Let it glitter! Golden Star - My Christmas Eve Nails

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Christmas Holiday!

This is what I was wearing on Christmas Eve. Red with glitter.

The base is 1 coat of a red H&M creme called Dark Red. It's from a 6 pack mini set that's still available on H&M.

The glitter is called Golden Star. It's from a dutch indie brand called Let it glitter!. I had to try this brand after seing some beautiful holos on Maria's blog. The holos and Golden Star are from the Hohoholographic Collection. Golden Star is a clear base filled with tiny gold stars and hexagonal regular sized and small white glitter. This is one coat, and then I dabbed on a little more of the white glitter, and dipped the brush and picked up more stars with a dotting tool. Then I used Seche Vite, but I should have used more of the clear base first or Pochè, because I scratched myself a little. On her web page you can see how beautiful the glitter looks over black.

Look what winter did to my roses:

If you buy something from Let it glitter! remember to also buy O Holo night, or you'll regret it later...Now I wish I had bought big bottles... Do you like this?

Lani

#52WPNMC - Brushstrokes/ Favorite brand(s)

Hello everyone!

This is the brushstroke manicure I made for last weeks prompt. I used two of the polishes from my summer vacation hauls. The black Catrice polish is called: Black For Gold. It's pigmented and nice, but I used 2 coats here. Then I simply wiped off the brush of the red polish and tried to make brushstrokes. This pretty red shimmer is called Alluring Red. I'm very happy that I bought it! :-) It's from the limited edition Metallure collection.


The other prompt was "favorite brand", and with me that changes all the time. I like certain types of polish from certain brands, but from some brands I only have 2 polishes... Right now my favorite brands are probably Darling Diva and Nire's Desire, because I recently bought some polishes from them that I love.


But I do have a few brands that I like because of the diversity of polishes they make:

Dance Legend, Mi- ny, Deborah Lippmann, and Crowes Toes all make a lot of different polishes. I also love H&M for their cheap and good cremes, and sometimes they create something awesome like the blue string/ bar glitter in 2013. I also love their clothes and the cruelty- free hair color. Gina Tricot is also a favorite brand, but I must admit that I love their clothes more than their polish, but it's cheap, and I really like some of their polishes.


If you want to read my favorite brand list regarding types of polish, here it is:

Cremes: GOSH (because they're nearly one coaters), Deborah Lippmann's Spring Reveries collection (pretty pastels)

Multichromes: Enchanted Polish, I Love Nail Polish, Dance Legend, Crows Toes, and Nire's Desire (I haven't tried Nire's Desire Prana yet, but I know I'll like it. LOL!).

Flakies: Nfu- Oh (especially #51 and #56), Nubar 2010 (my most used flakie), Mi- ny, but I think they'll soon be beaten by I Love Nail Polish's multichrome flakies when they arrive (next year... because I forgot to preorder...)

Holographic:
-strong linear: Color Club Halo Hues, and I like the darker holos by Emily de Molly, Darling Diva, LilypadLacquer, and some brands I'm waiting for...
-scattered: Linda Johansen, Dance Legend, Picture Polish

Textured: IsaDora and GOSH


Now I feel bad about not mentioning some brands that have made my "Top 20 best polish list"...
Sorry! Sorry Sorry!

What's your favorite brand(s)?


Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

#52WPNMC - Wild Animals - African Sunset/ Sunrise Nails - stamping nail art

Hello everyone!

I had wanted to make African sunset/ sunrise nails for a long time, but when "wild animals" and "wildlife" were the challenges in two facebook groups, I finally made this today. All the pictures are taken inside, because we only have a few hours of winter daylight this time of the year.
Edited: I've added one photo taken in daylight, where you can see how shiny this mani is:

Daylight

What I did:

I was already wearing a coral creme nail polish called Coral Reef by Mineral Fusion (3 coats + Seche Vite.) First I made a red- orange gradient, then I stamped the African animals and the tree on. I used two MoYou London stamping plates; I used #04 from the Kitty Collection for the big giraffe on the thumb. All the other images are from Explorer Collection #23. (#23 is perfect for us with small nail beds, but they have a XL plate with bigger images.) I also used the black Konad stamping polish to paint the "Savannah" tips.

Products used: 

Gradient:
Ruby Kisses: Cheesum (orange)
Mineral Fusion: Coral Reef (coral)
Gina Tricot: #146 The red (red)
Gina Tricot: #7 Zinfandel (dark red)
a stamping plate as palette
a dotting tool to mix the colors
a piece of a car sponge to make the gradient

Stamping:
MoYou London: Explorer Collection #23 (plate for small nail beds. They have a XL size too)
MoYou London: Kitty Collection #04 (big giraffe)
Konad SP Black (stamping polish)
marshmallow XL stamper

To avoid problems, I used different top coats; HK Girl over the gradient, and Seche Vite after the stamping.

