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

World Inspired Colours by Herôme - Bogota

Today I have a nail polish on from Herôme, a Dutch hand and nail care brand. A while ago Herôme created a line of polishes inspired by the riches and colourfulness of the world. The name of this line: World Inspired Colours (W.I.C.) -you didn't saw that coming, ey? ;)-. They gave each polish the name of a city and this one is named after the capital of Colombia, Bogota. Bogota is a muted periwinkle coloured polish with rosy gold glass flecks in it. I don't know what Bogota (the city) has to do with periwinkle and goldish glass flecks, but I honestly don't care.. :O What's more important: I love glass flecked polishes and this one's no exception. They're so sparkly!

The application was ok. I bought this polish a year ago and it thickened a little, but after adding some drops of polish thinner (I finally found it!) you're good to go! This is two coats with top coat.

Thanks for watching!

How To Wrap Your Tips

Did you know that applying a little bit of polish at the end of the free edge of your nail (the nail tip) makes the nail polish last longer? The free edge of your nail suffers the most from everyday chores, so the polish will damage easily. That is what we call tip wear. A bit of polish on the nail tip can prevent that. And it doesn't only extend the wear of your beautiful polished nails, I think it looks very nice too.

I tried different ways to apply nail polish on my tips. The way I'll show you in this post works best for me and is in my opinion the neatest!

First a picture of my nails with three wrapped/covered tips and one unwrapped (I guess I don't have to explain which one that is :O ). The polish I'm using is Kristi from Zoya, a juicy red.

Ok, let's go.. How to get neat wrapped nail tips without globs of nail polish under the nail?

• Make sure your nail is clean, dry and oil-free;

• Apply your base coat. Also put a little bit on your nail tip (the same way I explain below) to protect the nails from staining;

• Start off with the first layer of polish;

• When you covered your whole nail make sure there's just a little bit of polish left on the brush, wipe off the excess if necessary;

• Place your brush in a 90 degree angle (see picture below). You're going to use the side of the brush for wrapping;

• Wrap those tips! Put the side of the brush against the nail tip and swipe the  brush from left to right to cover the whole tip with polish (see picture below);

• Add a second layer of polish on the nail if necessary. You can wrap your tip again;

• Wrap your tip with a little bit of top coat. Then cover the whole nail with top coat to seal everything.

And voila, you're done! :) Then it looks something like this:

See? Nothing under the nail, just on the tips.

Another picture of the end result:

I hope this howto was helpful! Do you wrap your tips while polishing your nails? Or do you change your nail colour so often it's not worth the extra trouble?

Thanks for watching!

The Christmas Story: What Christmas Means to Me

link

The Christmas Story from Luke: Chapter 2

1 About that time Emperor Augustus gave orders for the names of all the people to be listed in record books. 

2 These first records were made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 

3 Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. 4 So Joseph had to leave Nazareth in Galilee and go to Bethlehem in Judea. Long ago Bethlehem had been King David's hometown, and Joseph went there because he was from David's family. 

5 Mary was engaged to Joseph and traveled with him to Bethlehem. She was soon going to have a baby, 6 and while they were there, 7 she gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in baby clothes and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 That night in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep. 9 All at once an angel came down to them from the Lord, and the brightness of the Lord's glory flashed around them. The shepherds were frightened. 10 But the angel said, “Don't be afraid! I have good news for you, which will make everyone happy. 11 This very day in King David's hometown a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. 12 You will know who he is, because you will find him dressed in baby clothes and lying on a bed of hay.” 

13 Suddenly many other angels came down from heaven and joined in praising God. They said:

14 “Praise God in heaven!

Peace on earth to everyone

who pleases God.”

15 After the angels had left and gone back to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let's go to Bethlehem and see what the Lord has told us about.” 16 They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and they saw the baby lying on a bed of hay. 

17 When the shepherds saw Jesus, they told his parents what the angel had said about him. 18 Everyone listened and was surprised. 19 But Mary kept thinking about all this and wondering what it meant. 

20 As the shepherds returned to their sheep, they were praising God and saying wonderful things about him. Everything they had seen and heard was just as the angel had said.

source

I wish you all a merry Christmas! :h May God bless you!

Zoya - Kristi

This is Zoya Kristi. A red creme. An awesome red, the perfect red. In my opinion, that is... :O

It applied like butter, this is two coats with topcoat. If you don't want any visible nail line you can add one extra coat.

Another winner from Zoya, great job!

Thanks for watching!

Catrice - Run Forest Run!

I don't know what's wrong with my bottle of Run Forest Run! from Catrice. I seriously think they stuffed silicone paste in mine.. my goodness, the application was a nightmare. Catrice, first you spoil me with your nice polishes and now you give me this gummy, gloopy stuff? I'm disappointed. No, I'm sad..

Ok, enough with the complaining, I think a bit of thinner will help! I have a bottle of thinner, but it disappeared somehow. So I'll have to find it first before I put RFR on my nails again. 

On to the colour, it's a forest green. I find it a bit of a boring green though, it screams for a fancy stamping pattern, a sparkle or even a glitter :) But that's for another time, because I already removed it. Yeah, I was thát frustrated, lol. 

Did I mentioned I dó like the name of this polish? While applying it felt more like Run Amy Run! though.. :O

Thanks for watching!

Ladybug Galore

My nails didn't see a lot of nail polish the past days due to me being busy baking a special cake. I'm always afraid the nail polish will fall off suddenly while baking and disappear in the cake *shivers*. So.. as you might have guessed one of the things I love to do, next to polishing zhe nailz, is baking cakes! And to decorate cakes with marzipan and stuff... (and of course eating them afterwards, nom). This weekend I made a ladybug cake for a sweet, sweet girl who turned 1 today, hurray! Not that she'll remember the cake, but hey, at least her parents will (and I still have the pictures ;) ). 

When I was done baking and decorating I decided to paint a ladybug on one of my nails. The red I used is Zoya Kristi. What an awesome red! The pictures doesn't show the colour at its best, but I'll make a special post for Kristi soon. I handpainted the black details with Konad Special Polish in Black, because it's so pigmented. It's not the easiest polish to work with, because it's so gloopy, but it worked for now. Then I used two little silver rhinestones for the eyes. And I finished with a nice thick layer of Seche Vite! I actually almost never do nail art like this and I must say: r.e.s.p.e.c.t. for all those girls (and boys!) who can turn nails into beautiful miniature paintings! :b

Do you like to bake? And I'm curious, do you wear polish while baking?

Thanks for watching!