First blogiversary!

Happy blogiversary to me~ My blog is one year old!

Butterflies for Valentine

Valentine's day is all about hearts, chocolate, roses and the color red. I decided to go a different way about it, using the color purple and butterflies. One does get the butterflies in the stomach feeling when being kissed by their loved one, right? So I guess it is quite relevant for this occasion :)

Nail Art inspired by Fashion - polka dots

I was browsing through Pinterest and I ended up on the fashion tag. Naturally, I got inspired by a few dresses and today I'm sharing one of them.

Halloween skittle nails

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I't's been a while since I posted anything, mainly because life happened and I was feeling a bit uninspired. But today I finally have something to share.

While I don't celebrate Halloween myself, I love all the decorations I see around, and the costumes people come up with. And I absolutely adore the nail art creations I see around. People are so talented!

So here is my take on Halloween nails. I hope you like it!

Glitters. A lot of glitters.

I'm back! A little explanation of why I haven't been posting for so long. I had exams, and I needed to fully concentrate on them. So my blog and everything nice had to be put on hold for a while. And after the exams I got busy with life, and my cuticles were in a horrible shape because I ran out of Lemony Flutter! But now I'm here, my cuticles are healthy again because I have a new pot of Lemony Flutter and I'm using it on a daily basis. Still don't have the results to my exams, but there's nothing I can do about that other than waiting.

Now, onto the nail art. One day I was bored and decided to play around with the pot of glitters that I bought. Let me tell you one thing: glitters are MESSY! But also fun, if you don't mind having your whole apartment be glittery for weeks.

World Cup Nail Art - The Netherlands

Hi everyone, sorry I have been absent for a while. My modem broke and the only way of keeping in touch with the outside world for me was my mobile phone, and I needed to keep my limited data in check until I got my new modem from the internet provider. I am now back online with a new shiny modem! And I have a few posts prepared for you for the upcoming weeks.

Almost everyone around the world is following the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brasil. Nail artists have been showing their creations since the beginning of this world-wide event. Some creating designs to celebrate the World Cup as a whole, and others in support of their national teams.

I, as well, have decided to show my support of our national team: The Netherlands.

[video] Sunflower Water Decals from Born Pretty Store

I've never made a tutorial video in my whole life before, but I'm always fascinated by those I watch on youtube. And when I decided to use my sunflower water decals I bought from the Born Pretty Store, I decided to make a video tutorial of it.

A blast from the past

I decided to share some nail art that I had done on several occasions in the past, before I had started this blog. There's not much to say about them, I don't even remember which brand of polishes I used on each design. The inspiration to those designs come from several sources, but mainly Pinterest. I hope you'll enjoy.

Mani swap: The Joker

So a few days ago my friend and I decided to do a mani swap, and after a random color selection, the theme we chose was The Joker (from DC comics). The main point was to use purple and green, and have The Joker as the theme (is it just me or did that just rhyme?) And here is what each of us came up with.

Left: Semichan. Right: me

Nail Art inspired by fashion

I grew up with fashion (my mother, and both grandmothers are seamstresses) and for as I long as I can remember, I always get inspiration from either clothing designs or fabrics. A while ago I saw a photo on Facebook and I decided to put the dress on my nails.

The Neverending Pile Challenge - Discontinued - #TGPNPC

Taking part in nail polish or nail art challenges is something I would love to do more often, but because life happens, I don't have the time to do them all. And so, I only do them when I get the chance (and when I know I can deliver the mani -more or less- on time). On the facebook group the GLITTAH pirates, I came across this week's challenge which is called "discontinued". And I thought, I still have the time, and I have a couple of discontinued polishes, so why the hell not? It's not like the neighbors are letting me study today, so here it goes.

Review: Nail stickers from Born Pretty Store

A while ago I won a Tumblr giveaway hosted by Born Pretty Store, and the prize was 20 nail stickers. I was so excited about it, because I have never won a giveaway before! I was even happier when I received my prize (a bit disappointed that it was only 12 nail stickers instead of the promised 20, but oh well). I immediately got confused about which one to use first! I wanted to use all of them at once! Alas, I don't have that many hands. For a nail art enthusiast, that's a disadvantage :)

Anyway, here's a photo of the stickers that I received.

