Glitter Gradient with Shimmer Polish - Gerry & Caroline

For this mani I used two spectacular nail polishes (three if I count in the base colour). I was wearing Indigo from Barry M for two days and decided it was the perfect base for Shimmer Polish - Gerry, a dark violet glitter polish with blue glitter and so much more. A stunner for sure! I applied two easy coats. I wanted to try a glitter gradient, so I also used Shimmer Polish - Caroline (grape purple glitter) just on the tips of my nails. The sparkle is out of this world, so pretty! You have to believe me if I say that the gradient is more visible in real life (purple is not the easiest colour to photograph). I needed two generous layers of top coat for smooth and glossy nails. 

These Shimmer Polish shades are hot, aren't they? :L This brand is available at Cindy's Etsy store.

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*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Sweet Gradient Nails & Cake

This time my nails inspired me to make a cake. I was wearing this pink gradient mani when I decided to make a cake for my husband (last Friday we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!). Well, why not try to make it a gradient cake? It's not an exact match to the nails (I only had red food colouring), but I like it muchos! ^^ For the nails I used three coats of Barry M - Bright Pink and Gamax - Rosa Shocking to make the gradient. Then I added one layer of JENsations - Be My Valentine. A great glitter topper with hot pink and light pink hexes and light pink hearts. I had to fish a little for the hearts, but other than that it's a nice polish to work with.

You can find Be My Valentine in Jen's Etsy shop for $7,50/€6,13 (10 ml).  

Thanks for watching!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Rainbow Candy Cane Nails

A rainbow candy cane, that's what this mani reminds me of.. just perfect for a sweet tooth like me! The base colour I used is OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls and the design is from Bundle Monster plate BM-301. I wanted a gradient look for the stamped lines, below you can find a little how-to.

1. Pick two colours and paint two stripes on the image. Leave some space between the stripes.

2. Swirl the colours together with a toothpick.

3. Grab a scraper and scrape the excess polish off. 

4. Place the stamp on the design, check if it transferred well and roll it over the nail. Work fast or the polish will turn too dry to stamp with. Some parts of the design are missing on my stamp because I had to take pictures. ^_^

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products used

white (base): OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls

red: Essence - Hot Red

orange: Essence - Andy, You're a Star

yellow: Catrice - Bye, Bye Birdy!

green: NYC - High Line Green

blue: Barry M - Cobalt Blue

purple: China Glaze - Grape Pop

stamping plate: Bundle Monster BM-301

Euro 2012 Nails

Today the Dutch football team will play their first match of Euro 2012! Our national colour is orange, but if I can avoid wearing it, I will. So I painted my nails with a grassy green (High Line Green from NYC), matching the football field. ^^ I used straight french tip guides to create the Dutch flag. I kinda like it.. the only downside of the green base is that the white stripe slowly got a greenish hue. Oh well, I'm ready, bring it on!

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Flamingo Inspired Nails

Today I'm showing you another bird inspired mani (click here if you missed my peacock nails!). The colours I used for this gradient (Barry M - Peach Melba & Orly - Pixy Stix) reminded me very much of the colouring of a flamingo, so I decided to do some accent nails with feathers. For the feathers I used plate BM-214 and Konad Special Nail Polish in White. I added some sparkly accents on the feathers with Rica from Zoya. I hope you like the end result as much as I do! ^_^

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Peach!

Today's mani is all about the colour peach! I used three coats of Barry M - Peach Melba on most nails and Catrice - I Scream Peach! for some accent nails. The circles are from Konad plate m65 and I stamped with Konad Special Nail Polish in White. At first I wanted to add rhinestones, but I prefer smooth nails so I placed a couple of dots with sparkly Rica from Zoya. The result: peachy 'springy' nails.. just what I was going for! :)

Thanks for watching and have a nice weekend!

Bright Pink Glitter Nails

Who can resist bright pink glitter nails? I know I can't! ♥ For this mani I started with two coats of Barry M - Pink Flamingo. Then I added one of Catrice's Million Styles Effect Top Coats, Million Dollar Baby, a top coat with small gold hex glitter and medium-sized silver hexes. Silver you say? Then why do I see pink glitter? That's because I also added a layer of the sheer pink jelly of Essence's Colour³ nail polish called Brightsmates. Oh yes, you're looking at a glitter sandwich! ^_^ My camera freaked out a little (actually a lot *sigh*), my nails are obviously pink, but not neon pink in real life (that would've been nice too!). The close-up picture is more colour accurate than the first pic.