The index nail is broken again, so had to glue it and use silk wrap and resin.

Below you can see what the other 52 Week PICK N MIX Challenge participants made. This week we could make a yellow mani, wild animals nail art, or combine the two prompts.

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

Shadow Stamping - Red with white flowers & black shadow

Hello everyone!

Shadow Stamping

"Shadow stamping" was the challenge in the group Adventures In Stamping (A.I.S.) on Sunday two weeks ago. I had not even heard about it, but thankfully we were given a link to a very helpful YouTube tuorial. I'm very bad at lining up the images, so I didn't get the shadows where I wanted them to be. So I must admit that this was very difficult. I don't know why I always believe that everything is so easy before i start... The photo above is the one I shared in A.I.S. two weeks ago. It was taken in the middle of the process; after redoing the index finger nail, but before redoing the middle finger nail, and before I cheated and painted some shadows on the pinkie and the middle finger nail...

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

I was very proud of the shadow stamping on the thumb, but of course I managed to smear the flower when I applied the top coat.

Shadow Stamping

Used:

IsaDora: #600 Clear Base/ Top coat (used as fast drying base coat)
Pretty Serious: Hell on Wheels (red)
Stamping plates: Bundle Monster BM-318 and BM- 313
Stamping polish: Konad SP Black and Konad SP White
Seche Vite (fast drying top coat)
H&M: Black (striper from a set, to paint extra shadows)

Used for shadow stamping

I love the design on the Pretty Serious box, so here are two more photos of it:

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

I feel very lucky, because I won both the red polish and the stamping plates. In the Chit Chat Nails Bundle Monster Giveaway last fall, I won a 30$ gift code, and chose 5 nail art wheels and the 2012 stamping plate collection from the Bundle Monster web site. And as I told you in the last blog post, I won the gorgeous red Pretty Serious nail polish in the Norway Nails 1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway this summer. And the stamper and scraper I used was a gift from KKCenterHk! :-)

Shadow Stamping

I like the effect, so I think I will try this technique again. I just have to learn how to line up the image. Next time I'll try to make a dot on the stamper. That's supposed to make it easier to stamp straight.

Lani

Pretty Serious: Hell On Wheels- from my Norway Nails Mystery Grab Bag!

Hello everyone!

This classic red nail polish is Pretty Serious: Hell On Wheels. It's from the Australian brand Pretty Serious Cosmetics' latest collection; Hit the Road. I love brands that are vegan and don't test on animals! :-) Remember the Norway Nails 1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway? I was one of the winners. I won a mystery grab bag!!!! :-) And this is one of the beauties Wenche from Norway Nails sent me.

Norway Nails is an online shop, situated by the beautiful fjords of Norway (Europe), selling hard to find nail polish and some nail art supplies. She shipps to European countries, so what I mean with HTF is that it's hard to find for Europeans. It's easy to order, you can pay with PayPal, she wraps your order as if it was a gift, and sends the orders quickly. And if you can't find what you're looking for, you can ask her, because she also offers personal shopper services.

I expected the polish to have a cream finish, but when I tried it, I wondered if it was a crelly. My first crelly. So I tried to find out. This is what Pretty Serious writes;

Our perfect red creme has the shine and smoothness of a highly pigmented jelly. It is our tribute to Hell on Wheels herself - Christine.

(I didn't think about the movie Christine until now... Have you seen it? It's about a rather scary car called Christine)

I was very pleased with the quality of this nail polish. I also like the bottle with the contrasting matte cap, and the beautiful box it came in. Look:

This is what I call art:

The ingredients list is on the side you can't see. To read it, click here. Pretty Serious nail polish is Big 3 Free and vegan :-)

I used two coats, but on the photo below, you can see what one coat looks like. This is one coat, no clean- up, no top coat:

As you see, this polish is very shiny. And I'm sorry, but I don't remember if the two pictures below and the one with the lavender flower, were taken before or after a coat of Seche Vite.

This is a kind of red that is surprisingly easy to wear together with other colors. I hope it's not wrong to call it a blue toned red. It was difficult to make the camera show the true color. It was actually much easier when I added some nail art. I'll show you in a few days. It's not orange or pink at all. I would call it a classic red. It looks very similar to my acrylic paint called Crimson Red.

