Happy St. Patricks Day!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Ever since I lived in Ireland for a couple of years, I celebrate this holiday by going out to the Irish pub and having a nice, green pint of Guinness with my husband. Of course I have to have a matching mani and most years I go for some kind of clover nail art.

This year I decided to go for art, a glitter and my favorite green cream. I put down 2 coats of OPI My boyfriend scales walls on my middle finger, drew a clover (or something resembling a clover) with China Glaze Four leaf clover and topped it with Loaded Lacquer Coconut.

The glitter is one of my favorites, KBShimmer Get clover it and the green cream is China Glaze Four leaf clover. The green from the clover bled a little bit into Coconut, but I don't mind too much, it actually gives it some more dimention I think.

I have to say, even though my clover nail art didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, I do really like this mani. It's fun and festive, perfect for this holiday!

Do you celebrate St. Patricks Day?

X

Read more »

Pink and Green Water marble

I'm going to be visiting my family this weekend and as usual, I asked my 3 year old niece what color I should paint my nails. She always gives me 1 of 3 answers: pink, blue or red, so I already had a mani for those 3 colors in mind. Of course the little cheecky bugger gave me a completely different answer this time. She demanded in that stern voice only 3 year olds have that I paint my nails pink and green, because those are her favorite colors!

Ok... not 2 colors I'd normally pair together, but I like a challenge! I decided to give water marbling another go. I must have tried to get a decent pattern on my nails like a 100 times before, but I'm just so bad at marbling. I don't know what I do wrong, but I always end up with a mess on my nails.

Not this time! This time it actually turned out great. I really like this mani, so much so, that I decided to share it with you :D

I used the always impossible to photograph China Glaze Four Leaf Clover as my green, OPI Dim Sum Plum for the dark pink and OPI If you moust you moust as my light pink.

I think it's really cute and the colors work really well together. I'm so proud I finally managed to do a water marble, even if it's only on 1 nail.

Have you tried water marbling and if so, any tips on how to get the perfect pattern on my nails?

Have a great weekend!
X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Recreation of BFF's mani

I can't believe this is the last day for #SUMMERNORULES... I had so much fun and am a little sad it's over. But there's still 1 mani left!

The last theme is recreation of BFF's mani and although I feel like a 12 year old when using the phrase BFF, I do like this theme. My only problem is that my BFF (seriously, can't use that word without giggling a little) does have the same obsession with polish as I do, her stash is almost as big as mine, but she doesn't do nail art. So I could paint my nails a nice color and say voila! but that feels a lot like cheating and I don't want to do that for this last day.

So I gave her a little nudge, saying her mani really could use some nail art to spice it up a little and she gave me dots! Yeah for dots, I'm just happy she didn't go for striping tape (yikes!).

As a base, she used a totally stunning polish, Color Club Peace, Love & Polish. Can we just pause for a minute and take a look at this beauty?

Gorgeous neon pink with a heavy golden shimmer that makes this polish look almost coral on the nail with a pretty amazing formula for a neon. Only 2 easy coats for full opacity and it dries fast. Love, love, love it!

As for the nail art, Fleur added some really dainty white dots around the cuticle. Simple, fun and easy but so cute. I did the same thing, but the first dot turned out a little big, so instead of dainty dots, I have big ol' blobs. But hey, go big or go home, right?

Don't you just love her nails? She's lucky enough to have strong, gorgeous nails with incredibly white tips. I'm not complaining about my nails, they are strong and healthy and almost never break, but I do wish my nails had a bit more of her lovely shape.

Does your BFF love polish as much as you do and do you rock nail art?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: The Beach

I love going to the beach, but not so much on a nice, sunny day. The beaches here tend to get a little crowded and I don't really enjoy laying about a feet away from the next person trying to get some sun. So on the really nice days, I avoid the beach, but I love walking on the sand on other days.

For my #SUMMERNORULES Beach mani, I went with a sand, sea and blue skies gradient with a sandy accent.

I love how this turned out! It's very fresh and summery. I used OPI Samoan Sand, Beyond the Nail Spring blue crème (review to come, but a little spoiler: I love it!) and Picture Polish Swagger for my gradient and Zoya Tomoko as my sand accent.

