Green Saran Wrap with Triangular Studs

I have another product from Born Pretty Store for today! Actually I mentioned in a mail to BPS, that selling triangular studs would be an awesome idea. Not without a self-interest of course! I've been looking for small triangular studs for months now and couldn't find them anywhere. Well, here they are, 3mm in gold and silver. How awesome is this? I ordered a bag of both as soon as I saw them online. I combined the silver studs with a Saran Wrap design that was inspired by Alice from One Nail To Rule Them All. I used Essie - Trophy Wife and Dive Bar to create the saran wrap and then added the studs and one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. 

You can use my coupon code to get 10% off your order at Born Pretty Store.

Neon Triangles

I started this design with two coats of Ebalay - White Matte and my plan was to do a water marble with some nice colors I chose the day before. Somehow the marbling didn't look as expected on the plastic nail, so I had to think of another way to add the colors onto my white base. I used striping tape to paint triangles with Essie - Saturday Disco Fever and some more striping tape and Essie - In The Cab-Ana to fill in the blank space. I like this design a lot, but the pictures don't do it justice! This neon orange is actually starting to grow on me, even if the formula isn't the best. On top of all of this is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Double Gradient & Golden Studs

I used a total of ten Essie polishes for today's design! The reason I only used Essie is that because I have so many of them, it does make things easier when choosing colors for a gradient. And that's what I did, more precisely something like a double gradient. At first I created green and blue gradient skittle nails which seemed a bit boring to look at. So I added a red gradient onto the green one and a purple gradient onto the blue one. (That's more of a quadruple gradient now, to be more accurate.) Then I added round golden studs from Born Pretty Store and finished with one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. If you're interested, these are the names of all the colors I used:

Mesmerized, Avenue Maintain, Lapis Of Luxury / Flawless, Splash Of Grenadine

Mojito Madness, First Timer, Mint Candy Apple / Chubby Cheeks, Eternal Optimist

Blue & Yellow

I realized today I'm really out of practice when it comes to to free-hand nail art. I painted this design with a nail art brush and I messed up some of the lines. Well, I need more practice! The colors were standing side by side on my desk, waiting to be stored again and I figured they would look good combined in a design. They're Essie - In The Cab-Ana, Avenue Maintain, China Glaze - For Audrey, Re-Fresh Mint and Anny - Sunshine In My Heart.  I used acrylic paint for the black lines. On Top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Does anyone have a suggestion for a bright opaque yellow nail polish? Sunshine In My Heart is just almost opaque with three coats and actually it's not bright enough for me. What's your favorite?

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 10: Wrath (Black & White)

It's Day 10 of the Deadly Sins Challenge and today I did the second design for Wrath. The theme said: Find something that blows your top and express it with your art! 

Illustrations by: dahlig

Something that makes me really angry is when people have a "black-and-white mindset". You know, judging others or a situation and there are only the options right or wrong. Not thinking in between or beyond. Sometimes I even do it myself and that would be something that 'blows my top'! Obviously I chose black and white to express it on my nails, but I'm not very happy with my execution. I used two coats of Essie - Blanc as my base and then at first painted the black pattern with a pen, which was not a great idea. The black smudged over the white and turned red after I applied my top coat, so I did it again, this time only with nail polish. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 2: Lust (English Rose & Studs)

Yay, we're already at Day 2 of the Deadly Sins Challenge! This week the sin we're supposed to display is Lust and this time the theme says: Let your body talk and feel free to do whatever you want.

Illustrations by: dahlig

Well, I was really at a loss at first, because for lust all that came to my mind was lips & hearts. But then I decided not to take it too literal and started to paint my nails with two coats of Essie - Smokin' Hot (okay, perfect choice anyway...). Then I added triangles with striping tape and Essie - Blanc. On top of Blanc I painted the glue for the transfer foil and added a foil called English Rose (sold out at the moment). I then used one coat of Star Nails - Nail Art Finishing Sealer and added the studs while the top coat was still wet. On top of it all is an additional coat of Essie - Good To Go.

Check out all of the recent designs in this Challenge here:

Día De Los Muertos / Day Of The Dead - Sugar Skull Nails

I hope you're not bored with Mexican themed nails, because there's more where that came from! I wanted to do Sugar Skull nails since I first saw them. They're so colorful and that's always a good reason for nail art. Sugar Skulls are part of the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, which is honoring the deceased. 

I originally planned to go for full Sugar Skull nails but that would have been a lot of work, especially with my weak hand. So I just went for an accent nail with one Sugar Skull while leaving my other nails with a simple, matching design. The accent nail is done with acrylic paint on one coat of Wet 'n' Wild - Black Creme. My other nails are done with two coats of H&M - All Eyes On Me. Then I added striping tape and filled out the triangle with Black Creme. On top of each triangle I placed a single stud. As always on top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. 

Check out my Mexican tag, if you are interested in more Mexican related nail art! 

Thank you for reading!

Blue Triangle Nails

Today's nails are inspired by a design I spotted on Pinterest the other day. You can find the original picture here. I chose to do a different version and added my triangles in a symmetric manner. And I decided to use only blue colors on this one. I tend toward using the most difficult colors for cleaning up in those designs that require the most cleaning up. That was a challenge! 

I started off with Essie - Blanc and let it dry completely before adding three pieces of striping tape on each nail. Then I prepared all my bottles in line and started painting one nail after the other, which makes it easier to remove the striping tape afterwards and get a (more or less) straight line. I varied the colors with each nail to create a more interesting look in the whole design. The colors are the following, starting with the darkest blue:

Anny - Midnight Blue, Essie - Mesmerized, Essie - Lapis Of Luxury, H&M - U Must Have This, China Glaze -  For Audrey, China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint

On top there is one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

I have to add a short note about the clean up, especially about Anny - Midnight Blue. That bastard stained my nails in an awful blue-green shade last time using it. I decided to give it another chance with this design because I didn't expect it to stain my nail through one coat of base coat and two coats of Essie - Blanc. And it didn't, but it stained my cuticles so bad! I spent a lot of time cleaning up with nail polish remover, soap and a toothbrush... This one is not going back into my Helmer! ;)

The other colors were alright and they're not that highly pigmented as Midnight Blue. I guess I would replace Lapis Of Luxury the next time, it didn't work too good with one coat only and was still too sheer. 

I really like this design and it worked surprisingly good on both hands. I messed up a few spots but it could easily be corrected with a little bit of white nail polish and a nail art brush. I could imagine this one in warm colors as well, from red to yellow or just green-toned. What do you think?

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! :)