#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 »

#SPRINGNORULES: Grass

My favorite thing about Spring is that everything smells so fresh and my favorite smell has to be fresh cut grass. I wish I could find a candle that smells like that, I would burn it all year long!

So of course Grass had to be included in the #springnorules challenge and today is that day! The only problem is, I'm just not good at plants, flowers, grass or anything of that nature. I already gave it a go with my flowers-that-looked-like-eggs and my lady bug mani and I wasn't impresse, so I had very little hope of pulling this one off.

I just kept it simple, with waving grass, some of those brown velvety things you see near a pond (no idea what they are called...) and a little flower.

Not my best work, but still a fun mani, I think.
Did you do a grass mani?

X

Read more »

#SPRINGNORULES: April Fools!

When I saw today's #springnorules theme, the first thing I thought was: Are you kidding me??? How in the hell am I going to get that on my nails? What were we thinking with this theme?

Ok, I understand what we were thinking, but still... this has to be the hardest theme ever! At least, I think so. I don't really do anything for April Fools Day, it's just another day to me. So I had a look around on Youtube to see if that would give me some inspiration. As soon as I saw this video, I knew I wanted that on my nails! It doesn't shout April Fools, but it's funny and that's the most important thing today I think.

I used a lot of polishes and hand painted everything. I'm actually quite proud of how this turned out, I can't stop laughing at my idiotic nails every time I look at them. I wanted fun, colorful nails for this theme and I think I succeeded!

Do you get into the practical jokes on April Fools or is it just another day for you?

X

Read more »

#SPRINGNORULES: Spring Dotticure

I love a nice dotticure, it's an easy way to spice up any mani and everybody can do it. All you need is a couple of polishes and a dotting tool (or toothpick, bobby pin, something like that) and off you go! Today happens to be the second day of our little Spring Thaw No Rules Nail Art Challenge and wouldn't you know... the theme is Spring Dotticure!

 

I think OPI Live.Love.Carnaval is perfect for spring (and this dotticure). It's a bright coral cream that is part of the Brazil collection. I didn't originally get this when I ordered my polishes from this collection, but after seeing swatches and hearing people talk about it, I caved and picked it up. And boy, am I glad I did!

 

 

It's so bright, it's almost a neon. The formula was really nice too, easy to paint on the nail, opaque in 2 coats and it dried fast.

 

I wanted to keep my dotticure simple, but fun, so it didn't overpower the beauty of Live.Love.Carnaval and what better polishes to use than the other 2 I have from the Brazil collection, AmazON... AmazOFF and I just can't Cope-Acabana! I opted for just an accent nail, with a white base and dot... dot... dot... ready! Easy as pie with a fun, festive and colorful result. I love it! I actually wore this on my birthday.

 

 

Do you rock the dotticure and are you joining our No Rules Challenge?

 

X

Read more »

#SPRINGNORULES: Green

First things first: Happy Sint Patricks Day everybody!

May you have food and raiment,
a soft pillow for your head.
May you be forty years in heaven
before the devil knows you’re dead

I've been a bad little blogger... the past couple of weeks, I haven't been blogging as much as I would have liked and the worst thing is, I don't even have a good excuse! Life just got away from me, with sunny days, my birthday last week and just plain no time to paint my nails, let alone write a blogpost about it. But no more! Today is the first day of a new nail art challenge some of my friends and I set up on Instagram.

Yes, that's right, No Rules, so no excuse not to participate! You can do as many days as you want or just a couple and if you're nail art challenged like me, get creative with color, stickers, water decals, just have fun with it!

For today, the theme is Green, perfect for St. Paddy's Day :D
I had some fun with it and created little leprechauns on my nails and I added a good luck shamrock, just because I could! I love this mani, but it's nowhere near perfect. Next time, I'll try to paint the little buckles a little higher on the nail and I've found I'm not the best at drawing heart shapes... but who cares? It's a no rules challenge, so no need to be perfect!

