OPI Brazil Collection 2014 - Nail Art

Some hearts on top of two coats of OPI - I Just Can't Cope-acabana from the Brazil Collection for Spring/Summer 2014, painted with AmazON...AmazOff and Where Did  Suzi's Man-go? The collection will be available in Switzerland from the 24th of February. More about OPI Swiss. 

Products were provided for review.

Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate QA10 - Love & Hearts

Another item that I've received to review from Born Pretty Store is this cute stamping plate with the number QA10. It's sold for 2.99 $ and shows various hearts and other cute symbols. I've neglected stamping for a while now, but when I saw this plate I felt like trying it again. There are 14 images altogether and they are of good quality, I didn't have any problems with getting them onto the stamp. What I have to criticize though are the sharp edges of the plate, which seem quite unsafe to me. The other stamping plates in my collection all have rounded down edges. For my design I used two coats of Essie - Blanc and then one coat of BTGN Top Sealer to be safe. Then I used Essie - Exotic Liras, Essie - Status Symbol and Essie - Need A Vacation to stamp the hearts onto my base color. On top is another coat of BTGN Top Sealer. I really love the heart images on this plate, they're all different and with nice details. I'm not too sure about some of the other images, like the big heart which has a weird shape and the "Play" writing (why would I want that on my nails?). Really cute are the two lovebirds, but the movement of my stamp made them come out a bit imprecise. I'm definitely gonna try again with these, because I would love to have them on my nails! 

As always, if you want to place an order on Born Pretty Store, you can use my coupon code for 10% off:

Gingerbread Nails

Christmas without gingerbread is like no Christmas at all. Do I have to say it? I love gingerbread! These days almost everything in my environment smells or tastes like gingerbread: shower gel, hand lotions, pumpkin spice latte, brownies... So of course I had to do gingerbread nails as well. I will definitely try to improve these in the near future and maybe add some more details but for now I'm happy with how they turned out. I used two coats of Essie - Lady Godiva as my gingerbread base color. Lady Godiva is almost black but you can still see that it is not plain black polish. With a white nail polish and a dotting tool I added small dots around each nail. I wanted to do sugar spun nails at first but then thought it would look too messy and not like real gingerbread. So I went with the dots. With Essie - Mink Muffs I painted a tiny gingerbread man and a heart and outlined both with white nail polish / acrylic paint. Actually I switched to acrylic paint after the gingerbread man because it was really annoying to paint thin lines with nail polish. Then I wanted to add some color and used white acrylic paint to shape the remaining hearts and filled them in with red paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.  

Do you like gingerbread as much as I do?

Essence Pigments - Broadway Starlet & Heart Accent Nail

Some time ago I did a little bit of mixing with my favorite Essence pigment: Broadway Starlet. I mixed Broadway Starlet with about the same amount of the p2 eyeshadow called Moonlight Glam. Together it gives an amazing purple with colorful glitter. The only bad thing about this is that you have to work pretty fast to get an even coverage on each nail. I did one thick coat on each nail and then added one coat of Essence BTGN Top Sealer. After it has completely dried I used a piece of tape punched with my heart shaped hole puncher on my accent nail. I filled out the heart with Anny - Absolutely Fuchsia, a beautiful dark pink glitter polish. Instead of taking off the tape right away like I usually do it, I waited for a few seconds because otherwise the polish would have smudged. Then on top again another coat of BTNG Top Sealer. 

I think it looks very simply but nonetheless fancy and I'm really in love with that pigment! Just look at that last macro shot, full of glitter! 

Pastel Geometric Nails

Everytime I do pastel nail art I can't resist doing pastel skittle nails, especially since now I have the perfect colors to do so in my collection. You might already have stumbled upon some of my pastel designs through the months and today it is time for another one. 

I decided to pimp my pastel rainbow with some geometric shapes. For this one I used the same colors as in my Pastel Watercolor Nails: China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint, Something Sweet and Lemon Fizz, Manhattan 81c and added Essie - Lilacism to the rainbow. I did the shapes with white acrylic paint and then added a smaller version in the middle with the nail polish color on the right side. 

Well, hello there! :) 

NOTD: Valentine's Day 3: Valentine's Day Picnic

Once again inspired by Robin Moses, click here for her tutorial on how to create the picnic tablecloth pattern. 

I chose a blue toned tablecloth and used two colors from Essence: King of Mints and Speed Of Light Blue (You Rock! LE). 

As a base color I used CG Snow and then added the stripes and squares with my nail art brush.

One coat of Essie GTG on top.

I really like the pattern so I left it like that for a day. But since I planned it as a Valentine's Day design, I added a little heart on my ring finger nail.

The heart is made with Catrice - Raspberry Field Forever and outlined with OPI Black Onyx. 

It makes me wanna pack my bag and leave for the park to make a picnic... just until I open my window and feel the sub-zero temperatures outside. :S