The Lacquer Legion Reinvention: Water Marble

Quite spontaneously I decided to join The Lacquer Legion this month! It's a nail art challenge put together by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails with the help of Rebecca Likes Nails, The Nailasaurus and Work/Play/Polish. This month's subject is reinvention and I decided to "reinvent" an old design of mine. This old design is actually the second design I posted on my blog and I posted it in August 2011. I used almost the same colors again for this water marble. This is obviously not the biggest reinvention, but it was nice to see the difference between my old design and today's marble. The colors used are H&M - Manhunter, H&M - U Must Have This and Catrice - Blue My Mind. I'm looking forward to the next challenge! 

Green Salted Watercolor Nails

Knowing that I wouldn't have time to do my nails this week (I'm wearing red nails for seven days now!) I prepared another version of my Salted Watercolor Nails. I figured this technique would look also pretty cool in green and with a gradient as a base. So I used Essie - Mint Candy Apple and Catrice - I'm Not A Greenager to create a gradient using a piece of sponge. Then I forgot to add the matte top coat which is supposed to keep the acrylic paint in place. That's why a lot of the green acrylic paint washed off with the water. The salt pattern was still visible though, so I decided to add a bit of China Glaze - Holly-Day on my tips and then finished the design with Essence - BTGN High Gloss Top Coat. I can't wait to try more color combinations once I have a bit more free time. Thank you for bearing with me! :) 

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 13: Pride (Turquoise Stone - Water Spotted Nails)

The last week of the Deadly Sins Challenge arrived and the last sin is Pride. The theme of Day 13 says: Recreate your own work to make it even better.

Illustrations by: dahlig

So while browsing through my blog and looking for a design that I wanted to recreate for this day, I stumbled upon a few designs that I wasn't too happy with. At first I was pretty sure it was going to be one from the early days of this blog, but then I saw the Turquoise Stone Nails that I did at the end of January this year. It was after cutepolish made her awesome Water Spotted tutorial and I then decided to use her tutorial to create my design. 

But even if I liked the result, I wasn't completely happy with them. I think they looked too constant or smooth and not very realistic. So I tried again, this time with a different base: I used China Glaze - For Audrey, China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint and Essie - In The Cab-Ana to create Watercolor Nails. Then I did the Water Spotted technique with Essie - Licorice and filled in some of the spots with Catrice - Shanghai. I think I made my design better, but there's still a lot of room for improvement! I think next time I might try a freehand version of these, because I still think the black pattern is almost a bit too strong. We'll see! 

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 12: Envy (Green Watercolor Nails)

I love green nails, so the theme of Day 12 of the Deadly Sins Challenge for Envy was perfect! It says: Let the "Green Monster" guide you to some enviable nails.

Illustrations by: dahlig

I decided to do Watercolor Nails, but this time the "original" version using acetone, rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover and not a plastic bag as usual. I picked three pretty green polishes and used the lightest as my base color, which was Essie - First Timer. Then I made dots with all three colors (China Glaze - Holly-Day, Catrice - I'm Not A Greenager) one by one and dissolved the color with a brush dipped into rubbing alcohol. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Denim Nails

A few years ago I tried Denim Nails using acetone to remove the blue polish and reveal the white base underneath. After seeing these denim textured nails by Chelsea, I remembered how much I liked it back then! Chelsea tried a new way of doing Denim Nails though and I decided to give it a go as well. I only repeated the first two steps of her tutorial, since I loved the result so much and I didn't want to detract from it with too many details. Maybe I will add some silver studs later, we'll see. So I used one coat of Catrice - Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! and then brushed on Ebalay - 001 with an almost dry brush. The trick is to brush from side to side and from top to bottom. I love the effect! On top is one coat of Essence - Soft Touch Top Coat.

Catrice - I'm Not A Greenager + L'Oréal - Confettis Top Coat

Today I'm going to show you two new nail polishes that I bought last week. I'm trying to be pretty strict these days about which nail polish finds its way into my collection, because ... well, I do have enough of them. Both of these bottles have been on my wish list though: Catrice - I'm Not A Greenager (new range March 2013) is one of those green nail polishes that I wanted to have for a long time now. It's just plain simple green. And I have to say, the color is perfect for me. But I don't recommend buying any of the new Catrice nail polishes. I opened the bottle once and the screw top broke off. And this happened to a lot of people! Besides, they added new brushes which are not the quality I'm used to work with. Fail! 