Stamping decal nail art

Making decals using nail art stamping is becoming more and more popular these days. And I'm enjoying that very much. Today I have a simple nail art to share, which includes stamping and coloring the design before putting it on my nails.

70's inspired water marble nail art

The other day I wanted to do some water marbling, and while I was trying to decide on the colors, for some unknown reason I was thinking "70's". Simply 70's and nothing else. And that was when the color pattern came to my mind, and this water marble was born.

King's Day (Koningsdag) nail art

Up until last year, people in the Netherlands used to celebrate Queen's Day on April 30th every year. But last year we got a king, and starting this year we will be celebrating King's day instead, and it will be on 26th of April.

It's a huge celebration for the Netherlands, and the whole country dresses up in orange. There's parties, and concerts everywhere. And people set up street markets to sell old items from their household. If you go to the markets in time, you may score some awesome stuff at a very cheap price!

And of course, as a nail art enthusiast, you just can't not have a tiny celebration on your own nails. Here's what I did..

Easter skittlette

Happy Easter, everyone! I entered a giveaway contest on Facebook, and the theme was "Easter Nails". I didn't win (come on, I only win at life :D) but I do want to share my nail art here.

Gradient nail art with stamping

So the other day I ordered a couple of image plates from Dashica, and I have been playing around with them ever since. The image plates are from their line called Infinity Nails. They come with different designs, and I chose two that I liked most for a first time order (I liked the whole collection, but I had to be cautious about my budget at the time.)

So let me show you what I did with the plates I have.

I started with making a gradient using make-up sponges that I bought from the Born Pretty store. Usually when I'm doing gradients I use nail polish, and after I'm done I cut the sponge so I would have a polish-free surface to work with the next time I want to do a gradient. This time I had a different idea. I used acrylic paint! It works much nicer than nail polish, and after I'm done I simply washed the sponge without having to cut it. This way I could use the same sponge for a long time instead of basically throwing a piece of it away after every use.

Review - Essence Magnetic Top Coat

Magnetic nail polishes were very popular when they first came out. A completely new hype of using a special nail polish and magnet together to get interesting designs on your nails. Essence had magnetic polishes for a few years now, they also had magnets, and the latest magnetic gadget was the magnetic pen, which I think came out last year.

But there's so much you can do with a specific set of magnetic colors. What about the other nail polishes that you have? That one favorite shade that you own and try to use in every nail art design possible, because it's just awesome? One of the new products Essence came up with lately is the magnetic top coat. And I couldn't be more happier about it. When the drugstore in my city finally had this top coat on the Essence shelf, I bought it without giving it a second thought. I wanted to test it, and I wanted to use it on my own set of polishes.

Chevron nails tutorial (pictorial) -picture heavy-

Today I have a photo tutorial for you. Or as more commonly known: a pictorial.

I love chevron nail designs, and I find myself quite often browsing through google images and pinterest looking through the different designs that people come up with using the simple zig-zag lines. At the end of last year I bought me craft scissors to make decals myself, but because I discovered it doesn't cut through plastic, I put it aside and tried to find pre-made chevron stickers. No success with that. There’s only one seller on ebay who sells it at an affordable price, but they don’t ship to the Netherlands. So I just gave up.

The other day I was testing a new stamping plate (a review of that will come soon), and I did the testing by painting small rectangles on a piece of paper covered with scotch tape. The next day I pick up one of the polish rectangles, and I think of testing the craft scissors on it, and it worked! So today I made my chevron decals and I must say I am so happy about it that I decided to make it into a tutorial. 

Melting jeans colored nail art

I haven't posted for a while simply because I have a cracked nail and I'm trying to fix it before it breaks. I will make a separate post about that once I get it patched properly.

As for this post, last week I bought the jeans sugar polish from Essence and wanted to try it out in combination with my other jeans colored polish from Catrice.

I must apologize for the quality of the photos. My tripod broke when I wanted to take photos, and so I took photos without it, thus resulting in some pixelation because I don't use flash and it was a cloudy day.