Happy International Day of Happiness!

I started my day watching a solar eclipse, so why shouldn't my nails be smiling? I only wish I were further north! Did you see it too? If you're not smiling, do something nice for yourself, and turn to happy! :-)☺:-D

I started with white nails, and stamped the smileys with Bundle Monster BM-304 and Mundo de Uñas #2 Black, and my new Creative Shop stamper that worked from the start.

I used the leadlight technique and lots of sheer polish. I finally bought some polishes for leadlighting. What I didn't think about was that the different polishes didn't have the same pigmentation. So I had to apply two coats of some colors or mix some of the colors. It might have looked better if I only used one brand...

Sheer polish used:

Ellagee: Cadium Glass - yellow
El Corazon, Aquarelle tints: #07 - red
Dance Legend, top coat aquarelle collection: Chagall - purple
Dance Legend, top coat aquarelle collection: Levitan - green
Nailstation: Whisper - orange with orange glitter
OPI: Houston We Have a Purple -blue toned red

The OPI, the green and the purple were very pigmented. The yellow was as I expected, but I needed two coats. In comparison the other two looked more pastel, even after 2 coats.

Levitan makes me think about the movie Leviathan. Have you seen it? It kind of made me feel that there's no point fighting for something...

I've not been very active here and on G+, twitter and facebook lately, but I'm trying to share photos on Instagram. If you are on Instagram, I would love to follow you. I'm nailphotosbylani. If I don't already follow you, please write your IG name in the comments section.

Can you tell that the photos of the plate are inspired by the solar eclipse? LOL!

Happy polishing!

Lani

#52WPNMC - BROWN - Caramel Apple Nails - inspired by @polishpdxnails - #31Nails2014 Day 13: DRIP & Day 31: Recreate someone else's mani

Hello everyone!

This is supposed to look like red, green and yellow apples with caramel. I've never tasted caramel apples, but I love caramel, and when I saw a photo of  @polishpdxnails' Caramel Apple Nails, I wanted to try too. I had bought a caramel colored polish, and I should have done it then, when my nails were super short, and looked more like round apples.

With Seche Vite over the "caramel"

This nail art is for 3 challenges:

*BROWN is the theme for this week in the 52 Day challenge: The 52 Week PICK N MIX Challenge (#52WPNMC).

*And DRIP was the theme for Day 13 in the 31 Day challenge I tried to do in January: Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge 2014 (#31Nails2014). Better late than never, right?

*And #31Nails2014 Day 31: Recreate someone else's mani. @polishpdxnails' Caramel Apple Nails lookes more like the picture below, so I kind of made my own version.

Products used:

Base:
OPI: My Boyfriend Scales Walls - white
Yes Love: #007 - pastel green (pinkie & index finger)
Yes Love: #008 - yellow/ pastel orange (thumb & middle finger)
Yes Love: F21 - pastel coral (ring finger)

For the rough gradient:
Fan brush & non woven swabs
A stamping plate as pallette
GOSH: 610 Blissful - red
H&M: Amazon - bright green
Gina Tricot: #17 Aspen gold - yellow
HEMA: #443 - pastel yellow
HK Girl top coat
GOSH #600 Matte Effect top coat

For the caramel drip:
OPI: Going My Way Or Norway - pastel brown
Seche Vite top coat

The Yes Love nail polish was bought on the Friday market in Mogan, Gran Canaria. It was only 1 Euro for each! :-)

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

BB's Autumn Challenge: RED - Eldad's Lucky Leash Nail Art - Eldad Hagar's dog rescue videos - www.hopeforpaws.org

Hello everyone!

The inspiration for these nails are Eldad Hagar's dog rescue videos on YouTube. When he rescues dogs, he uses a red leash; Eldad's Lucky Leash, and I hope my nails remind you of it. ♥ I've selected a few of Eldad's amazing videos for you. So make yourself comfortable and make sure to have some tissues available, press play, and see how Eldad manage to get close to these traumatised dogs and make them trust him enough to change their lives. I hope you'll enjoy these videos! ♥

If you're interested in the nail art, feel free to scroll down after this sneak peek.

Here is a dog rescue video made by Eldad Hagar:





And here is one more:



This is the organization he links to in the video: HopeForPaws.org. It rescues dogs and other animals who are suffering. Hope for Paws is created by Audrey and Eldad Hagar.


And here is one more video made by Eldad Hagar:



How can anyone abandon their dog when they move? It's good to know that people like Eldad Hagar can come and rescue them, and to see how much better their lives get.


And here is one more video with a happy ending:



There's a very cute video for you at the end of the post.

Sadly, this rescue work doesn't get government funding, and I don't expect any of my readers to support rescue workers. But if you know someone who could give them a million or billion without ruining anyone's life, please show them these videos! Or if you share a video, and it gets shared and shared, and shared, you might help raise money and help more dogs. Or the video you share will reach a person who can give a dog a forever home.

