Thứ Năm, 19 tháng 3, 2015

Tropical purple

Morning! Here's a stamped mani with a tropical floral image from Bundle Monster's Secret Garden plateset, and I went with 2 purples that both lean a lot to the blue side. Especially the basecolor is more periwinkle than true purple, and it makes for a great nailart base!

OPI You're Such A Budapest with A England The Blessed Damozel and Bundle Monster plate BM-720



OPI You're Such A Budapest with A England The Blessed Damozel and Bundle Monster plate BM-720.

OPI You're Such A Budapest with A England The Blessed Damozel and Bundle Monster plate BM-720

I don't think I already showed how well The Blessed Damozel stamps, but it clearly has no problems with it at all! Thanks for looking and take care :)

OPI You're Such A Budapest with A England The Blessed Damozel and Bundle Monster plate BM-720

Chủ Nhật, 15 tháng 3, 2015

Marble made easy!

Hi all! Yes, you read that right, I'm talking about an easy way to do a water marble. There are various ways of getting a marbled look, but I recently came across a technique to marble that made me wonder why nobody thought of it before, it's so much easier! The technique is a mix between a classic water marble and a dry marble (marble on a ziplock bag or something alike, where you cut the dry marble into decals afterwards), and I think it's a brilliant idea :)

China Glaze Gothic Lolita with OPI Rumple's Wiggin', A England Avalon, A England The Blessed Damozel, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Dance Legend #1048 and striping tape



In short: you make a standard water marble, by dripping polish into a glass (or something similar) of water until it looks like a bull's eye, and drag something pointy through it to create a pattern. Then you let it dry completely in the water. When it's dry, gently take it out and cut it into decals. Apply a base color and while that's almost dry but still a bit sticky, apply the decal. Cleanup, top coat, done! But I used a plastic cup that I used before, it has some old marble remains on the inside, and my marble got stuck to that at some parts (which normally doesn't happen since I don't let it dry). I could get it loose without much problem, but next time I'd use a clean glass for this technique.

I just had to try out this technique, and decided to go for a marble on all nails, but cut the decals diagonal near the top. Imagine the possibilities, you can cut them any way you like! I needed 2 complete dried up marbles to do all 10 nails like this, instead of a new glass of marble for each nail, so this saves polish as well! I went for a purple base, applied the decal, and finished with striping tape. But the tape reacted a little to my top coat, and went silver on a few places :(
Ah well, I'm still happy with how it turned out, simply because it was SO easy! :D If marbling scared you because it can be tricky, or if you dislike doing so because of the mess it can give, you should totally give this a try! Air bubbles in the marble? No problem, don't use that part. Perfect design that might get ruined by dipping your finger in it? Nevermind that, it'll stay perfect. Afraid of the marble turning into a blob of polish on the nail? This way you'll have a thin marble with ease. Yay for this idea!!

China Glaze Gothic Lolita with OPI Rumple's Wiggin', A England Avalon, A England The Blessed Damozel, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Dance Legend #1048 and striping tape

China Glaze Gothic Lolita with OPI Rumple's Wiggin', A England Avalon, A England The Blessed Damozel, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Dance Legend #1048 and striping tape.

China Glaze Gothic Lolita with OPI Rumple's Wiggin', A England Avalon, A England The Blessed Damozel, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Dance Legend #1048 and striping tape

Are you an experienced marbler, or does the mess and chance of failure spook you off as well? I love how it can look, but oh the horror of having a few good nails and then getting a bad one, for me it feels like it often goes downhill fast after that, by damaging my good nails as well, haha. But hey, you might see marbled nails here more often now ^^ Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day :)

Thứ Sáu, 13 tháng 3, 2015

Sparkly & stamped

Heyhey! It's such a nice weather here, still a bit cold, but the sun, the fresh air, the birds... ahh I'm loving it! It makes me want to wear pastels and pull out every single holo that I own, haha! But that's not what I'm showing today, the combination of this mani reminds me a little bit more of a frosty scene :)

Dance Legend #1048 with Dance Legend Bellagio, Kiko 622 Wisteria and UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01



Dance Legend #1048 with Dance Legend Bellagio, Kiko 622 Wisteria and UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01

Dance Legend #1048 with Dance Legend Bellagio, Kiko 622 Wisteria and UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01.

Dance Legend #1048 with Dance Legend Bellagio, Kiko 622 Wisteria and UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01

For this mani I started with a creme base, then I applied a glittergradient to the tips (I used the brush with barely any polish on it, and build up the gradient like that) and finished with some stamping. And as is the case more often, especially when I try out something that I haven't done (much) before, I was curious to see how it would look matte! It really changed the look of this mani, by making the basecolor look lighter as well, and has more of a Spring feel to it... but I still prefer it shiny ^^

Dance Legend #1048 with Dance Legend Bellagio, Kiko 622 Wisteria and UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01

Hope you'll like it :) Have a lovely weekend, enjoy! ♥

Thứ Tư, 11 tháng 3, 2015

Shiny green leaves

Morning lovelies, here's a mani that I did recently. I want to try something like this in more natural colors sometime as well, but this time I went for some shiny stamping!

W.I.C. by Herôme Malmö with Kiko 626 Lawn Green and A England Tess D'Urbervilles with Bundle Monster BM-702


I used a metallic as first stamping polish, and stamped the same image again with a more sparkly polish. Tess D'Urbervilles is a little bit sheer for stamping, but with this design I liked the variation in color that sheer stamping can give. Some bits are darker than others, which matches with leaves if you ask me, and it made the result look a bit more natural again (because metallic leaves obviously ain't the most natural thing =)).

