Happy Penguin Day!

I'm wearing Ellagee "Lady Penguinia" this year.

The polish came with a little bag of silver holographic penguin and seashell glitter. Each glitter is very soft and thin and easy to use. Lady Penguinia is a Norway Nails exclusive. I used 2 coats here, and one coat of HK Girl top coat under and over the glitter.

You can click on the links below to see my penguin nails from 2012 and 2014:

Emperors on the left hand, and Adelie Penguins on the right, in "Antarctic surroundings"

Freehand penguin nails inspired by Stefan Christmann photos

Did you celebrate Penguin Day? 

Lani

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 - Domestic Animals - Water decals

Hello everyone!

I've been looking forward to this theme because I had planned to make pet nails; horse-, dog-, cat-, or rabbit nails. These are all "domestic animals", which was the theme in the 52 week challenge before we made "wild animals". This turned out a little more childish than planned... so I made it even more girly... and added hearts... and glitter... and ended up with too much glitter...

The animals and hearts are all water decals that I've bought from Born Pretty Store. The green nail polish is H&M Amazon. You can see it swatched below, and how this manicure evolved:

H&M Amazon is a bright medium green. This is 2 easy coats.

Then I made a gradient with H&M Mint Madness, a pastel green, and applied top coat before using the water decals. I used different top coats to avoid problems.

I didn't like the gradient, so I covered it with Orly Sparkling Garbage. I made a test on the thumb, and found out that I shouldn't cover the water decals. I think I used H&M Pink bling bling over the entire nail.

So I used a dotting tool and Sparkling Garbage on the other fingers.

And then I covered everything with INM Northern Lights instead of the bigger Orly glitter:

Ott- Lite

fluorescent light

LED lamp

When should I have stopped? 

I didn't want to lie and say; "I'm 9!" or that "I work with animals/ children" or explain about the 52 Day Challenge..., in case someone saw it, so I didn't wear this for very long.

Lani

My entry to Nail Polish Canada's Easter Nail Art Challenge

Hello everyone!

I was very happy when I was invited to participate in Nail Polish Canada's Easter Nail Art Challenge. This is my entry.


You can look at all the entries and vote for your favorite here.

You can find details about this manicure and more photos here.


I wish you all a happy Easter Holiday! And good luck if you are participating!

Lani