What's on my nails today?

Hi everyone!


While swatching Hema Living Coral I realized how much I actually like coral and peach colored nails. So of course I had to play a little with some more pretty polishes in that color range :)

Hi everyone,


last Saturday my husband brought home a little gift to cheer me up: a pretty coral polish called Living Coral. The brand is called Hema, which is a general warehouse chain in the Netherlands (branching out to other European countries) that sells just about anything you can think of (baby clothes, house hold appliances, food, etc.) and that has quite an extensive beauty line that includes dozens of nail polish colors. The quality varies... a lot! Some are fast drying one coaters, others are patchy and streaky and never seem to dry, so let's see in what category the latest addition to my stash falls.

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!


Another month has almost passed so it's time for the Triad manicure again. That means I had to find a clean spot and some peace and quiet to do a manicure using the inspiration Michelle chose, an absolutely gorgeous manicure by Yulia from Yulia's Nails (@yyulia_m on Instagram). This is a manicure that actually was on my to do list, so I had plenty of ideas. Of course those ideas were nowhere to be found when it came to making a list for my husband who had to get my polishes from the storage they're still in (still no finished kitchen... but there is definitely some light at the end of the tunnel as the renovations have started again. ETA is now the last week of June/first week of July).

As I really needed to start on those nails, I asked him to help me out and pick some colors he liked from the swatch pictures I have of all my polishes and bring them home. This is the result of our collaboration... and I love it!

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!


It feels like February has only just started but it's the last Friday of the month already so it's time for another episode of the Triad manicures, where Michelle, Juanita and myself take turns in picking a manicure that all of us use as inspiration for our own nails. So it may be a copy, something that looks like the original or something you can't even imagine has anything to do with the choice of the month (like black-n-white unicorns ;) but as long as it has been inspired by it, it's good :) My manicure definitely falls into the last category this month. Want to see what happened? Read on :)

Juanita picked a lovely, summer manicure with palm leaves and leopard spots by Tionna from Playful Polishes. I loved it at first sight! But... as all my polish and all my tools are still safely tucked away in storage (let's just say my dream kitchen has turned into a nightmare and we probably won't wake up until early May... if we're lucky) painting my nails is quite a challenge as I really have to plan what I want to do, make a list of anything and everything I need and ask my husband to get it for me (I don't even dare to go there as everything is stacked on top of everything else and he knows how to get to things safely but I would probably wreak havoc). Once I have everything, I have to find a relatively quiet place to sit down, play and take pictures. So at this moment, painting my nails isn't the fun, relaxing experience it used to be. But no way I was going to let J and M down, so I did all the planning and listing and asking and ended up with a rainbow of bright, happy colors in front of me. And I didn't feel it at all... not one spark of inspiration!

Life happened, time passed, and Valentine's Day came along, with all its displays of red and pink and roses, and I decided I would try a manicure with a white base, pale and a bit darker green for the leaves and red for the leopard spots that I wanted to replace with small roses. So the rainbow went back to storage and the chosen polishes returned with that miracle of patience that I'm married to. Except this time he picked the wrong ones... he picked a gorgeous red, but instead of greens he grabbed gray polishes. I figured I could try them and if I really didn't like it, a third trip would be in order... and this is the result:

Hi everyone,


Surprised to see me? Me too!

To be honest, I didn't think I was going to make it this month. Last year we decided to get our kitchen redone. All was planned perfectly and we should have had only one week of mayhem, after which I would have a gorgeous new kitchen. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! You probably guessed it, for most of the last four weeks I've been surrounded with chaos, dust, plaster, paint and all other stuff that guys apparently thrive on and that forced me to put my entire stash in storage to keep my beauties safe.

So much for my plans to join the 52 Week Nail Art Challenge 2019 edition... (but I hope to catch up once all is back to normal). But nothing could keep me from the Triad manicure! So I picked the colors and the plate I wanted to use by googling swatches and reviews on my mobile, wrote down the names, made my husband dig up the bottles as he went to get some more things we needed and went over to my mom to paint my nails and take pictures with her camera as mine is... ehm... somewhere I can't find it at the moment.

But all obstacles aside, here's my version of Michelle's pick by Nails by Jema:

Hi everyone!


As I already expected, I didn't have the chance to write one last blog in 2018 with the December nails that were patiently waiting on my camera but as I have some unexpected free time (I guess that's the only advantage of back problems) I decided to write this post and give them their spot in the, slightly belated, spotlight.

Let's start with the manicure I did for my mother-in-law's birthday, early December:

Hi everyone!


This month has felt like a runaway train with no brakes and me running behind it, trying to catch up... But this evening I FINALLY sat down with a mug of tea and declared I would turn in early. My husband grumbled something in agreement so when we were about to get ready for bed something suddenly dawned... this wasn't a Monday, it's a Thursday and not just any Thursday, it's Triad-day!! So my oasis of tranquility immediately turned into a frantic search for polishes, plates and, most important, inspiration to create something worthy of the beautiful, colorful, summer manicure by Claire of clairestelle8 that Juanita picked. Fortunately the polishers patron goddess (there has to be a deity devoted to nail art... I've been calling on her this entire evening) took pity on me and here I am, it's not even midnight yet and my nails look like this: