What's on my nails today?

Hi everyone!

I had totally planned a reverse stamped manicure for the Flowers theme, but when it came to creating it... I wanted to do a gradient! So that's what I did:

Hi everyone!


It's the first Friday in May (wow... one-third of 2020 is over already?!) so it's time again for My polish, your plate, where Michelle and I take turns in picking a polish or an image of a stamping plate and after that both of us can go wild creating a manicure with the choices. No rules except the polish has to be a prominent color in the resulting nails. This week Michelle picked the polish, shimmery periwinkle OPI Show Me Your Tips! and I selected the swirly image at the bottom of Hello Maniology plate BM-406. Let me show you what I did with them:

Hi everyone,


nope, it's not the end of the month. It's a surprise manicure, coming from the finally decreasing chaos that has been our home for the last four months. But no complaining about kitchen renovations this time, I want to show you a manicure I did after a bottle of polish was returned to me (I didn't even remember lending it out, so here's to friends who remember stuff like that for me ;)

Hi everyone,


it's the last Friday of the month once again, so it's time for the Triad manicure where Michelle, Juanita and myself take turns in picking a manicure that serves as inspiration for the three of us. This time it was my turn to choose and I selected this manicure by dreamsnails. Yep, you're seeing that right: gel polish and freehand... I don't know what I was thinking! (to be honest, I do know... that geometric design and the color blocks... what's not to love ;) I knew from the start I wouldn't do gel polish and since I can't freehand if my life depended on it, that was another no no. So what did I do? This:

Hi everyone!


The last Friday of the month means Juanita, Michelle and me get to show you how a manicure one of us chose has inspired us to do a similar (or completely different) manicure. You guessed it, it's Friday Triad time :)

This time Juanita chose this manicure by Hannah from @hannys_manis. I remember showing it to my husband when J shared it and telling him I had no clue how to NOT exactly recreate it (except for the negative space... I don't like it on my nails so I won't do it if I can avoid it ;) Two days later I was putting away the polishes for my attempt at scrollwork and I spotted a polish that not just sparked some inspiration but caused an entire explosion in my brain. I immediately saw the entire thing in my mind... and less than an hour later it was on my nails, exactly how I envisioned it. And then I realized I had to wait another month to show it off... Today the waiting is finally over though, here's my version of Hannah's spring roses nails:

Hi everyone!


The prompt for week 22 was Favourite Superhero. Right... superhero... and favourite on top of that!
I've never had a thing for Superman, Iron Man, Captain America or any other guy or girl in a spandex suit who zips across the screen, rescuing the world at the last moment. It's not that I hate them, they're just not my cup-of-tea so I don't go to the cinema to watch the movies, I don't buy the comics, etc., which means I don't have a favourite superhero either.

So I turned to Google to see if any superhero would spark an idea. The only one that seemed interesting was Natasha Romanov aka the Black Widow, probably because I like the combination of black (suit), red (hair) and gold (belt). This is what my superhero manicure looks like (idea definitely stolen from, borrowed from, inspired by Michelle):

Hi everyone!


It's the last Friday of the month again, so Michelle, Juanita and me get to cross off another manicure from our to-do lists with our monthly Triad manicure. This month's inspiration was created by Emilia from PolishPixie92 and chosen by Michelle who said she wanted a stress-free, pretty design. Pretty? Definitely! Stress-free? Not entirely... but I'll get to that part later ;)

First let me show you the end result:

Hi everyone!


As promised here's the second post of today with a very special manicure, featuring my nieces nails:

Hi everyone!


I guess 2017 wasn't quite happy with the speed it was zooming towards the end, so it decided to step on the pedal and went into overdrive. Oh, alright, so December is always extremely busy for my family as there are no less than 5 birthdays that can't be skipped, a children's holiday that loving aunts and uncles are supposed to attend as well, and of course Christmas with all its preparations and last but not least New Year (although technically that's in January but of course everything for the party has to be done in December). Throw in a computer that decides it can't keep up with the pace so it simply shuts down and some last minutes rush jobs at work and you can picture my life for the last three weeks. But I'm not complaining though, because I love this time of year, craziness included :) Anyway, at the moment four birthdays (including my own ;) are in the past, all the shopping and planning etc. for Christmas is done, my computer is completely reinstalled and running faster than ever and I even managed to catch up on reading blogs so I decided to show you what has been on my nails these last weeks (and I hope to do a second post with a really special manicure after this one, no promises though!)