Thanks for watching! :h

Glittering Blue

I'd like you to meet Have An Ice Day, one of the stunning Million Styles Effect Top Coats from Catrice. This top coat has a clear base with tiny prismatic glitters. Ooh, sparklies! ♥ It looks a million times more awesome in real life, the sparkly effect is difficult to capture on a photograph. The bottle pic below came out pretty nice though. I'm wearing two coats of Have An Ice Day over Barry M - Cobalt Blue. The finish is slightly gritty, but a good layer of regular top coat will fix that. 

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Indigo Lunar Eclipse

I love snow. But when it starts snowing at the moment I want to photograph my fresh new mani, I hate snow. I wish I had more pictures to show you, this looks so awesome! Recently I finally bought Barry M - Indigo, an insanely gorgeous blurple creme (the colour was hard to capture on camera, it looks much deeper and purplier irl). Indigo applied beautifully, two coats were enough for full opacity. I wanted to add something to it without losing too much of that beautiful colour so I lightly sponged the tips of my nails with Lunar Eclipse from Orly. This is a dreamy combination, I like it very much! Indigo is such a stunner, why haven't I bought it earlier? In my experience Barry M never disappoints!

Thanks for watching and enjoy your weekend!

Rubik's Cube Cake + Nail Art

I want to show you guys another cake I made, an edible Rubik's Cube this time. I made this cake for my brother's birthday (in case you're wondering, I have three brothers, I'm the only girl :) ). This was the hardest cake I've made so far, it costed me blood, sweat and tears, but the end result made me forget all of that. I filled the cake with lemon curd and lemon cheesecake bavarois, it was scrumptiously delicious!

Needless to say, this cake inspired me to do some nail art: fun times! (If you want to see more cake inspired nail art posts you can click here). I used tape and free handed a bit. I started with the different coloured blocks (colour blocking to the max I say!), I waited for them to dry a little and added a layer of topcoat. Then I applied the black lines. After doing some touch-ups with acetone and a small nail art brush to create crisper lines I added another layer of topcoat. Doing one nail took me quite some time, luckily I'm a big fan of accent nails. ;) On the rest of my nails I applied Jade Is The New Black from OPI.

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The nail polishes I used:

jade green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black, blue: Barry M - Cobalt Blue, red: Zoya - Kristi, orange: Essence - Andy, You're A Star, yellow: Catrice - Don't Feed The Birds, white: La Femme Beauty - White, black: Essence - Fatal.

Barry M - Pink Flamingo + Konad M64

It's an amazing sunny and hot day, so this morning I decided I wanted summery nails! I'm wearing a beautiful nail polish from Barry M, Pink Flamingo. A coral leaning pink creme; bright, but also milky looking (does this make any sense? It's kinda hard to describe, lol). The formula was somewhat thick, but warm weather can affect the consistency of a nail polish, so it can be different on a colder day. I used three coats. For the stamping I used one of my favourite designs from imageplate M64 and Konad Special Nail Polish in White. As you can see I had some trouble placing the design the same way on all nails.. ah well. I love the colours together and from a distance it looks pretty neat. :O 

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Colour Block Inspired Nails 2

A while ago I posted a colour block inspired mani and I loved it. I thought it would be fun to do a remake with different colours, so last night I threw all my creme nail polishes (a lot more than I thought! *whew*) on my bed to see what colour combinations would be cool and this is the result. As you can see I also practiced my taping skills. :) I like it. What about you?

