Lavender Stamping and a new layout!

Hey guys! I am back from my little break. I caught a nasty cold so it took a bit longer than I wanted to. I'm still not completely better but I did feel like fiddling around with nail art stuff, AND my blog layout. What do you think? I mainly wanted to change it so I could actually respond to the comments I get. I was starting to feel bad for not being able to interact with you guys properly. I hope you like the new layout. :)

So, I decided to try my hand  at stamping once again, since it had been a while. :D

Okay, my colour and plate choice was a bit random this time, haha. And as you can see, my stamping skills could really use some improvement. But keep in mind this is only about my fifth time doing a full manicure with stamping and that I have a lot to learn!

The base colour is NYC Lavender Cupcake, one of my favourite cremes. Since I don't have any Konad polishes (they have been on my wish list for a while now...) I rummaged through my stash trying to find a decent polish to stamp with. I ended up with Essence Unexpected Galaxy which is actually one of their colour changing nail polishes. I knew it was an opaque polish, though I wasn't sure what it was going to look like after I applied my top coat, haha Fortunately, it wasn't too bad!

I ended up stamping an image from one of my Born Pretty Store plates. This one is from stamping plate m65 and I thought it looked pretty groovy.

So what do you think? How bad of an attempt is this? Also, feel free to share any tips and tricks you might have for me!

Nail Polish Rings

Hello everyone! Today I have something different to show you. If you have been with me for a while you might remember the nail polish earrings I have posted about before. A while after I made that post, I decided to look into rings as well, and I have made quite a few. I took pictures of some of my favourites, which I will be showing in this post!

Also, would a how-to for nail polish jewlery be interesting? When I looked around for tutorials, I couldn't find many helpful ones, so if you're interested in seeing a tutorial by yours truly, let me know!

Anyway, let's start, shall we? Purple is my favourite colour for nail polish, so it's no surprise that my most favourite rings are all purple.

1. This picture does not do it justice, but this ring is SUPER sparkly in real life. I made this one with Claire's Purple Holographic Glitter that does not seem to have a name or number.

2. This ring is made with one of my favourite polishes in the world: Wet n' Wild Back Alley Deals. Guys, it's so pretty. I backed this one with black because the glitter didn't fully cover the back of the cabochon.

3. I don't remember what purple polish I used for this, but I do know I used the Spectraflair Topcoat by Piper Polish to give it a holographic shine. Again, the picture does not do it justice, but it looks amazing!

4. This one was an experiment that just happened to turn out awesome. I stamped NYC Platinum Card on the back of the Cabochon and then backed it up with Catrice Poison Me, Poison you. I love the result.

And now for some blues.

1. Oooh, sparkles! I used Claire's nameless blue glitter backed with black. I wear this one pretty often!

2. I'll be honest... I bought Essence Mr And Mrs Glitter just because I wanted to make a ring with it, since I don't like it on my nails very much. I'm glad I did, because this ring looks awesome. I backed it with black.

3. This ring didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but I like it nonetheless. This is Essence Glorious Aquarius, backed with NYC East Village.

4. The crackle hype is long over and considered 'lame' by many people nowadays, but it honestly works great for jewelry! This is Barry M's black crackle backed with Essence Choose Me!. I love this combination.

And some other ones, these had to have their pictures taken at an angle to show off how pretty they are.

1. Another crackle! This is Barry M's black crackle again, this time backed with Catrice Genius In A Bottle. My sister thought of this combination of colours and we both have earrings like this. Reminds me of tigers!

2. This was another experiment that turned out nice. I used Catrice Hot Or Not? for the hot pink, Essence Stampy Polish for the white, and Essence Sweet As Candy for the background.

3. This was actually the first ring I have ever made, and I used Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple backed with black. Very pretty!

4. And ofcourse, this is Essie Leading Lady. It looks amazing enough by itself, so that is the only polish I used for this ring. I probably wear this one most often out of all my rings. :)

I have more, ofcourse, but this post would be much too long if I wanted to show them all. I do hope you enjoyed seeing pictures of them! Nail polish jewelry is so much fun to make and I'll definitely be making more, so expect more posts about this sometime in the future.

Reddit Challenge - Week 10: Winter

Winter has begun! As I am typing this blog post, it's snowing like crazy outside, so this week's theme in the Reddit 52 Week Challenge is very fitting: Winter.

Recently I've been seeing very pretty freehanded snowflake manicures on Reddit and other site, and I really loved them, so I wanted to do something similar. I am still awful at freehanding, however, so I used my stamping and dotting tools for my manicure.