The second polish is L'Oréal - Confettis, a glitter top coat that I didn't expect to see in drugstores! It's white and black glitter and they almost screwed up by adding blue shimmer (why would they do that?!). But fortunately the shimmer does not really affect the look, it's barely visible on the nails. The two polishes seemed to be a good team, so I added two coats of I'm Not A Greenager and two coats of Confettis on top. I love this combination! 

Snakeskin Nails

I've tried snakeskin nails a few times and I've never been happy with the result. I tried it with net lace and sponges and freehand but nothing was really satisfying. Recently I ordered two stamping plates from Vivid Lacquer including VL 002 which has a honeycomb pattern (and is not available right now). I figured I could use it as snakeskin as well. So I used one coat of Essence - Walk On The Wild Side as my base color and dabbed on Catrice - After Eight with a sponge. Then I decided to use Catrice - I'm A Star... as my stamping color which didn't work too well. On top of the stamping I used Essie - Matte About You which is either the worst matte top coat ever or I didn't know how to use it properly. 

My all time favorite snakeskin nails are these by Candy Glaze. She calls them Dragon's Egg Manicure though, but either way I really love them! My attempt on recreating them a few months ago failed big time, but one can dream, right? :) 

Sparkle Stripe Nails

On the lookout for inspiration I stumbled upon this cute pillow by Social Proper on Society6. I instantly fell in love, but then again I don't really need a pillow so I painted it onto my nails. I started with two coats of Essie - Blanc and then added a golden stripe in the middle of the nail with Catrice - Shanghai. I used some clear polish and craft shop glitter to make it extra sparkling. Then I added two more stripes with Essie - Need A Vacation and Essie - Lapis Of Luxury. On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Have a nice weekend! 

Black & Golden Splatter Nails feat. Catrice - Shanghai

A while ago I got a packet from a dear friend. She sent me a lot of awesome stuff including a golden nail polish out of the Catrice Big City Life LE. I didn't wear this one until today and I decided to use it for Splatter Nails first. I used my DIY Decals technique and p2 - eternal as my base color and then added the golden splatters with a straw and Catrice - Shanghai. On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Have a nice weekend! 

My Favorite Christmas Nail Polishes

Today I want to show you my most favorite nail polishes for Christmas. Maybe you've already seen most of them, but I wanted to gather them all in one post so you might find some inspiration for the holidays. Of course there's a lot of glitter and a lot of red. I've included two swatches of each polish and I will add the number of coats used in brackets, so the post will not be too messy. On top is always one coat of Essence BTGN Top Sealer. Click on the pictures for a better view! Alright, let's do this! 

China Glaze - Holly-Day (2) + China Glaze - Party Hearty (1)

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps (2)

Catrice - Star Of The Show (3)

Essie - Leading Lady (2)

Wet 'N' Wild - Rockin' Rubies (2)

BeYu - 334 (2)

 

Essence - Time For Romance (2) 

  

 Does this in any kind match with your favorite Christmas polishes? Which one is going to be on your nails for Christmas?

Grey Water Marble with Dots

Today's design started out with a great idea and then ended up not too great. I planned on doing a Water Marble like I did here but with grey colors. But then I had to learn that Water Marble really is one of a kind and very unpredictable. It just didn't work out as I wanted it to and although I used the same black as with the previous Water Marble, this time the black kept on drying too fast in the water. Well, I managed to finish it somehow in a random look so I decided to spice it up with some dots. And it went from boring to way too much details, I couldn't stop dotting! I used p2 - Eternal, Catrice - London's Weather Forecast and Artdeco - 108 in the Water Marble and with the dots. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Today the voting for the Essie Girls contest has ended and with your help and a lot of begging I made it to the Top 10! The jury will decide next week which 5 girls will win the contest. Thank you for voting and wish me luck for the final round! 

Black & Green Glitter Arc

Remember the glitter supplies I got some time ago? I did some skittle nails with them, but I didn't wear this design for too long since it wasn't very durable. I chose green and black as my base colors and added two coats of Catrice - Run Forest Run plus two coats of Wet 'n' Wild - Black Creme. Then I added small green hexagon glitters on the black base and black glitters on my green base. On top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. Sadly the glitters started to fall off after 2-3 hours. It might be possible that I didn't push them strongly enough into the wet polish or maybe two coats of top coat would have been better to seal the glitter. I definitely need to experiment some more with glitter nails! 

Thanks for reading!