Funky Easter

Happy Easter everyone! When I think of Easter nail art, I think of pastel shades and detailed designs. But after wearing soft colors so often lately, I wanted to have something brighter on my nails now! :) I started with H&M Wildflower as my basecolor, then I painted half of the nail turquoise with Essence Bella, using tape for crisp lines. Finally I added a few dots with Color Club Almost Famous and my funky Easter mani was done. :) Have a great day!

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A Broken Heart

Hi everybody! For this post I have a broken heart for you. Nothing to worry about though, I just thought it would be a cool design as I'm still experimenting with sheer polishes. :) I used my vertical lightning bolt design, then I painted the heart on top with a stencil I made from tape (like I used in this mani). I'm not sure if I like the colors I used, but I'm glad the idea I had in mind came out pretty much the way I wanted, yay! Thanks for reading! :)

Polishes I used:
H&M - Bella's Choice
Essence - Stamp Me! White
Color Club - Warhol

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Abstract '80s

Hi guys, another tape mani for you today! Oh, how I love stationery tape. It's so perfect for making geometric shapes which I happen to love too. ;-)

After (re)discovering the layering possibilities of sheer polishes with my recent springy stripes, I used the same technique in this mani. My base color (H&M Polish Me Happy) was applied the day before, so I could immediately place tape strips on top to form the mint green shapes with Orly Ancient Jade. When that had dried I once again used tape to make the pink triangles with Color Club Warhol and I just love how new shapes are formed where Ancient Jade and Warhol overlap. Speaking of Warhol, it's such a great polish for this layering technique. It's sheer, but covers very evenly and the color is so unbelievably bold! (Also take a look at layered Warhol together with its neon friends in this crackle mani.) And that's it for this post, I hope you enjoyed it. :-)

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Purples (and a pink)

Sometimes all you need for fun nails is color! Here I used a bunch of untried purples in a semi-gradient/ombre mani. I usually love my purples blue-toned, which is probably why I've never worn the three pinker colors before, but they look pretty cute together in a group. :) The polishes used from my thumb to my pinky:

H&M - Beauty Bandit (I love this name!)
Essence - Passion For Fashion
Essence - Break Through
Essence - Meet Me Now
Essence - Very Berry (Not so berry though!)

Thanks for watching everyone!

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H&M - Navy Cosmos: part 2

Hi everybody! Today I want to show you the blue side of H&M's Navy Cosmos (you can view part 1 here). It has a jelly-like formula that applies very easily, after two coats I had perfectly smooth blue nails. :) The color isn't unique, I have many similar colors in my stash - OPI Dating A Royal to name one, but then again I bought this duo just for the cute bottle. Do you have a weakness for nice packaging as well?

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Freehand '80s

Hi everybody! This is the nail art I made with H&M's Navy Cosmos as my base color. I was just playing around with my favorite nail art striper China Glaze Ink, looking for an easy freehand design. You all know I can't live without my precious tape when it comes to nail art, but let's face it, using tape can be quite time-consuming! So (easy) freehand designs are a nice alternative every now and then. :-) For this pattern that looks kind of '80s to me, I started drawing the zigzags on each nail. After I'd finished there was still something missing, so I used a dotting tool to fill in the empty spaces with big dots. I thought it turned out pretty cute in the end, but the best part was that the whole job was such a piece of cake. ^^ I used Essence Matt top coat for that ultimate matte finish, but below you can also see the glossy version that I just had to share with you. :) Hope you guys like it!

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H&M - Navy Cosmos: part 1

Hi everyone! For this post I have the red part of H&M's Navy Cosmos to show you. Like with H&M Plum it wasn't so much the color that I fell for, but the super sweet bottle! I couldn't resist the red and blue with the polka dots in the middle, even when I actually hate these narrow bottles with a polish on both ends. They're difficult to store, difficult to polish with because of the extra weight at the top, but boy they sure look cute!

The red creme of this polish duo is very vibrant, almost neon-like I'd say. The formula was a little bit goopy, but still manageable, needing two coats to cover. I know it's not the most unique color out there, but I like it nonetheless. It's a lot brighter than I expected it to be and I can't wait to wear it for summer! ^^ 

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Guest post for Oooh Shinies

Hello everyone, I'm proud to tell you that the lovely and talented Bregje from Oooh Shinies has asked me to make a guest post for her blog, of course I said yes! :)
So head over to Oooh Shinies for the complete post or click here.