Here is what I came up with. The blue base is Essence I Love Bad Boys, which has a subtle but very nice looking blue shimmer in it. I wanted to use a lighter base but I don't have that many blues yet, haha.

Then I stamped over it! I used one of the plates that I ordered from Born Pretty Store, and Essence Stampy Polish in white. I think I did a pretty good job at the stamping this time, even though it smudged here and there. With the same white polish I used my dotting tools to make snow flakes!

I felt like there was something missing, though. I wanted it to be more sparkly! So then I added some rhinestones, slapped a topcoat on it, and it was done. I think this manicure came out super cute, I hope you like it too! :D

Herôme Take Away 'Chique Red'

Autumn has arrived! I like autum and winter, because it means I get to wear darker, vampy shades. Wearing those in the summer feels a bit odd to me! Today I am showing you a polish I recently bought that I think is going to be one of my autumn favourites.

When I was at my boyfriend's house, we went shopping in a mall and in one of the drug stores I found a box with Herôme's adorably tiny Take Away nail polishes. I took two with me, a beige holo and this pretty red.

It's a brownish shimmery red that flashes to an interesting greenish shade in the bottle, but it's not noticable on the nails. I love the colour so much! It's perfect for this time of the year, so I'll probably be wearing it more.

The polish does not seem to have a name anywhere on the bottle, but after a bit of research I found out Herôme is selling these minis on their website, and this one might simply be named 'Chique Red'. Don't take my word for it, though.

...and then after a day I felt like doing some more stamping. And I think I did a better job this time! I picked out a rose design and stamped it on using NYC Platinum Card (I really love this silver). I really like how it came out.

Nail polish earrings

Hi guys! Today I want to show you some of the earrings I have been making recently. And yes - this is relevant to my blog because they were made with nail polish! I'm pretty sure that's not a new concept to most of you, but it's so much fun and there are so many endless combos you can make, I love it.

The first ones are made with one of my favourite polishes, Wet 'n Wild - Back Alley Deals. These earrings are super sparkly and pretty and I've worn them pretty often already. :)

Next up is a pair made with Essence - Blue Addicted. This polish is awesome and it's also amazing for earrings. The domed cabochons and the glitters give them a really cool looking depth!

These are fun too, and I made them with three different Golden Rose flakes. Unicorn Puke-esque, maybe? These are super sparkly as well.

I also decided to try stamping for the first time, and I ended up with these super cute zebra stripe earrings. I love love love these! I have a bunch more stamping plates on my way so once they get here I'm not only going to test them on my nails, but on my earrings as well. :D

Here is a pair that I made for a good friend of mine - who also follows this blog, hi Kyu! c: - I used the Spectraflair Topcoat for a gorgeous holographic effect over Stargazer 303. I will probably end up making a pair like this for myself at one point.

So what do you guys think, do you like my earrings? :D If you do, and you would like some for yourself, I am selling these! They cost between $8 and $12 and information about how to order them can be found on this page.

Catrice - Poison Me, Poison You + Stamping

Something really stupid happened two days ago.

I was craving chocolate milk so I opened up the fridge and grabbed the carton from the door. Then, I dropped it. And in an attempt to save the carton from falling on the floor I broke my middelfinger nail. Oops.

The difference in length looked too silly to me so I shortened all my nails to sad little nubs and gave myself a simple manicure, since it also ruined my previous one.

This is Catrice - Poison Me, Poison You, a gorgeous shimmery dark purple with warm undertones. Purple is pretty much my favourite colour for nail polish and this one is one of my favourites.

It's opaque in two coats and it dries pretty fast. I had no trouble applying it, the formula is great and ofcourse Catrice has a wonderful brush which made it very easy to apply.

I wore it by itself for one day but today I felt like it needed something extra. I did my first real attempt at stamping. Sure, I have used my stamp for creating my earrings, but I never had a succesful attempt on my nails yet. I recently bought a new silver, NYC Platinum Card and it was surprisingly good to stamp with!

I used one of the Essence stamping plates that I own and I think it turned out pretty cute. As you can see, the stamp didn't transfer that great everywhere, but I think that mostly is to blame on the plate itself.

However, I recently ordered a set of stamping plates from Born Pretty Store so hopefully those are of a better quality and you'll see more manicures with stamping soon! It's such a simple way to spice up a manicure and make it look awesome, so I'm looking forward to fiddling around with my new plates. :)

To end this post, have a gerbil.

Little Ben here tried to eat my camera!