What's on my nails today?

Hi everyone!

I looked at the week's prompt (Orange + Silver) and I was stumped... I didn't have a clue what to do with it! Usually with these prompts, I would pair two colors with white and go for a dotticure but I just wasn't in the mood for that. Then, all of a sudden, I realized there is another design that only asks for pretty colors: plaid! And that's what I did, an orange and silver plaid manicure:

Hi everyone!


This week's theme is Half Moon. Apparently this type of manicure became popular in the 1920s. It's almost 100 years later but it still hasn't become popular with me, so I wasn't looking forward to this prompt. That is until I saw a gorgeous manicure by @helenepiuk and within an hour, this was the result of that blast of inspiration:

Hi everyone!


The last Friday (and actually the last day) of January so the fourth year of Triads has begun. Can you believe Juanita, Michelle and I have been doing this for three years already? Juanita picked the inspiration for this month: marble and rose gold by Marta from manicure.d. And after some (read: a lot!!) struggling this is what I came up with:

Hi everyone!


Another month has passed and again, no posts from me... Life really should slow down but at this moment I don't see that happening in the near future. Oh well, at least every month there is the Friday Triad where Juanita, Michelle and I take turns in choosing a manicure that should inspire each of us. Sometimes the result is a recreation, sometimes it's completely different (I'm still waiting for black and white unicorns, Mich!), but the inspiration is the pick of the month one of us sends to the others. This month Michelle chose this pretty geometric design by Emilia aka polishpixie92.

I immediately knew I wanted to use autumnal colors and maybe a glitter crelly but apart from that, not a clue... It was only when I unwrapped a small gift from my hubby that inspiration started flowing and this is what my version looks like:

Hi everyone!


I wanted to do a happy, colorful manicure so I started out... by picking gray and white ;)
Of course I picked those non-colors for a reason, I wanted them to look nice with the yellow I had in mind. Yellow didn't happen though because I spotted the beautifullest (yep, I've decided that's a word) lime green bottle when I was searching for... what was that color again? So green it was... and that's how this happened:

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!


It's the last Friday of the month again, so it's time for the Friday Triad manicure. This month I got to pick the inspiration and I did... sort of. What happened? Late September I had narrowed down my choice to a few swirly and/or floral designs (to be honest, I can't even remember which ones ;) so I asked my husband which one he liked best. He didn't like any of them as the end of October means Halloween so he figured I should go for dark, ghouly, creepy... and he wouldn't let me pick anything else! And me being the sweet wife that I am (ha, in his dreams!!!) I figured it wasn't a bad idea so I started searching for something that I liked. We finally settled on a cemetery scene by Bedizzlenails. Unfortunately neither blog or instagram of the creator are online so I can only link to the image itself. Here's my version:

Hi everyone,

it's that time again... when I realize I still have manicures that are patiently waiting for their place in the spotlight while my roller coaster life takes up all free time. This time I have no less than four manicures for you!

Let start with the first one:

Yesterday was a sad day for my family and me as we had to say a final farewell to my cousin.
His motto was: live your best life.
This one's for him.

Hi everyone!


The good news is that this week I didn't have to work until way past my bedtime. Instead I had to start at 6:00 AM... so I'm still in debate which week was worse ;) But I did manage to find some time to do the next prompt for the 52 Week Nail Art Challenge: Holographic.

Anyone who has been to this blog before knows I love holographic polishes. I absolute love those sparkly, grabby-hands-inducing bottles with their rainbows when the light hits them, so I have plenty of them which makes picking a polish a challenge, to say the least ;) So I decided to go for two, one with large holographic glitters and the other with the velvet-y, glow-from-within, scattered holo finish that I absolutely adore. Combined with some white and black this is the result:

Hi everyone,


it's official now, I'm a certified nutcase. It's past midnight on Friday January 26th and I've just finished photographing the manicure I did in the last hour. You could say I should plan ahead better (or just plan ahead) but this time I was completely innocent! What should have been a nice, relaxed week with plenty of time to play with polishes has turned into a string of work related crises and working overtime three nights in a row. Of course that's nice for my polish budget but the bags under my eyes are proof that sleep might be a good thing once in a while ;)

But you're not here to hear me complain about my job (that I love btw.), you want to see nails... so here is what my fuzzy brain and bleary eyes managed to create from this inspiration by Dorra aka didoline:

Hi everyone!