So feel free to share his videos and anything from this blog post; videos, photos, or my blog post! :-)

If you want to take a look at Eldad's Lucky Leash to compare to my nail art, click here.

If you want to try this, please be careful, and watch this first: Stray dog rescue - step by step. And if cheeseburgers are not accessible or very expensive where you live, just use what you have. Tiny peaces of dried liver could be an option. Dried pig ears also seem to be tempting... 

This photo looked better after photoshop, didn't it?

Same as the first photo, no photoshop

No, the dog was not made when I was a child...

I did both hands for once, which felt good. But it was a challenge to photograph all fingers without a tripod. Yes, I'm holding the camera with my knees! LOL! :-)


Left hand:

Right hand:

The nail art:

I've been thinking about this nail art for months, ever since I saw the first video. I made this when Red was the theme for the Blogger Bragger's Autumn Nail Art Challenge. I hope my nails remind you of Eldad's Lucky Leash; a red leash with yellow hibiscus flowers, small blue flowers (Forget me Not?) and green leafs. I didn't have this kind of orange- red, but luckily I found a similar red on vacation. And when MoYou London released their Tropical stamping plates in August, I knew I had what I needed to make this.

I just painted my nails red and stamped the flowers and leafs on.

Products used:

Red polish - OPI: Cajun Shrimp
Stamping plates:
MoYou London: Tropical collection 02
Konad m77
Stamping polish:
Mundo de Uñas: 5 Turquoise, 11 Yellow, 25 Pastel Pink, 48 Military Green
Top coat: Seche Vite

and clay to make the dog

OPI: Cajun Shrimp is nearly a one coater, and a dream to work with. Sadly the red looks a little too orange on some photos.

If you buy Eldad's Lucky Leash, you can take a photo of your dog with the leash, and post it on Flickr.

Please help Eldad Hagar by sharing his videos! 


Easy way to share a video:

1 Click on play (the triangle)
2 Click on "YouTube" in the lower right corner
3 Click on like (a hand under the video)
4 Chose your social media by clicking on it (facebook, twitter, G+, etc.)
5 Click on share/ tweet/ etc.


Here is a cute rescue video for you! :-D Look how happy this puppy is in his new home! 

To see more videos, click here or wait for the next one. And when you have seen them all, subscribe, and you have next weeks rescue video to look forward to, just like me!


 ♥ Thank you Eldad Hagar for everything you do! ♥


Have a nice weekend everyone! ♥ Feel free to share!

EDITED: Feel free to link to other animal rescue organizations or animal helpers in the comments below! :-)

Lani

Summer Vacation Hauls 2014

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful summer/ winter. I just came back from vacation, and found some brands abroad that I'd only seen on other blogs. It was interesting to see them in real life, and I felt that I had to buy some when I had the chance. The bottles were on sale and/ or low price brands, and I tried to stay cruelty- free. We went on a little round trip through some European countries, and these are the nail polishes I picked up along the way. 

This might seem like a lot, and it is. LOL. I also got some nail mail...

...but except for these MoYou London stamping plates, I'll show the rest later.

You can click for larger pictures!

OPI mini set (Nordic Collection 2014). Gosh is one of my favorite brands.

Wet n Wild:

Nilens Jord, Benecos, Gosh, Nicole by OPI:

I was very sad when I forgot the charger for my camera, but found this universal battery charger. I really recommend it because it's supposed to work for all digital camera batteries, and it can even be used in the car.

Sorry about the bad picture, you can see the bottles better below.

Artdeco, Astor, Manhattan:

Rival de Loop:

Essence:

Nailfoil, Magnetic top coat, 3 magnets:

Sparkle sand effect top coat:

Catrice:

I'm very curious about this ombre top coat:

 P2:

My first cuticle remover and cuticle peeling. I only use nail oil, but look forward to try them, the nail wax and the cuticle cream. 

Press on nails and "Q-tips" developed to correct cosmetics like mascara, nail polish and so on: 

Hema:

Sorry that the photo doesn't show the lovely shimmer in these Hema polishes:

Acrylic craft paint (gold, silver, glitter, neon pink, neon coral, and mint) and washi tape from the same brand:

Only You:

Etos: 

I was surprised by the interesting polishes from Etos. I wonder if the duochrome is a dupe of Dance Legend's The Knight! :-)

OPI:

Brown: Going My Way Or Norway?
Vampy: Muir Muir On The Wall
Red: Cajun Shrimp
Green: My Dogsled Is A Hybrid - The best nail lacquer name ever!!! :-)

What also happened this summer, was that I broke 9 nails... Yes, 9! :-( But not at the same time. So as some nails grew enough to be called nubbins, and I started to feel better, other nails broke. 

I've bought this resin, resin activator and silk wrap, so that I'll be able to repair my nails without having to use a lamp, next time I break a nail. I wasn't able to get the ASP light- less gel kit, but this works too.


I hope you liked to see what I bought. I fell for some polishes that are different from the ones I already have, and I'm curious about many of these brands. I guess we all buy different polishes because of our taste and what we already have in our collection.


Lani