Will you join the fun? If so, please use #SPRINGNORULES to show your mani on instagram and if you blog about it, please leave a link in the comments, I'd love to see all your creations!

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Santa

I can't believe this is the last day of our little #XMASNORULES challenge. I had so much fun with all the different mani's and enjoyed seeing all of yours. The theme for this last day is, of course, Santa. I had so many ideas, all of them way to hard for me to do, so I opted for a relatively easy, but fun many.

I painted all my nails red, except my ringfinger and added a nice layer of snow and some snowflakes. On my ringfinger, I started with a green base and added Santa himself :D
I really like how he turned out. His eyes are a little bigger than I wanted, but that gives him kind of a hippy look, or am I the only one who sees the John Lennon glasses?

This might be my favorite of all my nail art attempts, it's just so fun and festive and I love my little Santa. I had an absolute blast and can't wait for next years challenge!

What was your favorite #XMASNORULES mani?

Happy Holidays!
X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Candy Canes and Gifts

I'm doing a little catch up today. I've been so busy, I didn't have time to create even the simplest art for our challenge, so I decided to do 2 in 1 today. Candy Canes and Gifts... what a great combination!

I tried an intricate design at first, but after bumping my nails, messing up because of shaking hands and just a complete lack of skill, I gave up and just stayed in my comfort zone: fun, colorful and simple by alternating the canes and gifts.

I love candy canes, I always have the pepermint ones in my Christmas tree and no matter how many I hang, they all somehow dissapear before New Years Eve... I think my cats eat them.

What's at the top of your Christmas Wishlist this year?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Elves

Today's XMASNORULES theme is a fun one: elves!
I had so many ideas, but decided to keep it simple. When I saw this design on Youtube, I was sold! It was just so fun and colorful. I saw this design quite a few times, but I watched TotallyCoolNails video.

I think this turned out really well! What a relieve, after my previous disaster with nail art.

Are you joining our #XMASNORULES Christmas Mani Challenge?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Holiday Movie

One of my favorite things to do during my Christmas holiday is snuggle on my couch and watch a Holiday Movie. They always make me feel so warm and cosy. But what were we thinking making Holiday Movies a theme for this challenge? Seriously, I had a great idea for today's theme and was really excited, untill I got started and saw what it actually looked like on my nails... I couldn't stop laughing and immediately took a picture to send to a friend. She tried not to laugh and tell me it wasn't all that bad, but even she couldn't hold in a chuckle...

After this big fiasco, I tried again, unfortunately with the same result. But I have to admit, I kinda like both my attempts. Not because they are gorgeous mani's, because trust me, they're not, but because I had such fun in the process.

So, instead of coming up with another idea, one that I could actually pull off, I decided to be a good sport and make you laugh by showing you my 2 Holiday Movies nail art gone wrong attempts!

The first movie is not really a Holiday Movie, but it is for me. I only watch this movie around the holidays and I absolutely love it! Bonus points for those of you who can guess the movie by looking at the following big fat fail!

You give up? I know, it's terrible, but still, I like it. I did my best and I have to start somewhere. I should have know I wouldn't be able to pull it off, I am the worst at drawing on paper, let alone on a tiny nail! But this is supposed to be the Corpse Bride.

After this fail, I decided to make my challenge a bit easier and try my hand at a character of an actual Holiday Movie. This is a black and white figure, so I thought this would be easy enough.... wrong! I managed to mess this one up too. But it is a little better than my bride I think.

Any idea which movie I was going for? If you guessed The nightmare before Christmas, you are totally right! Looking at the picture below, I thought it was going to be easy as pie, black, white, 2 eyes, 2 triangles for a nose and a mouth. Can't be all that hard, right? Goes to show I totally overestimated my nail art skills...

I hope you had a good chuckle, I know I did! Even though the result leaves something (well, a lot actually) to be desired, I still love both of these. Let's just hope that I get better with time and I can show you something nice next year!