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Black & blue stripes

Like many other nail bloggers, I too have been a terrible nail biter in the past. It started at age five or six and it continued till I was about nineteen. Nail polish has always been a hobby, ever since I got my first bottle of nail polish (silver, holographic bar-shaped glitter!) from my aunts. But I almost never got to enjoy my polishes on my nails because I could never fully get out of the habit of biting them. But then I stumbled upon nail blogging world and rediscovered my love for nail polish, I pampered my nails, started doing nail art and now I'm talking to you guys ;-) Since two years I'm finally able to say that my nail biting days are pretty much over. But then I went to the movies (In Time)... 109 minutes later I got two little nubbins on each hand, what just happened?! Sigh. Guess the movie was even more exciting than I thought, lol. Anyways, that's why I couldn't post anything earlier than planned, my nubs were really too short to share them with the world, haha. And honestly they still are, but oh well, that's why I made some nail art to distract you all. Hah! My base color is H&M Blue My Mind, I love how bright the color is, a true eye-catcher. I'd say it's a darker periwinkle blue creme, the formula seems a bit thick sometimes, but it's still fine and needs the average two coats for full coverage. On top I did some free hand stripes in random sizes with my favorite striper polish China Glaze Ink. I really like these simple stripes, because they're so easy to achieve plus the vertical pattern can make shorter nails look longer, which I kind of need right now :P Hope you like it too and thanks for reading if you made it this far. Good night!

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H&M - Plum

Hi everyone, this is H&M Plum, a quite dark purple creme. The color wasn't that special to me, but I completely fell in love with the bottle! The shape in Art Deco style looks so slick and the matching font compliments it, really pretty :)

The polish itself was very nice too, it needed two coats to cover, the formula was great and it was only €0.95 for 7ml/0.23 fl.oz.

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31 Day Challenge: Day 22

Good morning!

Today's theme is Inspired by a Song.
As you might remember, I have previously done nails inspired by Nicki Minaj's Super Bass video, so I knew I wanted to do another type of video-inspired nails for this challenge.

I landed on this one, my guilty pleasure song:



S&M - Rihanna.
This video is crazy. And probably should be PG-13. Or higher.
There are some interesting patterns and scenes in the video, and I chose to do skittles based on 5 of the patterns you see in the video!

They don't match at all but I love the way they look! Crazy and random, like the video.

Here's what I used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Whirlwind White
Wet N Wild - Black Creme
Nail Art Diva - Daffodil (yellow)
Wet N Wild - Tickled Pink (light pink)
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Presto Pink (darker pink)
H&M - Coral Summer (blue)
China Glaze - Recycle (gray)

The lace pattern is Konad m57 and 71 together.
The chains image comes from Bundle Monster BM12.
The zebra image comes from Bundle Monster BM16.

I took some screenshots from the video to show where the nails came from!

The zebra inspiration is easy to see!

So is the blue with X's.

Polka dots are always cute!

If you look closely you'll see that I tried to do the newspaper nail trick but it just didn't work very strongly so I added the chains image to those nails for a better look.

The lace nail doesn't come from one particular scene but there is lots of lace going on in the video!

What do you guys think? Do they suit the video?
:)

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31 Day Challenge: Day 21

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the final section of the 31 Day Challenge! If you want a refresher of what exactly this challenge is, head to my Day 1 post.

This final section of themes are all inspired by something or other. Today's theme is Inspired By A Color.

I wasn't quite sure how to go about this one, and then I chatted with a friend about it, who gave me the great idea to make it inspired by a polish color, and use the name to enhance the inspiration!
(That friend, is Sarah from Chalkboard Nails, and she is awesome! Seriously check out her blog. She has been doing this 31 Day Challenge right alongside me and she has blown me away every day!)

I looked at a few polishes, seeing which names could make a good design, and I settled on this one:

H&M - I Love Candy. Yep, another Hello Kitty polish from the lovely Line in Denmark.

This is a 2-coat shimmery purple polish, awesome formula, awesome color!

It's full of pink shimmer. Very nice! The quality of H&M's polishes is shockingly good.