What's your favorite mani to wear to the beach?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Dots

I love nail art and nothing beats a nice dotticure, so todays #SUMMERNORULES theme is right up my alley: Dots. I really wanted to do a simple black and white dotticure, but I though that just didn't suit Summer... So I looked at my polishes, hoping one or two would jump out at me, but sometimes I just have no clue what I want on my nails. I picked up a neon, put it back, picked up a pastel, put it back, picked up a bright pink and put it back... they just didn't feel right. I stared at my stash for a good half an hour until I  realized something... NO RULES! So who cares black and white are not really Summer colors?!? On they went!

My dots didn't turn out as neat as normal, the heat is not only effecting my polishes, but also my dotting skills apparently. When I was finished, I decided to add a little color, by dotting a neon yellow on my accent nail.

I kinda like the final result, it's a nice and simple mani with a hint of Summer.
What's your favorite dotticure?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Sunshine

Today's #SUMMERNORULES theme is Sunshine and it's a very fitting theme for today, as it's a glorious sunny day with temperatures expected to rise above a steaming 30 Degrees Celsius. I had a very nice mani in mind for this theme, clear blue sky with neon yellow rays of sunshine. The picture in my head was stunning, bright, fun and extremely sunny. The result on my nail... well.. have a look for yourself:

What can I say? I let the blue completely dry before sponging the white on it, but the colors still mixed together. I let this dry completely too, but somehow the yellow got mixed as well. What I ended up with was a big ol' mess on my nails. I felt disappointed and didn't like it at all until I send a picture to a friend and she comented it kinda looked like a peacock...

And she's totally right! I left it on, giving it another chance and I grew to really like it! It's funky, weird and fun and I keep giggling every time I look at it. Isn't that what Sunshine really is supposed to do?

Are you enjoying the sunshine? What's your favorite thing to do on a scorching hot day?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Ice Cream

Happy Monday everybody! I had such a great weekend, I'm really sad it's over... The weather was gorgeous (apart from a drop of rain here and there), I went shopping in Amsterdam with a couple of friends and even though my legs were killing me the next day, it was totally worth it!

Today's #SUMMERNORULES theme is Ice Cream and who doesn't love some nice, ice cold ice cream? It's my favorite Summer treat and I love almost every flavor. For today's nail art I decided to go with an ice cream cone and creamy ice cream topped with sprinkles. I love the idea, the execution... mwah... I just can't seem to get my nail art straight on my nails...

Not my best, but still a fun mani that makes me want to lick my nails every time I look at them. To bad they don't taste like ice cream, that would be a polish I'd buy!

Have you joined the Summer No Rules fun yet?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: National Chocolate Day

Happy Chocolate Day everybody!
Yes, chocolate has his own national holiday and why wouldn't it? Nothing beats that rich, creamy taste and I could eat chocolate every day of the week! The only thing stopping me, is the fact that my thighs are big enough already and chocolate seems to settle right in that area...

But that doesn't mean I can't have some sort of chocolate on my nails for the #SUMMERNORULES Challenge. I had a great idea, but as usual, I failed miserably in the execution. The fact that in my 500+ polish stash, I only have 1 brown doesn't really help...

I wanted to do some kind of chocolate bar on my nails, but that just wasn't going to happen and after several failed attempt, I decided to cheer myself up with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, topped with a lot of chocolate sauce, one of my favorites! I looked at the bowl, (while stuffing my face) and suddenly I knew what I was going to do for this mani!

Vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce nails it is!

I love these drippy nails and keep going back to them, I think they are a fun way to easily spice up a mani.
What's your favorite way to eat chocolate?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Canada Day

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!
Of course this is also the theme for the #SUMMERNORULES Challenge and I had so much fun creating this mani! Not because it's very complicated, but because I discovered I suck at drawing a maple leaf... big time!

I wanted to try something new, so I made my own maple leaf decal! I drew the leaf on a piece of plastic, added a top coat, waited for it to dry and then peeled it off to place the home made decal on my nail. This was actually very easy, besides the fact I can't draw a maple leaf to save my life!

The placing of the decal was a little tricky too, because I made it slightly to big. Not that you can see it in this picture, because I only overdid the top coat. But overall, not a bad effort. I'm definitely going to be playing around with this technique, it's fun and easy and you can go wild with the design.

