Strawberry

Hi,

The title is kind of giving away what this manicure is all about - strawberries! Yay! This is a freehand design done with acrylic paint.

I absolutely love this design and wore it for about a week and a half before tipwear started to show. 

:D

And now for some shameless self-promotion. I started to write a new story about the Avengers (you know, the movie about superheroes?). Go read it here if you're interested.

xox,

Maria.

Pawprint

Hi,

First of all, I couldn't be more excited because MakeupBee featured my Like a Sir manicure on their facebook!  This is the link to their facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Makeupbee and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the link to the actual feature...

So, the 30th of April was Queensday here in the Netherlands and it involves people getting drunk off their asses, partying all day and night and then another day and lots of orange. I didn't want to make a special Queensday manicure but the new Chanel Distraction is a coral polish that actually looks kind of orange - so, I ended up with an orange manicure anyway...

Excuse me for the sad cuticles :(. Distraction is, like I said before, a coral polish and in direct sunlight it shows blue/purple shimmer. But it is very hard to catch, so it's like a pot of gold at the end on a rainbow when it finally comes through. I needed two thick coats for this.

xox,
Maria.

Fluffy

Hi,

Today will be a second attempt at making a manicure with acrylic paint. This one earned a lot of compliments from a lot of strangers, oddly enough, 'cause I wasn't nearly satisfied with it.

Say cheese! Bonus, you can see my reflection.

They are fluffy flowers, in case you can't see it. :)

Products used:

• China Glaze Prelude to Kiss
• Acrylic paint

xox,

Maria.

Acrylic paint

Hi,

Like I promised in my last post, this one will be about my first experience with acrylic paint instead of nail polish  for making nail art. My first and foremost annoyance with using nail polish is that it's gloopy and difficult to manage. I read on a lot of blogs that acrylic paint is a great alternative, so I raced to the stores and bought a box with a rainbow of colours. After a lot of annoyance, painting and repainting, swearing - here it is, my first acrylic paint mani:

It's simple, colourful and above all simple. Have I mentioned simple? 

Products used:

• Koh Baby Blue
• Revlon Whimsical
• Fuchsia acrylic paint from the Xenos

Also, I couldn't resist and bought a new Chanel polish. As soon as I saw the Roses ultimes de Chanel Collection I knew I had to have one. At first I wanted Frisson (a pearly pink with shimmer) but somehow I changed my mind to Distraction. It must have distracted me, hur hur. Anyway, here are a few pics. No swatches yet, but they're coming up soon.

xox,

Maria.

Clouds with a chance of sunshine

Hi,

I think my inspiration for Disney manicures has ended just as quickly as it began. So, we're back to 'normal' mani's. If the sun isn't coming to me, then I'm going to have to improvise. 

Products used:

• Rimmel My Denim
• Sagitta 136 (that is the yellow one)
• Sally Hansen manicure white

Maybe I should start using acrylic paint for my manicures, because nail polish is kind of thick. 

xox,

Maria.

Big Haul + mani

Hi!

I went crazy yesterday and went on a China Glaze shopping spree. Need to pay for college this month? Nah, we'll just forget about that. :) Now I'm happy and my wishlist got shorter by eight polishes!

These are a great addition to my collection! And look at that - we finally have snow here in the Netherlands! I couldn't be more excited. So, from left to right: Snow Globe, Strawberry Fields, Carnival Lights, Flying Dragon, Marry A Millionaire, Lorelei's Tiara, Lighthouse, Shooting Stars.
I'm anxious to try them all out so here's a mani where I tried to put in as many polishes as possible!

This is Flying Dragon as base, with Shooting Stars on top of it and the line is Lighthouse. I'm also trying out something new with the lay-out of my posts to make them look more appealing - let me know what you think!
Flying Dragon is a fuchsia/purple with very small blue and purple glitters in it. They are however not visible in this mani, because of the coat of Shooting Stars. Shooting stars is basically hologlitter in a clear base. It has two sizes of glitter: small and very big. You can see a couple of them in the small circle in the picture above.
Then finally there's Lighthouse. Lighthouse is a bright yellow that consists of yellow shimmer. It's quite sheer, which I didn't expect. I have yet to try it out as a base colour so I'll let you know how it applies.

It reminds me a little bit of the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes magic shop... Yes, that was another Harry Potter reference ;).

xox,
Maria.

Practice makes perfect

Oh wow, two posts in one day! It must be Christmas. Nope, guess again!

...yeah, I'm bored :3.

This is a combo of ORLY Lunar Eclipse and NYC Platinum Card. Lunar Eclipse is a duo chrome of blue and purple. Blue is the more prominent colour, purple shows more under artificial light and twilight.

You can actually see a bit of purple on my middle finger. I used the NYC polish for stamping on the butterfly and also for the dots, which I applied with a dotting tool. It still needs more practice but I'm quite happy with the result. ^^

xox,
Maria.

P-P-P-Pokerface

Hiii!

I finally have some time to upload a picture of my mani! (yaaay *cheering noises*). Anyway, this reminds me a bit of...

Photo by John Grainger

Ah, I absolutely LOVE Lady Gaga. So, here's the makeup look. It's really simple yet colourfull!

It definitely got the attention of the people on the train! Aaaand the mani is my first try with tape designs. 

A small cute lightning bolt! This bugger gave me quite some trouble, though. I need to practice my skills but it came out nice, you know - this being my first time. 

Polishes I used are:

- Halley's Comet (as base colour). Check out the review here.

- China Glaze Fairy Dust (I can't get enough of this polish!).

- Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses At Night (the lightningbolt).

By the way, I only made three mistakes on my exam _O_ and I was sure I was going to fail it! Tuesday is the next one. Fingers crossed...

xox,

Maria.