Evanora inspired nails

Have you seen Oz: The Great and Powerful yet? I haven't, but I definitely have to see it sometime. It looks really awesome. Since the movie came out I have seen some manicures inspired by Evanora's 'claw' nails in the movie. I really liked the look and so I decided to recreate them!

The result is a pretty edgy, but awesome manicure. When I was wearing this I kept looking at my nails, because it really felt like I had claws!

As you can see in the screenshot I linked earlier, Evanora doesn't seem to have a base colour on her nails and her nail line is visible. I didn't like that all too much which is why I used a nude base. I used two coats of Essence Cookies & Cream for this with a fast drying top coat. After that was dry, I taped off the sides of my nails to create the claw shape, and went over it with a coat of Essence Black Is Back, a simple black creme.

And, instead of two gold lines on each side of the claws, I decided to go with one gold line in the middle. I used gold striping tape that I got off eBay, but as you can see in the pictures it started curling up just minutes after I applied it, which was quite a shame. I do like the end result, though, and I love seeing all the different variations people are coming up with.

What do you think of this 'claw' look?

Nude + Pink taping

So it has been a while since I have done anything but a simple manicure with only one colour. However, I decided that I was in the mood to do some taping again, and I wanted to use one of my favourite new additions to my stash!

For this manicure I used Essence Cookies & Cream as a base colour. I used two coats on my index- and middle finger and my pinky, and three on my ring finger and thumb. This is a sandy nude colour with subtle shimmer in it. For some reason, nudes always look odd on my skin tone, but not this one! It's very pretty and I also like to wear it on my toenails because it gives a clean, neat look.

I added a quick drying top coat and after it had dried enough I used striping tape to tape off 4 lines on each finger. Then I painted over it with a coat of NYC Perpetual Peony, a simple pink creme, and quickly but carefully pulled off the tape. I smudged it in a few places... whoops! Nothing too bad, though. I think I'm getting better at it. :P

After that I added a silver rhinestone to my ring finger and thumb, just because I'm obsessed with my rhinestones. :) I really need to think of some new creative ways to use them! Anyway, then I topped it all off with another coat of fast drying topcoat and I was done. Even though it's a simple mani, I enjoy it a lot, and I think this colour combination works very well! I hope you like it too!

Reddit Challenge - Week 2: Blue

It's a bit late into the week, but oh well! Here's this week's post for the Reddit challenge I am doing. I did this one on monday, and the theme was 'Blue'.

This theme was nice and easy, and I wanted to keep it simple but I didn't want to simply wear a blue colour, so I painted them a pretty blue colour and took out my striping tape once again.

And this is the result! Simple, easy, but very nice looking,if I do say so myself. :) The blue is Catrice Blue's Brother which is very shimmery and flashes to green in real life, but I couldn't capture it on camera.

Then after it was dry I used my silver striping tape to apply some diagonal lines across the nail, and I think it looks really cute. Application of the striping tape went much better this time, because I got very tiny scissors to help me with cutting the strips.

Here is the colour all by itself. Like I said, shimmery! I don't have a lot of blues but I do love this colour, even if I don't wear it very often.

Next week's challenge will be a bit more challenging for a nail art noobie, wish me luck!

Reddit Challenge - Week 1: Taping

Hi guys! As some of you may know I am a frequent Redditor. :) Yesterday I found out that the laqueristas on there are hosting a 52 week challenge. That's right, fifty two weeks, each with a different theme. And it seems very doable, even for a nail art noob like myself, so I decided to have a shot at it. I will try my best to come up with a manicure for each week, so hopefully every week I will have a challenge post for you!

The theme for week 1 is taping, which just happens to be my favourite technique for nail art. I often use scotch tape to spice up some manicures, but this time I decided to try out my striping tape. So far I have only used my striping tape as accents on my nails, but this time I used them for masking.

And this is my manicure for the first week! I started out with Essie Turquoise And Caicos as my base coat. Once that was dry I applied a lot of small strips of striping tape on my nails. This was such a hassle to do and it took me quite a long time. Anyway, once I was done applying the tape I went over it with a coat of Essence You Belong To Me and then quickly removed the tape while the polish was still wet.

I personally like the outcome a lot, even if it's sloppy in some places. Overall though, I think I did a good job, especially for a first attempt at using my striping tape like this! I also love the colour combination.

Here's a picture of Turquoise And Caicos by itself. It's a very pretty creme and for me it was opaque in three thin coats. You could probably get away with two coats if you have shorter nails, though.

Pink French Tape Manicure

 A few days ago the rolls of striping tape I ordered finally got here! I already tried it out for my Dalek nail art but since I watched the season premiere yesterday I decided to do a full manicure with my striping tape.

... speaking of Doctor Who, if you have seen it, wasn't it amazing? I'm not going to spoil anything for those who still need to see it, but I loved it! :D

Anyway, the manicure I did was not an original idea of mine. I pretty much copied a manicure I found on Google, and I wanted to give proper credit to the person who did it but I forgot to save the link to their blog and I can't find it on Google anymore. So if the idea seems familiar, that's why.

This is my result. While striping tape is very helpful for making shapes and sharp lines I really love to add them to the nail as an accent. So for this manicure, I first used some regular scotch tape to create the diagonal french tips. After that had completely dried, I carefully added the silver striping tape. I really need to practice with putting the tape on properly because some bits of tape at the edges are letting loose as I'm typing this. Oops.

After I had added the tape I added some glitter to my tips. I'm still not sure if I like the glitter or not, though.

The polishes I used were Catrice - Hot Or Not? for the pink tips and Essence - Party Princess for the glitter. The striping tape I purchased from eBay. I have 10 different colours that I got for about 4 dollar from this seller. I'm pretty happy with it and ofcourse I'm already thinking of other manis to create with it. :)

Doctor Who nail art: Red Daleks

 Like it says on my Blogger profile, I'm a Doctor Who addicted girl. I'm a huge, huge fan of the show and I have watched all the episodes of the new series so far. I'm trying to watch the classics too, but they're pretty difficult to find on the internet. :( Nevertheless it's an awesome show. My family and some of my friends don't  understand my addiction at all and they think I'm completely mad when I try to tell them what Doctor Who is about. I don't blame them though, lol!

Anyway, to celebrate 'Asylum of the Daleks', the newest episode scheduled to air on september 1st, I decided to dedicate a nail art to the Dalek. Even though they do creep me out a little bit, they are my favourite villains in the show, plus my new rhinestones and striping tape were perfect to use for the idea I had.

There are a lot of varieties of Dalek but my personal favourite are the red ones. That is why I made a simplified Dalek on both of my ring finger nails, with their most widely recognised details.

For the base I used NYC I ♥ NY, my favourite red. For the eyepiece and the Daleks' hemispheres I used my rhinestones. The clear rhinestones work really great for the eyepieces, I think they look great! I had a bit of trouble with the black coloured ones, because not all of them were the exact same size and shape. There are supposed to be rows of 4, but obviously my nails are not long enough for that. It doesn't matter though, this still works! I then used two strips of silver striping tape to emulate the 'neck' area that seperates the head from the lower body.

Overall I think this turned out pretty awesome! It was very fun to do. I wanted to do all of my nails but I do plan on wearing this manicure until the new episode airs and I think so many rhinestones on every nail would drive me crazy. :) So for now I will have two mini Daleks to keep me company!

And, ofcourse... how could I resist?

What do you think, did I nail it? And are you as excited for the new episode as I am?

Also check out some other Doctor Who inspired nail art here! :D