Cut Out & Striped Nail Art

I've always been a bit reluctant to do cut out nail art since it either didn't look too good with stained nails or I didn't like the visible half moon of my natural nails. I decided to try again and kind of find a way around it by covering those two parts of the nail. What I love about this design that you can start to add striping tape onto the bare nails, which means you don't have to wait around for the base color to dry. So that's what I did, using my self-made striping tape kit and the 2 mm size tape. For the colors I chose Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme, KIKO - #389 Mint Milk & #295 Cerulean Blue and Essie - Peach Daiquiri. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. I especially love the pinkie, middle and thumb nails and this is definitely something I keep on my list of designs to do again. 

Plaid Nails / MoYou London Hipster Collection #05 / Essie

As you might have seen on my Instagram, I finally decided to get two new stamping plates from MoYou London. The first one I've tried is the #05 from their Hipster Collection, which has 12 XL plaid stamping patterns to choose from. I'm a big fan of plaid nails, so I obviously had to get these, sooner or later! I also love the quality of the MoYou London plates, their packaging and this time they shipped very fast. I decided to get some of my Essie autumn colors out of my stash and used Sand Tropez as my base color. For the perfect coverage I needed three coats and this is what you see in the first two pictures below. Then I created the first layer of plaid with Smokin' Hot and at this point I took another picture since I really loved that simple look. I wasn't sure about doing more layers at first, but I felt like experimenting a bit and added another one with Angora Cardi. Because its formula is more on the fluid side, it didn't look to good, so I decided to go over it with a nail art brush. And because I still felt like something was missing I added two black lines for each nail with the nail art brush and Licorice. My last coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri smudged a little bit of those black lines, but I still like it a lot. I'm thinking of so many different color combinations for plaid nails right now, their just perfect for autumn! 

Spring/Summer Splatter Nails

I haven't done splatter nails in a while and I thought I could include one of my new neons from the Maybelline Bleached Neons collection in a cute spring and summer neon splatter design. You can find out more about how I create splatter nails in my tutorial for DIY Decals. For this one I used Flormar - 400 as my base and then added Maybelline - Chic Chartreuse, Essie - Shake Your $$ Makers, Essie - Lights and Flormar - N006. The first pictures shows the design with a shiny top coat and in the second I'm wearing one coat of Essie - Matte About You on top. 

Scaled Gradient Nails

So I stumbled upon this beautiful design by Cristine from Simply Nailogical the other day and I immediately wanted to try it on my own nails. She calls it a scaled gradient and has already done some awesome variations, so you should definitely check out her blog! Cristine used nail vinyls as a guide for the gradient and I decided to make my own vinyls for this. As my base color I used three coats of Essie - Go Ginza and I actually prepared it the day before, since for this technique the nail polish needs to be completely dry. Then I did two gradients using Essie - Fiji and Bottle Service, letting them dry in between. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. I love this technique and there are so many possibilities! The only downside is the drying time. If the nail polish isn't completely dry, the tape will ruin the first gradient. I'm still thinking of a faster way to do this! Any ideas? :)

It's also a little bit messy...

My Instagram

Water Spotted Neon Candy Nails

I felt like doing some really colorful nail art the other day and this is what I came up with. I picked a few lovely neon polishes and created random gradients with a sponge on each nail. For this first step I used Essie - Boom Boom Room, Bottle Servive, DJ Play That Song and China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer. To complete the design I thought about doing a water spotted pattern on top using first Layla - Metal Chrome and then Wet n Wild - Black Crème. To see how I create the water spotted effect, check out my recent tutorial. I think it turned out really cute and I loved wearing this design! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Purple & Mint Water Marble

Today's design is a water marble which I did last week and although I got a bit confused with what is left and right while doing the marbling, I still kind of liked it in the end. I used a white base to make sure that my colors would look opaque enough and then picked three colors for the marble: OPI - Pamplona Purple, Essie - First Timer and China Glaze - Holly-Day. Actually I just wanted to use mint and purple first, but then the lines weren't clear enough for me, so I had to add a darker color as well. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