Hi everyone!


The ingredients for another quick and easy manicure: a gorgeous polish-with-thingies to act as the main star, a creme polish to fulfill the supporting role of base and a shiny one that is the little extra. Add some time and a geometric image, and voila... a new look for your nails :)

Hi everyone,


it's the last Friday of the month so it's time for our Triad manicure again. This month Juanita picked a lovely manicure by Cat's Claws and she told us she hoped there wouldn't be too much anxiety over her choice. Of course I had to tease her a little (what colors? what finishes? what birds?) but to be honest last month life had decided to step on the accelerator so I was glad to sit down and have some nice, uncomplicated nail time. This is the result:

Hi everyone,


Yesterday we had to say our last goodbyes to my aunt Ria who is now finally free of all the pain and discomfort a horrible neuron disease caused her.


I personally don't feel at ease wearing something outspoken or colorful to occasions like these so I set out to create a very unobtrusive manicure that was still me. Disclaimer: this is just how I feel about it and I don't mean to insult or attack anyone who feels otherwise.

Hi everyone!


How are you all doing? I hope you're all nice and warm and bundled up if it's winter where you are or chilling by the pool if it's summer. Either way, I sure hope you're feeling better than I do as I'm still fighting a valiant battle against hordes of flu bugs that are still very much present. It's starting to look like I will be victorious but it sure is energy consuming... and of course a brave warrior has to look stylish so during the time I wasn't in a horizontal position, I did this:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone,


after staring at all sorts of pretty red polishes without even a hint of inspiration for a Christmas manicure (even the Christmas carols that played in the background didn't help), I decided to go for more cosy and comfortable colors, grabbed a few of my beloved neutrals and sat down to do an office friendly manicure, as tomorrow is going to be chock full of meetings so I have to look more or less presentable (and now that I'm typing this I get a sudden craving for neon green ;) Anyway, a little while later my nails looked like this:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


Yep, highly inspired title... not! The manicure it describes is a lot nicer though, or at least I think so ;)
Want to see? Here you go:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone,


I have to do my exam this week so this weekend, between studying and growing more nervous by the hour, I thought it was a good idea to try water marbling for the letter M. Yeah, right... shaking hands, no patience and a new challenging technique, really great combo ;)

So after a few failed attempts at flooding my desk with polish and water I decided to go for something easier:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


You probably guessed it already, another quick post :)

For the letter F in the ABC Challenge I wanted to do flames. Of course there are zillions of ways to do flames: stamping, needle drag, freehand (yeah right, as if...), gradient stamping.. and then there is the agony of choosing colors. I'll spare you the thought process, in the end I settled for decals of blue flames:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


I've been breaking my head over my manicure for the letter C in the ABC Challenge. I was thinking about circles, citrus colors, colors in general, brands that start with a C. I even asked my husband for inspirational words and he came up with Call of Duty (a computer game ;) and conflagration, cats, claws and caterpillars. Nothing sparked just the tiniest bit of a hint of an idea... Until I was in my mom's house yesterday to bring some groceries and saw a Chinese bowl in her showcase. That bowl has been there for as long as I live (probably even longer ;) and I can't remember looking at it twice until today, when I realized it was decorated using the cloisonné technique and <insert trumpets> that starts with a C (don't ask me why I know it's called that... I've known that all my life as well ;) So I've tried to translate the design to my nails and this is the result:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


Yes, it's me... complete with separated fingers as the tape FINALLY came off last Friday! My finger was quite swollen after it was released but that has mostly subsided by now and all you can see now is that it's slightly thicker but it's perfectly straight and with the exercises I have to do I should be able to use it as if nothing happened within a few weeks :) I've been scrubbing my skin like my life depended on it and I think I've used an entire bottle of cuticle oil to pamper my digits and after all that I think I'm sort of ready to show my nails again... so I present my current manicure:

indoors, no flash

It's not that spectacular but I had some official events to go to so the spectacle has to wait a little longer... I'm just happy I can polish my nails again!!

Hi everyone!


Yup, that's right... another post from me and you didn't have to wait two weeks for it :)
After a week and a half of feeling lousy, droopy nose, shivering, etc. and no interest in my nails at all, I looked at my hands this morning and decided to go for bright and bling and in-your-face... and ended up with this manicure:

indoor, no flash

The bling is there... sort of... but bright or in-your-face? Not so much! I don't care though, I think they look pretty :)