What's your favorite Holiday Movie?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Gingerbread Man

I'm loving this challenge so much, everybody is creating so many gorgeous mani's and I'm really getting inspired to try even more nail art!
Today's theme was a struggle for me though, I had no idea what to do with Gingerbread man... I watched a lot of tutorials on youtube and googled my heart out, but I didn't find anything that I really liked AND was able to recreate. So finally, I just gave up and chose a very simple art.

It's just the Gingerbread man "suit". Frosting on the bottom and 2 little buttons on his belly. I don't like how this turned out at all! I really think I should have kept the frosting part a little smaller and the buttons... don't get me started!

Even the pictures are really bad, because my home made light box was demolished by my cat. Apparently it did something bad to Dinkie in the dark, because she got so mad at the poor little light box and literally tore it to shreds... No fixing that and I am now on the hunt for a proper light box. Suggestions are more than welcome!

Anyway, I managed to get a few pictures so I have something to show you.

I used China Glaze Street Chic for my base color, I had to, it's the only brown polish I own...
The white frosting is a striper, as is the red line.
The buttons are made with China Glaze Four leaf Clover and Phat Santa.

Let's quickly forget about today's theme and move on to the next one: Christmas Tree.
I should be able to get someting nice on my nails for that one!

Did you find Gingerbread an easy theme?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Christmas Lights

Lucky for me this is a No Rules Christmas Challenge, because I totally got my dates mixed up...
I thought today was the Christmas Lights day, turns out it was yesterday. Oh well, It's probably still December 2nd in some part of the world.

I love Christmas lights, they are so cheerful and festive. I always decorate my Christmas tree with a lot of lights and have candles burning everywhere. Usually I tend to have just white lights, but for this nail art, I opted for the colored ones, because that just makes my mani more fun and festive.

I really liked how these turned out. This is by no means an original design, I have seen it all over Youtube and on several blogs, but I loved the idea and decided to give them a try. After seeing this on my nails, I didn't think they were quite festive enough, so I added a bit of sparkle. Normally I think sparkle makes everything better, but in this case I don't know. I like them with and without the sparkle.

I used quite a lot of polishes for this mani and I also used a little brush to get the bulbs on my nails. I found it was fun and easy to do, so even if you're nail art challenged like me, you should be able to pull this of.

Four leaf clover, striper, Happy go lucky, 3 stripers, Golden Enchantment

What do you think? Do you prefer them with or without the sparkle?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES: Snow

This is the second day in the #XMASNORULES challenge and the theme is Snow. I love snow! Especially when I'm inside, warm and toasty and there's no need to go outside, unless I just want to take a walk through the snow. Unfortunately, I usually have to make my way to work and somehow it seems my little country just isn't equipt for snow, because after a good snow fall, all traffic is just jammed and it takes me 3 hours to get to work instead of the normal 45 min.

But other than that, snow is one of the most beautifull things mother nature provides. I always feel so calm and serene when I'm walking through a winter wonderland. I just can't get enough.

For my nail art, I decided to keep it simple, as past experience has taught me I'm not the best at art. I painted my nails blue, added snow flakes and a dusting of holo glitter, because, let's be real, glitter makes every mani better! The result is very simple, but I like it.

For this nice, easy mani I used 2 polishes and a nail art striper.

Butler Please, striper, Fairy Dust

What's your favorite thing about snow?
Do you get a lot of white snow where you live, or is it mainly slush like we tend to get?

X

Read more »

#XMASNORULES

This Christmas, me and some lovely ladies, decided to get together and share the fun of Christmas Mani's! We created a simple, easy and fun Christmas Challenge!

The best part about this challenge, apart from a lot of fun, is that there are no rules, so anybody can join. If you just want to show 1 mani, perfect! If you'd like to join us for the entire month, you are more than welcome. The more the merrier!

The no rules also means, you don't have to do nail art, but you can express yourself with colors, textures or other finishes, get creative because the main goal is to share the Christmas Mani Fun!

Can't wait to see all of your Christmas Mani's!

X

Read more »