The nail polishes I used:

dusty turquoise-green: Catrice - I Sea You!

smoky purply grey: Zoya - Caitlin

bright pink: Barry M - Shocking Pink

purply blue: Catrice - Pool Party At Night 

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Racing Green Meets Flakey Goodness

You guys know by now how much I like to sponge my nail tips with a sparkly polish, but there's another great way to spice up a mani: add flakies! So I layered two coats of the yummy Nfu Oh #54 over Barry M - Racing Green. This is a match made in heaven, I keep staring at my nails. The flakies, flashing from green to turquoise to blue, really stand out on the dark green base. I love Nfu Oh, they sure know how to make great nail polishes! The only downside of their beautiful flakey polishes (at least the ones I have) is the drying time. They take forever to dry, even with a fast drying topcoat on top, boo. :|

This reminds me of my beloved Caribbean Sea, hmmm...

Thanks for watching and have a great weekend!

Barry M - Racing Green

The nail polish I'm showing you today was on my wishlist for so long I almost forgot it was on there. I really wanted it, but sometimes you have to prioritize when it comes to buying polishes. Y'all know what I mean, right? ;) Last week I decided to order some Barry M polishes and of course Racing Green was one of them. Man, I wish I would've met this gorgeous dark green sooner. The green and gold (?) shimmer makes my nails glow! I want my car to look like this, seriously. 

The formula of Racing Green is great. I used three coats (no topcoat), just to be safe, but you'll get an opaque result after two coats. 

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Skittle Nails with a Skittle Funky French

Yesterday I was in the mood for something fun, which resulted in: skittle nails with skittle french tips. For the base colours I used pastels, for the funky french brighter or darker colours. What can I say..? I love this! 

I know now why I never include my thumb in my pictures, it's not photogenic at all, it looks fat. But enough with the whining, lol.

All the polishes I used were cremes:

	Base Colour	Tip Colour
thumb	Essie – Body Language	OPI – You Don’t Know Jacques
forefinger	Zoya – Caitlin	China Glaze – Grape Pop
middle finger	China Glaze – For Audrey	OPI – Jade is The New Black
ringfinger	OPI – Mod About You	Barry M – Shocking Pink
pinkie	China Glaze – Agent Lavender	Zoya - Kelly

What a list. *wipes off forehead* :i

Oh, I almost forgot.. I want to share a tip! You can make (funky) french tips by using french tip guides/tape or paint them on freehand. I like to do it freehand, but on days with shaky hands the line could be a bit wobbly. If you want a straighter line apply a layer of topcoat over the base colour before applying the french tips and let it dry. Then add the french tips and let them dry a bit. Now you can take a small brush, dip it in some nail polish remover, dab the excess off and carefully remove little mistakes. Because of the layer of topcoat you're not ruining the base colour. Add another layer of topcoat and you're done!

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Happy New Year!

I'm actually not a chunky-glitter-polish person, but for today (well, actually tonight) I made an exception.. The beginning of the year 2011 is a once in a lifetime experience after all!! :O

I used one layer of Barry M - Cobalt Blue and two coats of China Glaze - Dorothy Who? on top of it. For me it's definitely firework on the nails!


Now I'm moving to the kitchen to bake a lot of yummy 'oliebollen' (free translation: oil balls, hmm, that actually sounds very very bad, ha-ha) for tonight!

I wish you all a ...

  

       HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :party

Barry M - Dusky Mauve

natural light

lamp light

Today I have a polish from Barry M for you to look at. It's called Dusky Mauve (I like that name!), a dark taupe with violet shimmer. The shimmer isn't that visible in low light actually, but under bright light it's clearly visible and gorgeous. Of course the sun was shy when I was ready to photograph my nails, but let me say that this polish will surprise you on a sunny day! :O

The application was very nice, two coats were enough for an opaque finish. 

Thanks for watching!

Pink Ribbon - Polish Your Pinkie Pink

As you all may know October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Etos (a Dutch drugstore) asked women to polish their little finger nail with a pink polish during this month to raise awareness for this type of cancer. They also brought out some special Pink Ribbon polishes; a part of the proceed goes to the Pink Ribbon foundation. I haven't bought them, beacuse I feel more comfortable donating money directly to the foundation (and I didn't like the polishes that much..).

Anyway, I polished my pinkie pink with Barry M - Shocking Pink. The polish I used on the rest of my nails is Zoya - Kelly. And as you can see I added a ribbon to my ringfinger, which I drew by hand with a little nail art brush and a couple of pink polishes (don't know which ones exactly, as long as it's pink :) ). 

Thanks for watching!