My Water Marble Basics

Movie Nail Art: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Today's nail art was inspired by a movie that I saw recently: The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson. I loved the movie and there were so many inspiring colors and patterns that I decided to do some movie nail art. If you didn't see the movie (you should though!): Mendl's is a pastry shop and they pack their sweets in those adorable pink boxes with a blue ribbon. I used two coats of China Glaze - Something Sweet as my base color and Essie - Avenue Maintain for the ribbon. Since the writing on the boxes is really delicate I decided to paint it just on two nails with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

How to make a "courtesan au chocolat"

Flowers on Essie - Fiji

The recent Essie - Fiji hype made me grab my bottle and paint my nails as well! I own the old european version and not the new limited one though. This one needs three coats to get an opaque result, but I couldn't resist for very long and added some nail art on top. I chose Essie - Turquoise & Caicos plus Essie - Chubby Cheeks to paint on flowers with a nail art brush. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Striped Nails

I used two coats of Flormar - 400 as my base and then added stripes with a nail art brush and a lot of colors: Flormar - N006,  Essie - Mint Candy Apple, Essie - Avenue Maintain, OPI - AmazON...AmazOff and Sally Hansen - So-Nata Problem. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Essie - Bordeaux

I have been wearing a beautiful dark red by Essie for the last few days and I love this color a lot! It's called Bordeaux and I used two coats this time. It might look a bit more opaque with three coats but I didn't feel like adding another one and I'm happy with how it looks with just two coats. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Essie - Chubby Cheeks

It doesn't happen too often that I wear a simple color without any nail art at all, even if I really enjoy plain nails. I have been growing my nails the last few weeks and I might try a bit of a different shape as well. The almond shape is quite difficult to create so I'm not sure I will wear them like this for a long time, but we'll see! I thought a plain pretty color would be the perfect start since I'm not completely used to wearing long nails yet. I chose Essie - Chubby Cheeks, a beautiful red which Essie describes as a creamy bright red-orange sunset. I used two coats and one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss on top. 

Essie - Aruba Blue + Dance Legend - Top Sahara

Since I had to schedule some designs and posts, today's nails are already a few days old. The first time I used Dance Legend - Top Sahara (the top coat that changes normal polishes into textured ones) I wrote that I didn't like the glitter too much. I actually changed my mind about it, especially with this combination! I used two coats of Essie - Aruba Blue as my base color and then added two coats of Top Sahara. Again, the textured effect isn't very strong but I love the result! On top of which color would you wear Top Sahara? I'm thinking about pastel colors for spring, that could look very cute! 

Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her / Matte / Nail Art

Two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her plus some ornaments with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essie - Matte About You. I also added some studs and a shiny top coat later on, but I do prefer the matte version, don't you? 

Polka Dots & Essie - Avenue Maintain

Not that I feel like spring should be here already (we didn't even have winter yet!), but these nails really feel springlike! I used one coat of Essie - Avenue Maintain from the Madison Ave-hue collection 2013 and then added a lot of tiny dots with white acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Peppermint Nails - Merry Christmas!

I have one more Christmas design for you! Ever since I saw the Peppermint Nails video from HelloMaphie I decided to do something similar before Christmas is over. I love her combination with mint, so I combined two kind of peppermint swirls in one design. My base color is Flormar - 400 and all of the lines are painted with Essie nail polish. I used Really Red, Lovie Dovie, Mint Candy Apple and Mojito Madness. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Merry Christmas and thank you for everything!

Essie - Mint Candy Apple & OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

As planned I tried my OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat over a mint base color and which mint nail polish would be more obvious than Essie - Mint Candy Apple? I was wearing this combination last week and really liked it, even if the flakie top coat kind of changed the color of my base to a more yellowish mint color. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Vivid Lacquer VL006: Snowflakes

A simple stamping design to start the Christmas countdown, using the Vivid Lacquer stamping plate VL006. I did this design a few days ago and forgot to write down the colors, sorry about that! It's either Essie - Marshmallow or Essie - Waltz and the white stamping color is Flormar - 400. On top I used one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss and one coat of Essie - Matte About You. 

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! :)