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!


Of course the 52 week nail art challenge prompt for this week couldn't be anything but Easter. I'm pretty sure lots of bunnies, chicks and eggs will pop up in our feeds but I didn't really feel like doing that. When I think of Easter, I think of the midnight mass my parents used to take us kids to, the silence in the dark church where only a few lamps were turned on, the lighting of the candle, the feeling that something big was going to happen (and staying up late and walking outside in the middle of the night made it even more special). Another thing that I associate with Easter (and Spring in general) is pastel colors, so I combined this in my Easter manicure:

Hi everyone!


This week's theme couldn't have come at a better time. The prompt is 'Unused polish' and my husband spoiled me rotten with a huge box of Masura polishes so the biggest problem was what polish to use :) I settled on some pretty holographic polishes that reminded me of Spring and ice cream:

Hi everyone!


Last week I had some work related meetings where customers would be present as well. My colleagues are already used to seeing all sorts of colors and designs on my nails but I try to tone it down a bit when I know there will be "outsiders" (as it's strange enough for them to see a female tech, let alone one with neon colored unicorns on her nails ;) On the other hand the forecast promised gorgeous summer weather with lots of sunshine so I wanted holo on my nails, and lots of it! This manicure is the combination of both:

Hi everyone!


The prompt for this week is Zodiac. I didn't know much about it, but I knew my sign was Sagittarius aka the Archer. As I have a plate that has a picture of constellations I figured I would be all set. Ha! Not so much! I couldn't get the image to stamp on my nails, no matter what stamper, polish, scraper or technique I used: no way no how, not a snowflake's chance in hell, or whatever phrase you prefer to express total impossibility... So I started googling for inspiration.

I now know my Chinese sign is Monkey (not that that helps much as I don't own any plates with a monkey on them, but hey, I can now make screeching sounds and tell people I can't help it because I'm a monkey ;) and I found that both amethyst and tanzanite are birthstones for Sagittariuses (or is that Sagittarii?). That was something I could work with and this manicure is the result:

Hi everyone!


I know, week 12 is missing. It won't be for long but as I managed to delete all pictures of that manicure and had to redo it, the Vinyls manicure you'll see soon was on my nails later than this one so I figured I would show this manicure first.

Easter isn't a holiday that triggers a lot of ideas for me. Of course the colors I think of are pastel but that's because Easter is in Spring (over here anyway). Since I'm not too keen on eggs or bunnies on my nails I decided to go with pastels, lilac and purple to be more specific:

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!


Anyone who knows me a bit knows that I'm not a big fan of polishes that are basically everything but the kitchen sink in a bottle, you know: glitter + holo + flakies + whatever else can be stuffed in there. It has to be a very special polish that has a lot going on and that catches my eye... but it happened! I have a gorgeous purple polish with thingies to show you so without further ado, here's my manicure:

Hi everyone!


It's the last Friday of the month again so Michelle, Juanita and me are ready (or at least we should be ;) to show you our version of the manicure Michelle chose, this lovely black-n-pink one by Kakine Nail Art.

Rest assured, I didn't freehand the swirls. I tried and tried but it looked horrible and that was on my non-dominant hand so I didn't even try to do it on my dominant phalanges. I know what my strong points are and freehanding anything isn't one of them! So I played and fiddled and pulled polishes out of my stash (I had 30 of them on my desk at one point ;) and experimented some more while the clock steadily ticked on, and the calendar crept closer to the last day of the month... but thanks to a happy accident I created something that I really liked so without further ado here's my Friday Triad manicure for the month of June:


I think there's a lot of the original manicure in there, just not the freehand part or the colors or the metallic finish... but it's still recognizable, right?

Hi everyone,


the last Friday of the month is here so it's time for the monthly Triad manicure with Juanita and Michelle. This month's inspiration was chosen by Juanita and is the first manicure in this article by Paulina from Paulina's Passions: roses on sheer black.

This is my version:

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

Hi everyone,


after searching through my husbands english dictionary (yep, the old fashioned paper kind, a huge Webber dictionary that could easily be used to step on to reach the highest shelves as it's at least 6 inches thick!), I still couldn't find anything that I could use as starting point for my entry for the letter X of the ABC Challenge. I finally decided to see if I happened to have a polish with a name that started with an X. Lo and behold, I actually had one: a lovely lilac colored holographic beauty named Xochitl. After I googled the word xochitl (as it wasn't in Webber's) it finally clicked. Xochitl is a name that is used in central and southern Mexico and it means 'flower' (thank you Wikipedia ;) So I decided to go with a simple manicure that featured lilac colored flowers, and this is it:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


I've been contemplating skipping the Q as I don't like the result of my Sunday experiment one bit... but it has been on my nails (past tense, you didn't think it would last very long if I didn't like it, right?) so it's going to be on my blog. So without further ado I present my Q manicure: quilted nails (or rather one quilted nail as one is more than plenty ;)

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


Yep, you read that right... before this manicure I've never worn leopard print on my nails. Sure, I tried a few times but even a plain house cat wouldn't want the results on it's fur... but the saying goes that practice makes perfect so I decided to try again. I couldn't decide on what colors to use so I did what I always do in a situation like that: I asked my husband. He told me I should do a purple manicure, even though I wanted to do leopard print... Being the sweet wife that I am, I pulled out about 15-20 different purples and made him choose. He picked a lilac and a darker purple and that was my starting point. This is the result:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


After a exhausting week at work (working late, very late and even later than that, coming home and collapsing in bed) it's FINALLY weekend! It really should have come three or four days ago ;) But now that it is here I finally had the chance to change my manicure and I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


When browsing for some inspiration I came across this manicure. I had a white and a lilac polish on my desk, patiently waiting to be put away and this is what happened next:

indoors, no flash

Hi everyone!


You didn't think I had the willpower to NOT try out the new Zoya Delight polishes, did you? :)
I'm working at home today, or rather, studying for an exam so I decided to study a chapter and, as a short break, paint my nails with one of the Delight polishes. I don't know about you but I just can't study for hours on end without breaks so I figured this would be a nice way to get the polishes swatched. I've decided to start with the metallic shimmers: Rayne, Leslie and Daisy.

Zoya Delight Spring 2015: Rayne, Leslie and Daisy

Hi everyone!


A brand new limited edition collection by Catrice was displayed in the drugstore this morning and I brought the polishes home with me.

Hi everyone!


Today a manicure I had on for an entire week. Not because I love it so much (although I do love it) but because it has been so busy I haven't been near a bottle of polish, let alone have the time to paint my nails :(

I was going through my polishes, looking for inspiration to do a darker, more autumn-y manicure and I spotted a gorgeous royal purple: a-england Avalon... and after that this happened:

Purple and lilac manicure - indoors, no flash