As for the polishes I used, the white is OPI Boyfriend and I've declared it dead after this mani. I almost didn't have enough left in the bottle to get an even coverage for this mani and now it's official: I used up an entire bottle of OPI My Boyfriend scales walls. I'm a little sad...

The red is China Glaze Vermillion, one of my favorite reds to use in nail art, because it's a true red and extremely opaque and easy to use. My bottle has a major layer missing already, so I have to be careful not to use this one up too.

Have you joined the fun yet?

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES: Catch up!

It's the third day of our #SUMMERNURULES Challenge and I haven't shown you a single mani yet. So so bad, I know, but I've been knocked out by a nasty migraine and as we all know, headache and nail polish just don't mix. Luckily, I'm feeling a lot better now and I decided to do a little catch up post of all the mani's I've missed.

We started on the 21st with the first day of Summer. Can you believe it's Summer already? I can't... but I'm enjoying every bit of it! I wanted to do a really cool neon water marble, but every single polish I tried didn't want to marble. I even tried the Maybelline bleached neons which supposedly marble really well, but they just didn't want to work for me... I blame the water, my marble skills and the beginning of my migraine.

After my third attempt I gave up and seeing as I was in a foul mood by then, I picked the polish with the prefect name: Black Cat Lacquer Cruel Summer. I layered it over China Glaze Grass is lime greener and I LOVE this combination!

Monday marked day two of the Summer No Rules challenge with National Pink Day. Now, we all know pink is my favorite polish color... not... and I just couldn't decide what to go with. But the fact that water marble kicked my butt earlier was still haunting me and as I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to give it another go. This time my polishes all behaved and I was able to get a half way decent marble on my nail. I pimped that mani with some glitter and a cool pink cream et voila!

Today is the third day of the challenge and the theme is Strawberries. I love strawberries, they are so sweet and I eat a lot of them in Summer, when they're sweet and ripe. I love them for breakfast in my yoghurt or just on a simple piece of toast. On my nails though... not the best to be honest...

They look a little rough around the edges, but still, a fun mani and seeing as I did these with my migraine shouting his last hurrah in my head, I think they turned out ok.

That's it, all caught up! I always love our No Rules Challenges, are you going to join? Remember, it's a No Rules Challenge, so anything goes, no nail art required, just fun! If so, please let me know in the comments or join us on Instagram using #SUMMERNORULES so we can enjoy all the fun mani's!

X

Read more »

#SUMMERNORULES!

Hello lovelies!
Yes, it's true, we're doing it again!
We've had so much fun with the previous challenges, that we just couldn't resist doing a Summer version.

Kick off is on the 21st of June and we would love it if you joined us, here and on Instagram. Just use #SUMMERNORULES so we can enjoy your creations.



Remember that this is a NO RULES challenge, you can do what ever you like! Nail art, striping tape, dotting tools, cool colors, pictures... everything goes, the main thing is we have fun!

Will you be joining us?

X

Read more »

My biggest nail art inspirations

Happy Monday people! Yesterday a friend of mine asked if I wasn't doing Mani Mondays anymore and I have to admit, I've been extremely bad about them. I haven't done one in... oh, I can't even remember... Such a shame, because I love our little nail art group. So I decided to get back in the swing of Mani Monday's! For today I don't have a nail art ready, so I decided to share my biggest nail art inspirations with you.

First off, YouTube. This is one of my biggest helps for not only inspiration, but also tutorials if I have an idea for a specific nail art design, but need a little help on how to get it on my nails. My favorite pages are Elleandish, Cutepolish and ArcadiaNailArt. They upload on a regular basis and always make even the most intricate designs look simple.

Other bloggers are a big inspiration too. I love nothing more than browsing the internet, looking for great nail art ideas when I have an hour to kill. Some bloggers are so incredibly talented and creative, it blows my mind! I follow a lot of great nail blogs, but my favorites when it comes to art inspiration are Adventures in Acetone, Chalkboard Nails and Lucy's Stash.

Adventures in Acetone

Chalkboard Nails

Lucy's Stash

And last, but certainly not least is Instagram. When I need some quick inspiration, I can always check instagram. When you search for #nailart, #NOTD, #instanails or basically any hashtag with nail in it, you'll find an overload of great mani ideas, but when you're looking for a geat nail art account, check out #madamluck and #kimiko7878. They are incredibly talented and create the most beautiful, original nail art ever. WAY out of my league, but gorgeous to look at and drool over.


