Z – Zoya Ziv

To end the year of polishing and the ABC challenge, I've got the most beautiful golden polish for you: Zoya Ziv.

This manicure also sports OPI Red Shatter. I was soooo over and done with crackles, until I tried out this one (my first OPI shatter). Now I'm in love again! It looks so fab over white on my swatchsicles, too! I want to try it on every colour. How about a bright blue next?

On the thumb and the ring finger I sponged Lacquistry Devil's Dandruff, some red glitter from Essence Applause Applause (from the Circus Circus collection) and some Wet'n'Wild Fergie collection No Place Like Home. I also added a tear shaped rhinestone (probably from eBay).

The manicure turned out quite Christmass-y - appropriate for the season, although a bit late :)

This is it, then, my dearest readers! The ABC challenge finally over, I've got new awesome nail challenges and projects in store for the next year. Happy New Year to all of You!!

Event Nails in Gold, Silver and Black

First and foremost I'll have you know, that you still have almost two days leave your entry in my 100 FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY ! Get on and win some awesome top coats!

And then to some more nail fun! Recently (or, ahem, a month ago) we had a reunion of local nail enthusiasts at Pirkanmaa region, Finland,  where I live at least for the summer. We had raffles, voted for the prettiest nails, got to know each other, ate well and generally had a BLAST!

This is how the table looked before we really got off...

...and this is how it was post- goodie bags and polish exchange.. :D This chaos spells out F-U-N to me!

 Here are the nails I did for the event. I was one of the prettiest nails prize winners, by the way... The base is Barry M Gold foil - except on the accent fingers I used Black Bird, Seppälä by Tiia Vanhatapio.

You can't really see it in the pics, but I did a sponging over gold with Mercury, Seppälä by Tiia Vanhatapio, which is a silver foil polish. But on the nail it just disappeared.. The stamping is done  with Konad black and BM-309.

Accent nails have some Orly Sashay My Way and gold glitter from Essence Circus Circus My Sparkling Acrobat. The silvery glitter is Lacquistry I Wear My Jewelry on my Nails, with some random rhinestones from eBay.

In the next post I'll tell you in some more detail about all the goodies we got..

Q - Frozen Queen

The ABC challenge is still alive!

 I didn't own any polishes starting with the letter Q. I considered of buying one, but I didn't find anything at the stores that I really liked. Hello, polish companies!! How difficult would it be to make a gorgeous beige blingy polish and name it "Queen of the Desert"?

Anyways, I had a polish which at least has the letter Q in its name. Here you see three coats of Essence Colour&go Frozen Queen.

 

I added a coat of Wet 'n' wild Fergie collection New Years Kiss on all the other fingers, and gave the ring finger a dab of Lacquistry I Wear My Jewelry On My Nails with some random rhinestones.

This manicure is one of those that made me love my nubbins. This might have been a bit trashy on my usual talons, but on nubbins this leaned more on the sweet side. Do you feel there's a difference on designs for longer and shorter nails?

Sorbet Spider

A few Halloween manis coming up! Personally, I don't even celebrate Halloween, and it's not very big where I'm living now. But there have been sooo many fun and ingenious halloween nails around in the blogs I read, I simply had to give them a go. And besides, what are all the cobweb stamping patterns for if not this...

This mani is three coats of OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear, and some sponging on the tips with OPI Big Hair... Big Nails. The spider web stamping pattern came from DRK-A -plate. 

On the pinky I tried to paint something resembling a spider (well, at least it's got eight legs..) using a large dotting tool and Konad black special polish. Konad black is NOT my first choice for freehand nail art polish -it gets all stretchy and dries super fast -but I didn't have anything else at hand. If you do, please use something else and have prettier results.

 Apparently adding the red rhinestone and some squishy topcoat made the spider seem a real treat for those after fresh blood... Not bad for a Halloween manicure, eh? And YES, that is a real mosquito, YES, it voluteered to do the photo shoot on its own initiative and YES, it was seriously harmed afterwards -for going after my wrist veins. [evil grin]

GG Challenge Day 6: Who Inspires You?

 Today's Girly Girl challenge was to be inspired by a female role model. I don't know who I would have picked if I didn't have this mani planned in my head. Perhaps not Morticia Addams, the heart and soul of the Addams Family (portrayed here by Anjelica Huston).