Officially I should still be working so I'm going to keep this short but boy, is it sweet :)

My manicure for the third prompt of the 52 Week Nail Art Challenge features both an unused polish but an unused plate as well. I won't say too much about the plate (as I wasn't too impressed) but the polish... *swoons*

Come take a look!

Hi everyone,


week 2 of the 52 Week Nail Art Challenge is one of the prompts I dreaded the most... water marble! There are some techniques that are terrifying and water marble is very high on that list as far as I'm concerned. I had a really cute design in mind and found the perfect polishes... only to discover they wouldn't spread. No matter what I did (water slightly warmer, cooler, filtered, tap, different cups) I just couldn't get a nice bull's eye. So in the end I just went for different polishes and this is the result:

Hi everyone!


A quick post to show off the manicure I wore for Christmas. I didn't go for colorful but stuck to different shades of gray so all attention would go to my new cognac colored suede jacket (that I was inordinately proud of ;)

Hi everyone!


What is a girl to do when her significant other has received a brand new pc game and has been playing it for two days straight? (yep, he actually took time off to play it...) Paint her nails of course! So while digital villains were slain and the most horrible sounds blurted from the speakers on my left, I sat down to play with pretty colors and patterns. This is the result (of the playing, not the slaying):

Hi everyone,


yesterday my husband decided he wanted to go out... and of course he only informed me at the latest possible moment! I had just removed my manicure after breaking my thumbnail (yep, again... so only four digit pictures until it has grown back) so I wasn't too pleased with his timing. Fortunately someone invented quick dry top coat so after 5 minutes of changing into a clean pair of jeans and a top (yep, did that before painting my nails... I can be smart sometimes ;) and 10 minutes of nail decorating I was ready to go, wearing these nails:

Hi everyone!


When selecting colors for my green-to-blue gradient I had also put aside three polishes by Il était un vernis that were in the pink/purple range. They combined perfectly so I decided to use them for another gradient. I added a very dark purple polish to the lineup and a white tribal stamp and here's the result:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


Yesterday tragedy struck... and I might even put that word in capitals: TRA-GE-DY! What happened, you ask? Let me tell you (make sure to have some tissues close by and maybe something strengthening, like chocolate).

I was happily sitting at my desk, working on something I can't even remember and I still don't know what I did exactly but my laptop slid off my desk. I tried to catch it and I managed to tear off both my thumbnails beyond the free edge while rescuing said piece of hardware from death by gravity <Chopin's Funeral March starts to play> After I recovered from the shock and assessed the damage it was clear there was no way to save my poor nails so I filed away the sharp bits that were sticking out and was left with two ultra nubs that were still covered in the polish of the manicure I did earlier that day... and that I didn't take pictures of yet! I decided to take pictures of the remaining four fingers and leave my thumb out of the picture. You wouldn't want to see all the redness and band aids anyway, right? So this is the first of many manicures without a thumb:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


As I had an official business thing to go to on Monday, the pretty pinks had to be replaced with something that looked sort of professional, so of course I started at the latest possible moment and I've just now found the time to edit the pictures and write a quick post to show off my office friendly nails:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


How has 2017 been treating you so far? For me it's been a mix of very positive, some negative and perpetual lack of time. I started out by studying almost day and night for the exam I had to take on the 6th. I guess the work paid off as I passed with flying colors. I was literally jumping up and down when I got the score and in my enthusiasm I managed to bang into a door face first so I've been sporting this... ehm... interesting bruise on my cheek and jaw for a week now. I guess I have been lucky though. I mean, I could have broken a nail ;) Polish-wise I wore my sparkly green nails until exam day as I simply didn't want to spend time doing anything but cram the required knowledge in my head. After the close encounter with the door my exasperated husband almost begged me to sit down and play with colors for a while, as I probably couldn't damage myself or my surroundings doing that. This is the result:

indoors, no flash