I think this red color can work for most skin tones. I love it! I know I look more white than usual on some of the photos, but that's probably partly because of the camera and partly because I had been ill, and therefore not been out in the sun.

This nail polish can be bought from Norway Nails here if you are in Europe. It looks like Pretty Serious has world wide shipping. So if you live in other parts of the world, you can buy it here.

Thank you Wenche for choosing this nail polish for me! :-)


Lani

Tri- Polish, Day 16/ June #4: Cherries

Hello everyone!

 Cherries

This started as stamping nail art, and after painting over and over it, it ended up like this. The red nail polish I used for the cherries is actually called Cherry!  I didn't  notice that  until now when I sit here writing. As you might have seen, I've shortened the headline a little. This is "The Tri- Polish Challenge". I wonder if I should start calling it "TPC, Day..." or do as I've done today. What do you think?

 Cherries

Sorry about the extra text on the photos lately. Today I've made the text bigger on some photos, more transparent on some, and placed it where it felt best on each photo. Do you have any ideas or advice? I'm thinking about changing the watermark.

 Cherries

What I did:

I started with purple nails, and used the rose stamping plate from Messy Mansion and a regular gold polish to stamp the leafs. Then I made two big pink dots, and added red, and mixed them together so that it could resemble cherries. Then I used a black striper to make two lines by the cherries. The leafs looked too sheer, so I tried to outline them. Not being good at that, I filled in the center of the leafs with black too. Then I found my tiniest round brush, and tried to paint gold stripes to make the leafs more naturalistic. But it kind of looks like I just put a lot of gold nail polish on the leafs. The gold glitter is supposed to resemble leafs, and the red glitter is supposed to resemble cherries. I also added gold glitter where I felt that something was missing, and on the tips, and top coated. I use Seche Vite. And I use it whenever I do something I like. I'm still so new to this that I have to save what's good (with a layer of top coat) before I ruin it. Because then if I'm very careful, I can an remove the bad stamping (or stupid thing I have done) with a brush dipped in acetone. After all this talking, I hope you're  ready for the rest of the photos :-)

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Used:

GOSH: #571 Wild Lilac -purple
GOSH: #598 Bubble Gum -pink
H&M: Cherry- red
H&M: Run Baby Run -gold
H&M: Black -nail polish with striper brush -from a set with white, red and black
Orly: Rockets Red Glare - red glitter
Deborah Lippmann: Boom Boom Pow- gold glitter
Messy Mansion: MM07 -stamping plate
tiny brush
dotting tool

Cherry, Bubble Gum, Wild Lilac, Run Baby Run, black striper, Rockets Red Glare, Boom Boom Pow

This is the last Tri- Polish nail art for June. I'm not sure if I should continue with this challenge, because I often post too late. And I have very many swatches that I should have showed you, in addition to other nail art ideas. I've also started to really like stamping.

Below you can see what the other participants made for this challenge day!


Lani

The Tri- Polish Challenge, Day 15/ June #3: Dog Finger Painting- inspired by Jenna Marbles

Hello everyone!

Dog Finger Painting

My Dog Finger Painting nails are inspired by Jenna Marbles' Dog Finger Painting YouTube video. If you haven't already seen it, here it is:




When I saw her video, I immediately knew that I wanted to make something like this on my nails.

Dog Finger Painting

As you see, the dogs walked very carefully on my nails. But after I took the photos, I noticed that they had left some dog hairs... So, don't look too closely! And I accidentally hit the wall with my ring finger nail before the top coat dried. I wish I had taken photos before that.

Dog Finger Painting

I used all the Tri- Polish Challenge colors for June (pink, red and purple), and all the other colors we can use; white (regular and stamping polish), black stamping polish, and regular gold and silver nail polish. And my two dogs Cheeky Jumbo 9 Wild at Heart (long name :-) ) and Bundle Monster -323. Cheeky is the one with the small paws. Bundle Monster is bigger, and looks nearly like a little bear. I painted the accent nail pink, and used a sponge to make a purple- pink- red gradient. The red polish stained my skin, so I don't think I will use the red for gradients again.

Dog Finger Painting

For those of you who haven't seen it already, here is a photo and a list of my Tri- Polish Challenge polishes for June:

GOSH #598 Bubble Gum -pink
GOSH #571 Wild Lilac -purple
H&M Cherry- red

My  Tri- Polish Challenge nail polishes for June

As usual you will find thumbnails to the other Tri- Polish Challenge participants' nail art for Day 15/ June #3  below! (Yes, I was supposed to post this last week, but better late than never...)


Lani

No animals were harmed during the making of this nail art.