Now, to bring in the inspiration from the name! Candy!

Cute little candies!

Awkward hand position to try and catch the last bits of sun coming in my windows!

I used a very small brush to draw on these candies using polishes from the China Glaze Kicks Collection:
China Glaze - It's Poppin' (pink)
China Glaze - Entourage (green)
China Glaze - Sky High Top (blue)

What would this design have been without some Hello Kitty decals? Haha! Too cute.
These stickers are from Born Pretty.

Thanks, Sarah, for helping me find the right inspiration for this!

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31 Day Challenge: Day 20

Good morning, everyone! (Or good afternoon, goodnight, etc!)

The theme for today in the 31 Day Challenge is Water Marble.
I've done water marbles a few times before, and I'm pretty good at it, but I just wasn't feeling inspired for this one so it came out sorta sucky.

Not my best. Haha.
But LOOK at my pinky.  Look at the holo showing up in the marble! That is the weirdest ever because the polish I used for this is one of the "dud" holos. Why does a marbling bring out the holo?

I think marbles look better in bright colors but I just wanted to do neutrals. So it's not the best, but still decent!

The polishes I used are:
OPI - Parlez-Vous OPI?
OPI - Skull and Glossbones
Color Club - Worth the Risque
H&M - Wawawoom

I used Parlez-Vous OPI? as my base color. I love this polish. Love the french name, love the color. Love love love.
I also love that I only paid $3.99 for this.

2 easy coats. Great formula. No complaints.

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31 Day Challenge: Day 12

Good afternoon everyone!
Today's theme is Striped Nails and I have a fantastic stripe mani for you today!

I knew I wanted to do some sort of abstract stripes, but I had no idea what colors.
So I looked at my "shelf of untrieds" - the place where I lay all my new polishes before I swatch them and put them away. And I realized that H&M had already picked some colors for me!

I got this set of polishes at H&M in Toronto, I believe this would be considered their fall set. They had all sorts of other cosmetics and accessories with this striped pattern.
So of course I knew it would make a great striped mani!

The five colors are Coral, Berry, Mustard, Purple, and Petrol.
I'm going to show you swatches of them alone, before I show you the lovely stripes.

This is Coral and it is just lovely. It is more of a true pink than a coral, though. The formula is great, it covers in 2 coats, and dries really quickly.
I swatched this one last week, and I ended up having to quickly run an errand with this polish fresh on one hand, no top coat. It did not get one dent or scratch! I was totally impressed.

This is Berry which is a nice berry color (obviously) that also covers in 2 easy coats.

Aaaaand this is Mustard which I also swatched before I cut my nails. I'm going to let your imagination run with a color description for this one. It is such a yucky color, I have considered throwing it away. But it ended up working well in my stripey mani, so I'll let it hang out in the little package with the other polishes.

This is Purple, what an original name. This one has harder to capture, this second picture is more accurate:

This is similar to other deep purples I have, but more of a true purple.
Again, 2 easy coats.

Petrol is yet another 2-coater with a great formula. A blue-teal shade, not quite like any others that I have, I don't think. I've worn this as a pedi and it did stain a bit, but it lasted well!

Not only is the formula great on these polishes, but the brush is really awesome too. I found that the brush held enough product in it to paint all 5 nails on one hand, without flooding or letting off too much on the first few nails. Not many brushes allow this! I really liked it.
My complaint is the bottles. Having such thin bottles makes it very easy to tip them over, especially when you try to wipe off the brush on the lip of the bottle.

Time for the stripey mani!! I've included a bunch of pictures because I really like it.

Cute, right? And so perfect for fall!

And see how the ugly Mustard polish actually looks nice next to the others?

Not only is it cute, but it was easy to do. I used Berry as my base coat, and used a striper brush to add uneven, random stripes of the other colors.
It doesn't need to be perfect or even, the uneven look is the point!

The polish colors all match the packaging colors really well, except for Mustard. I don't know which was wrong, the package or the polish. I actually think I like the Mustard color better than the one on the package, at least when you see all the colors together.

What do you guys think? Successful stripey fall mani?

And don't forget! Tomorrow is my birthday, which means my giveaway closes tonight! Someone is going to win a bottle of GOSH Holographic tomorrow!
Make sure to enter, today is your last chance!

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