Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: New years eve

Introduction:

Today I post final entry of winter nail art challenge - "New years eve". I would like to thank organizer of this challenge Helena from lacky corner and all participants. It was fun and wonderful experience for me, I really enjoyed wonderful nail arts with holiday themes. And of course I'm flattered to have followers and readers on my blog. I wish all of you an amazing 2015 with many many beautiful things in it, including new nail polishes ;)  Thank you so much for your comments,  I always enjoy reading your feedback. Happy new year everyone !!!

Results:
Figure 1. All five nails stamped with New York fireworks.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Santa/Elf/Reindeer

Introduction:

Today' s theme was Santa/Elf/Reindeer and I chose to make free had reindeer after I saw super cute decals on Etsy (link at the end of my post). Usually I create nail art one day ahead, but yesterday I was too busy making turkey. I was a bit worried, that there will be not enough time to create this look, however it turned out to be really easy to make. Little Christmas tree on my pinky I made without any practice, which is not my usual approach :) I hope you like my reindeer nicely decorated for Christmas.

Results:
Figure 1. All five nails with Christmas reindeer at LED light.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Tinsel/Ornaments

Introduction:

Christmas is nearing end only three entries left. Today, I made christmas ornament using pastel colors peach and lilac. I really like how delicate this mani looks. I'm not super good with stamping placement, so I created decals and it really helped to center ornaments. Also, by making decals I was able to add background lilac color.

Results:


Figure 1. All five nails with christmassy ornament.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Christmas carol/song/movie

Introduction:

I did not have time yesterday to write a post, but I made nails and my inspiration was awesome movie The Nightmare before Christmas. It's definitely one of my favorite Tim Burton's creations because it combines Halloween and Christmas and this is really hard to beat. 

Results:


Figure 1. "The Nightmare before Christmas".


Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Christmas tree nail art using Wazowski Dance legend


Introduction:

Today's theme "Christmas tree" was ideal to try my recently arrived confetti from bundle monster. I decided to combine them with gorgeous duochrome Wazowski and some striping tape.

Results:


Thursday, December 11, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Lucia/Christmas where you leave

Introduction:

Today the theme was "Lucia/Christmas where you leave" and i decided to do something which reminds me of my childhood in Russia. During winter the city where I lived is pretty grey, because it does not snow much, but we have these gorgeous red birds. They are called bullfinch and they love to eat rowan berries, which become sweet after freezing (you can see pictures of them at the end of the post). So they were my inspiration for this nail art. Seeing these birds gives me very christmassy mood.

Results:


Figure 1.  "Bullfinch and Rowan".

Tuesday, December 9, 2014


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Winter nail art challenge: Christmas candies

Introduction: 

Today the challenge was to make nail art related to Christmas candies and I knew right away that my inspiration will be candy cane. I decided to make something more complex than just stripes, and water marble technique seemed to be ideal for candy nails. Water marbling can give gorgeous results, but you need to be patient. Looks like this time I nailed it :)

Results:


Figure 1. Candy cane nails holding candy cane.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Snow/snowflakes

Introduction:


Today's challenge is nail art with snow оr snowflakes. Just recently I made snowflake mani, so this time i decided to create something different. I call it "Snow in Paris" and hope that it gives you feeling of calm snowy evening full of romance.
Results:


Figure 1. All five nails stamped with "Snow in Paris".

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Winter nail art challenge: Christmas lights/candles

Introduction:

Yesterday I joined Winter nail art challenge with multiple interesting themes for the month of December. There are two challenges per week, which is perfect for me, as everyday challenges are too intense and impossible to combine with newborn baby :)

First topic is Christmas lights/candles. Since I joined spontaneously and still had unstamped August 2014 nails on my right (what i did on my left hand you can see here), I used it as background for Christmas lights stamping. And it looks really good in combination with white & gold colors.

Results:

Friday, November 28, 2014

Love stinks by Crows Toes and nail art "Peacock" using MoYou London suki 01

Introduction


I just could not resist using awesome Love stinks by Crows toes for this peacock nail art. Added glitter for some extra sparkle.

Results

Figure 1. Nail art "Peacock".

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Lakodom by Picture polish and nail art "Snowflakes" using stamping with MoYou Festive 02

Introduction

Simple and elegant "Snowflakes" nail art. Silver MDU looks really good on top of new Picture Polish - Lakodom. MoYou plate Festive 02 stamps easily and has super nice variety of snowflakes.

Results


Figure 1. Nail art "Snowflakes".

