook it to death/until everthing was mixed up. And because I can't leave perfectly good things alone, I added some stamping on my pointer and thumb with BM-314 and Kiko Steel Grey. The more I look at Steel Grey, the more I feel like it looks good with everything.

Here you can see my thumb! I find it super weird to "pose" without something in my hand, and include my thumb in pictures. I will practice this, I promise. 

What you should actually look at is how beautiful the holo is on top of this green. I'm really happy I decided to stamp it in the end. 

I'll leave you with a picture I'm more comfortable with, and hope you like my second try at frankening! 

31 Day Challenge, Day 01: Red

Here to kick off the first day of my first Nail Art Challenge ever is P2 Charismatic along with Kiko #227. 

I bought Charismatic a couple of years ago when I was still living in Germany and had access to this marvelous brand of nail polish goodness. P2 do really great nail polish, they're formulas are good, they get out new colors often enough and the price is almost unbeatable for the polish you're receiving. 

As soon as I got it out of my drawer, I thought of lush, shiny, velvet sofas. The shimmer in this polish really gives it a lot of dimension and I do think together with the stamp my nails look like tufted cushions :)

I stamped an image from the BM-310 plate with Kiko #227, which is a blackened burgundy color. 

I'm super happy to participate in this Challenge, and that I can cross the first day off my list! What do you think off my tufted nails?