Madam Luck



Kimiko78787

Those are my biggest inspirations, go check them out and if you happen to get inspired, please let me know! What's your biggest nail art inspiration? I'm always looking for more :D

X

Read more »

piCture pOlish Chillax (with a cherry on top!)

Yesterday, I was having the same dilemma lot's of polish hoarders like me face several times a week: what will I paint on my nails today? I stared at my stash for a while, pulled out several polishes and put them back again. I wanted them all on my nails and none of them at the same time. I know, I have issues...

So I did what anybody would do, I asked a friend of mine who is just as much of a polish addict (if not bigger) as I am and who knows my stash pretty well. Her answer: one of your new Picture Polishes! So that's what went on my nails, with a little nail art I was dying to try.

Picture Polish Chillax is a cream, best described by my husband, when he walked in mid-paint: "Wow, that's bright, in your face mint green!" This polish is part of the Urban Shades, just like Totes I showed earlier.

The formula is absolutely perfect. It flows on the nail with ease, is opaque in just 2 thin coats and it dries really fast. Although this is glossy enough on its own, I did add a coat of Seche Vite to prolong my mani. I was using Poshe for a while, but this kept giving me bubbles, so I switch back to SV and I totally remember why I love it so much, but that smell... oh boy, just opening the bottle made me high.

As for my cute nail art, I was watching Janelle (Ellandish) on Youtube and she did a picnic mani with these cherries. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to do a mani with them, because they were just the cutest thing ever! I think mine turned out really well and I just love them with the gorgeous Chillax.

Do you know that feeling when you just can't get enough of your mani? You keep staring at it with stars in your eyes and just won't take it of, even if it starts to look a little rough around the edges? Well... this mani gives me that feeling. I love everything about it! The color is stunning and the cherries are just so darn cute. This is going to be on my nails for a while!

What mani gave you that feeling?

X

Read more »

#SPRINGNORULES: Picnic

Today is the last day of our Spring Thaw No Rules Nail Art Challenge. I can't believe it's already over. I had so much fun coming up with all the designs, even though some of them didn't quite turn out the way I wanted.

For this last day, the theme is Picnic and I had a hard time coming up with a fun nail art. So much so that I almost skipped this day, but since it's the last day, I really wanted to do it. So I asked my husband what his first thoughts were when he thought of a picnic. His answers: "Beer, sand and ants"
Well... Beer isn't an option, because I just don't like it and don't want it on my nails. Sand would have been either really easy (I debated just painting my nails with Zoya Tomoko, a sand style polish in a sand(ish) color) or a lot of work (painting sand free hand on my nails would take me forever to do), so ants it is!

I started of with the typical picnic background: a checkered red and white blanket and added just a few black ants to this. The end result turned out... well... pretty nice actually. I didn't expect it, but I really like this mani.

I think the ants are a little oversized compared to my checkered blanket, but who cares?

Thanks so much for all of you who participated in this challenge, I hope you had just as much fun as I did. If you missed out on this one, we'll probably be doing our #XMASNORULES Challenge around Christmas again and we would love for you to join!

If you did do a Picnic nail art, please let me know, I'd love to see it!

X

Read more »

#SPRINGNORULES: Butterfly

It's Friday, that means my weekend starts at 5 o'clock today! Tomorrow is Kings Day and I'm looking forward to a nice day with my husband, enjoying the flee market and we'll probably end up an a terras with a drink. Fingers crossed for nice weather!

Today's #springnorules theme is Butterfly. I love butterflies, but oh man, was it hard to get one on my nails! The first one looked like just a blob on my nails, for the second one I painted my background too dark, so you couldn't see the butterfly, let's just say it was a mess!

My third and last attempt was better, still not as nice as I would've liked, but you can definitely tell it's a butterfly!

I really like the caterpillar I added and this time my flowers look like flowers, not eggs, so I'm happy with this. I'm thinking about doing another mani with the caterpillar, but I'm still thinking about that one.

Only 1 more day in the challenge and that theme is picnic. Hopefully I'm able to think of something nice to do for that one, because at the moment, I'm drawing a blanc... Luckily, I still have a couple of days to come up with a cool design.

Have a great weekend!
X

Read more »