W.I.C. by Herôme Malmö with Kiko 626 Lawn Green and A England Tess D'Urbervilles with Bundle Monster BM-702

W.I.C. by Herôme Malmö with Kiko 626 Lawn Green and A England Tess D'Urbervilles with Bundle Monster BM-702.

W.I.C. by Herôme Malmö with Kiko 626 Lawn Green and A England Tess D'Urbervilles with Bundle Monster BM-702

Hope you like it, thanks for stopping by!

Thứ Hai, 9 tháng 3, 2015

The perfect silver glitter...

And that would be Merlin by A England! Merlin can be used to create sparkly accents, to layer on your mani, for glitter gradients, but he's also perfect to simply wear on itself. Merlin covered in 3 easy coats and needed just 1 layer of top coat to even things out. But because he's so sparkly, the top coat doesn't make a big difference in how it looks. So yeah, if you're looking for the perfect silver, look nu further! Now Merlin wasn't a knight, but that doesn't mean I can't dress him up in shiny armor, right? :)

A England Merlin with A England Camelot and BornPretty plate 04


A England Merlin

I'm wearing 3 coats of Merlin with top coat here. There's enough glitter in the clear base to easily get full coverage, but it's not over the top packed with it or very thick, so you won't get blobs of piled up glitter on your nails. And it'll work well in just a single coat on any other mani too!

A England Merlin

You can buy Merlin on the A England website if you're in the UK, if you live somewhere else you can check this list to find a webshop that ships to you.

A England Merlin


I wanted to add something to Merlin, and went for the bottom part of a peacock image (from this plate), and tried it with and without matte top coat. Im not sure what I prefer, mattified or shiny, so why not show 'em both! :)

A England Merlin with A England Camelot and BornPretty plate 04

A England Merlin with A England Camelot and BornPretty plate 04.

A England Merlin with A England Camelot and BornPretty plate 04

Camelot is slightly sheer for stamping, and the result is that the sparkle of Merlin peeks through. I didn't aim for an armorlook, but that's what it reminded me of straight away! What do you prefer, shiny or matte, or maybe Merlin on itself? Thanks for looking and have a great day ♥

A England Merlin with A England Camelot and BornPretty plate 04


The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

Chủ Nhật, 8 tháng 3, 2015

Supergalaxy & Wormhole

Hi guys, I'm back from my little break (my boyfriend was here last week, it was great as usual but oh that distance... blehhh), so I'm feeling a bit blue today. But here's a post to go with that mood: 2 beautiful jelly blues packed with holo goodness!

Dance Legend Supergalaxy Wormhole


These polishes are from the Dance Legend Round Space collection, which you can find on their website and in various webshops. The collection consists of 6 jellies with lots of holo glitter in various shapes and sizes. I used 3 coats for each, but I'd try to apply even thinner coats next time, or layer them on a fully covering base, to get a slightly thinner endresult. I did need to fish a little for the big, round glitters, but I didn't expect anything else really!

Dance Legend Supergalaxy

Dance Legend Supergalaxy.

Dance Legend Supergalaxy

Supergalaxy has a dark, ink blue jelly base, packed with silver holographic glitter. I wanted to see how these 2 polishes looked matte as well, and I think they look great either way! It doesn't show as well here but oh, those bold holo sparkles, yum! I think it's a great name for this polish, and I'm curious to see how it'll look layered on a black, or perhaps on a dark purple?

Dance Legend Supergalaxy

Dance Legend Supergalaxy


Dance Legend Wormhole

Dance Legend Wormhole.

Dance Legend Wormhole

Even though I love the look of Supergalaxy, Wormhole is my favorite of these 2, it's such a lovely color blue! Next time I'll layer it on a matching royal blue creme, because it looks a bit too squishy and thick for me right now. However, the thicker look was caused by me, it applied great on the swatchstick but it looks like I didn't close it properly, oops! It got a bit thicker when I swatched it on the nails, but that's nothing a little thinner won't fix :)

Dance Legend Wormhole

What's your favorite of these 2, and do you prefer 'em shiny or mattified? Thanks for stopping by & take care ♥

Dance Legend Wormhole


The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

Thứ Sáu, 6 tháng 3, 2015

Smudged, smeared and stamped!

Hey lovelies! I couldn't resist playing some more with some of the Dance Legend polishes that I showed last month, to be precise, with the Enamel Glass and Top Aquarelle polishes. And I'm nowhere near tired of the Uberchic Beauty plates either (shown here and here), so why not combine it all! Here's how that turned out:

Essence Enter Wonderland with Dance Legend #1056, #1057, Chagall and Sisley, stamped with UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01 and Konad Black.



This was SO easy to do, and I can see myself digging up all those sheers that I seldomly use, to do more manis like this! I started with a pale grey base, then went over it with the Enamel Glass polishes, with very little on the brush, and just randomly smeared some polish on my nails. Then I went over it in the same way with the Top Aquarelle polishes, to add some color and to smudge and blend it all a bit, while still showing some brushstrokes. A black stamped image was enough to complete this look. And yes, this is another UCB image that I love!

Essence Enter Wonderland with Dance Legend #1056, #1057, Chagall and Sisley, stamped with UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01 and Konad Black

Essence Enter Wonderland with Dance Legend #1056, #1057, Chagall and Sisley, stamped with UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01 and Konad Black.

Essence Enter Wonderland with Dance Legend #1056, #1057, Chagall and Sisley, stamped with UberChic Beauty plate UC1-01 and Konad Black

Hope you'll like this look as much as I do, thanks for checking it out :) Have a great weekend!