Or maybe just her. Apart from her hair, nails, outfits and style, there is one thing why she really deserves to be called a role model. She is the one who lives her own way, with her loving family, and couldn't care less what other, "normal", people think. If there was more of that in the world instead of all the sheepishness, all the well-I-would-but-let-someone-else-start, world would definitely be a better place.

Ok, rant over. Onto the nails. The base of this mani was two coats of China Glaze Short & Sassy.

 The primary inspiration for this mani was the desire for some Lacquistry polishes standing on my desk. I got to use two of them by giving the ring finger a coat of Lacquistry Devil's Dandruff and the
other fingers two coats of Lacquistry Plucked Spider.

 These required two coats of topcoat, but laid perfectly flat on the nail and were easy-peasy to apply. Love!!! I want to make a glitter sandwich with the Dandruff and maybe yellow/orange right now!!

 The accent finger still lacked something Addamsy, so I went for a spider design. I used some crystal rhinestones for the head and body, and Essence Silver Nail Art Pen for the legs.

 And here are the polishes, like a tiny creepy family...

 Now let's see who others have picked as their role models. Oh, and their manicures, too :)

Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of Devilish Polish
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll!
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind 
Amanda of Nox Nails

Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch 

Emily of The Lacquerologist 

Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail 

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi 

CR of Color Me Silly

Amanda of Berry Polished 

Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Day 2: Bling!

If there's a polish that spells BLING to me, it's Lacquistry's I Wear My Jewelry On My Nails. I got it recently in the mail, so this challenge had the perfect timing. It has a clear base with masses of tiny silver and holo glitter, holo bar glitter (yay!), and silver holo hex glitter in at least three different sizes.

The base for this mani here is two coats of Catrice Be Indiglow!, except the ring finger, which is three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Peachy Keen.

For the ring fingers I painted half moons with Essence Crazy Good Times Confetteria, and popped on a rhinestome. For the rest I dabbed on Lacquistry IWMJONM (whew!) on the tips and down the middle of the nail.

IWMJOMN is my instant favourite glitter polish - at least until I get my hands on the rest of my Lacquistry order. It sets flat on your nails, is as easy to apply as a coarse glitter polish can be, and the roughness of the surface isn't anything a coat of SV could not handle. Seriously, I use two to three coats of SV with, for example, China Glazes Eye Candy collection glitters, which are a lot finer texture than this (and the other Lacquistry polishes I've tried out this far).

Oops, this post was more about the Lacquistry polish than my mani... Just to let you know, I'm not affiliated with Lacquistry in any way, and I paid the full price + shipping for this polish and the others. I'm just impressed.
And here are all the polishes I used - just to show you there's more going on than Lacquistry madness here..:

 Now let's see how the other girls are doing with the challenge!

Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of PolishEnthusiast
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Lacquer Lover
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind 

Amanda of Nox Nails 

Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch 

Emily of The Lacquerologist 

Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail 

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi 

CR of Color Me Silly

Amanda of Berry Polished 

Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Facets of Fuchsia + Rhinestone Overload

I honestly tried to figure out a new way to show you this polish - a real must-have from the 2011 releases: Revlon Facets of Fuchsia.

But.. Things didn't go quite as planned. Layering over purple just made the glitters disappear, over light grey it looked like the dirty slush on the street (would have been better without the black jelly base in the FoF), and over pink it was just a mess (the glitters looked like some horrible disease had struck my nails).

As the last resort I tried to layer it over, not a regular black polish or black jelly, but a shimmering blackened grey polish. So I painted two coats of Essence Vampire's love Hunt Me If You Can as the base. You can see it on its own on my ring finger. Sadly, I don't think it makes much difference under the FoF...

So I left the ring fingers plain and tried to figure out what kind of an accent nail to make. I went through my stash of stickers, decals, stamping plates and whatnot, but finally settled down with my box of rhinestones. One thing led to another and I ended up with loading the accent nail with square rhinestones. Literally. That finger feels a lot heavier than the rest.

 I used a not-so-fast-drying topcoat under the rhinestones, and a coat of Seche Vite over them. And: I love the result in all its blingyness!!! (Is that a word? Propably not..) I know people who would, too, and I know people who'd think I'd totally gone too far. But hey; It's me who's carrying these around!

And here are the polishes:

By the way, I did get a few big silver hex glitters with my FoF. With the first one I thought it had somehow come onto my nail from my desk, but when I look at the bottle real well I see some of those sneaky things floting around in there, too. Has anyone else had this "problem"? Or are the silver glitters meant to be there?

Day 29: Inspired by the Supernatural

When I made this mani a few days ago my head was totally full of Christmas: the food, presents, decorations, songs, memories and pure love. I simply couldn't think of anything "supernatural" not associated with Christmas - luckily there's a lot of magic and unexplained in Christmas..

I started out with a base which is two coats of Color Club Blue-topia. It's a gorgeous deep blue on its own, not leaning to anywhere but blue. I remember some first swatchers writing it is too dark and looks just about black on the nail, but for me it was an instant hit. I then sponged some OPI Last Friday Night on the tips with a sponge eyeshadow applicator. The result was really pretty, like the stars on the sky on a clear night, and somehow looked a lot like a glitter sandwich (propably because of the blue jelly base in LFN).

I had a few stamping ideas with this base, but they all more or less failed. For example, I simply didn't get the "reindeer" image (Or is it really just a regular deer? Or an elk?) from the BM 214 to the stamper. I tried with different bottles of Konad white, with the both ends of the stamper and everything else. Soo annoying, and a dead end for my "flying reindeers" idea.

So, finally, I returned to the idea of a starry sky and came to think of the star of Betlehem. Although the star itself may not be an unexplained phenomenon - I read somewhere it's thought to be a conjunction of two planets - but the story is full of Christmas magic:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night..."
I hope you had a happy and peaceful Christmas with your loved ones, and can carry some of that peace with you long into the new year!

Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

It's time for a somewhat embarassing statement: I don't really follow fashion. At least fashion as in designers, runways, collections, trends and so on. I just go to a store, preferably vintage/secondhand, and buy what I like. Yes, I'm a simple mind.

So todays challenge is not featuring "my favourite designer" or anything from the "2011 fall/winter collection" (except a polish maybe..). I was just instantly inspired with this fun bra I almost bought during a fun visit at Victoria's Secret.

(I'm not in the pic, BTW) (See more of this and other styles here in the Victoria's Secret website)
This mani is as simple as two to three layers of China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, the accent finger stamped with Konad Princess Special polish in dark violet and Konad plate m57. In between of two coats of Seche Vite I added some clear rhinestones (from eBay).

Accent finger. Ac-cent fing-er. Ak-cent fing-ger. ['æksɛnt 'fɪŋgər]. You've gotta learn that word if you're gonna stick with this blog! You'll be seeing it a lot...

Does it happen with your rhinestones, that they kind of lose their shine when you put topcoat over them? Is it because they become more round and the light has less reflecting surfaces? Or does the plastic somehow react with the topcoat? It's annoying when it happens..

Day 22: Inspired by a Song

Today's mani was inspired by a song, and the song is Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square by the Mnhattan Transfer. You can check it out in YouTube.
It still touches me... Just don't take any make up ideas from this vid, unless it's Halloween..

 Base is two coats of China Glaze Midtown Magic. I thought the base was brown, when I looked at the bottle, but it was burgundy on the nail. Amazing shade! If I'd known that, this baby would have made its way out of my untrieds a lot earlier..

Midtown Magic was actually where I got the idea on the first place. Seeing the name I instantly jumped to humming the line "... there was magic abroad in the air..." of the song. And that's how I came up with Berkeley Square song and that's how I came to think of an Indian restaurant near the square in London, where we went with my husband to enjoy our most overwhelming food experience ever. The restaurant, called Benares, had a Michelin star at the time, and I think it has closed down for a few years ago. So it really was a one-time experience.

To honour that place and our night there the nails were to have some Indian style deco. So I added stamping with Gosh Silver and BM 212, plus a few tear-shaped rhinestones. I think these resemble the pictures you see at the walls of cheap-but-excellent indian restaurants, with traditional designs with silver and glass stones on a black velvet base.

I can't see why I don't have a pic of more than three fingers. The stamping wasn't bad at all as far as I remember - thanks to my trusted silver stamping polish Gosh Silver. I'll just try to remember to include more fingers next time!