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 17: Candies

Introduction:

Today is 17th day of September stamping challenge and the theme is "Candy". This day is super special for me, because it's a due day for my first baby, so I made this sweet candy jelly stamping sandwich for him. Hope you also will enjoy it as much, as I do.
Results: 
Figure 1. All five nails stamped with candy pattern between layers of jelly.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 16: Rainbow

Introduction:

I love rainbows, whenever I see one it make me feel happy and I always look for them if the weather is right. However creating rainbow on the nails is quite challenging. I wanted to make it bright rainbow rather then pastel, so creating decal with all bright colors was an obvious choice.

Results:


Figure 1. Single nail rainbow stamping.

Monday, September 15, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 15: Clouds & Rain

Introduction:

For today's challenge I created something in between clouds and rain water drops. Abstract blue stamping topped with Djinn which surprisingly adds to the rainy look. I like how Thermo 164 changes background color with temperature. Thermo-polish is really good for Autumn, when your nails are exposed to wide range of temperatures :)
Results:


Figure 1. All four nails stamped and topped with Djinn.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 14: Leaves

Introduction:

Today our stamping theme is "Leaves" and I planned to do something with real autumn spirit - Jelly leaf stamping sandwich. Classic jelly sandwich consists of two alternating layer: jelly and glitter, but once I saw that you also can alternate stamping with jelly, I was in love with this technique. The problem was absence of any jelly polish in my collection. However I learned that I can mix my own jelly combining clear polish and any cream polish. 

Results:

 Figure 1. All five nails stamped with maple leaf pattern (3 times) alternating with 4 coats of orange jelly.


Saturday, September 13, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 13: School


Introduction:

School is nice topic for stamping because anyone can relate to it :) I chose to use several universal symbols: notebook, love note and apple. 

Results:


Figure 1. Single nail school art.

Friday, September 12, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 12: Bugs

Introduction:

The challenge of the day -Bugs and in contrast to previous two days I have plenty of different bugs on my plates. Mostly butterflies, which are frequently featured in nail art. I wanted to use more unusual ones and put one bug per nail on simple background. So it looks like entomological collection :) My favorite is index finger, because ant looks super realistic.
Results:


Figure 1. Entomological collection on my nails.


Thursday, September 11, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 11: Books

Introduction:

I was really excited for today's topic "Books". I love reading and used to read a lot of science fiction. To my disappointment I could not find any single image related to books on my plates. I had to think hard about it before I got an idea. It's been a while since I wanted to make fire nail art, and guess who is one of my favorite science fiction authors? I do not know about you, but for me books and fire can mean only one thing: Fahrenheit 451. So this single nail art is dedicated to Ray Bradbury and his fantastic book.
Results:





Figure 1. Single nail art. I deliberately increased brightness in photoshop for more "burning look".

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 10: Trees

Introduction:

The topic of this challenge was Trees and of course I have only few images of trees on my plates (including palm trees which I already used for "travel" stamping ). So i decided to do something completely different, real Canadian forest with spruce, amanita and snails. Basically it's a story about lost baby snail and her brave mom going through the forest to find the little one...


Results:
 


Figure 1. Four nails stamped with trees and snails.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 9: Fish

Introduction:

Today stamping challenge was  Fish and I did single nail art. First of all because I have only one image of fish on my plates and second, because I did not want to remove my previous mani Tropical sunrise
Results:

Monday, September 8, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 8: Dragons

Introduction:

Challenge for today was dragons, but I do not have any dragon related images on my plates, so I did a dragonfly, close enough, right? ;) This nail art was inspired by one of the nail arts I found on pinterest. It combines, gradient, dotting and stamping techniques. I really enjoyed the process and result, especially when I saw it in the sun light with shining holographic polish.

Results:

Figure 1. All four nails each featuring unique combination of gradient and stamping or dotting (details in the methods).

Saturday, September 6, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 6: Travel

Introduction:

Today stamping challenge is "travel". As soon as I saw it in the list, I knew what i'm going to do. I felt in love with sunset/sunrise gradient nail arts quite some time ago (my first one was with butterflies), but I really wanted to create something tropical with palm trees. I just had to by stamping plates for this (and luckily I got them right before these challenge). And three of my new Crows Toes polishes looked ideal for creating tender sunrise gradient. The only thing which I did not have was stamping image of the boat, but I fixed this problem. Honestly I'm in love with results and I even made light box to take better images. I hope you'll enjoy it as well.

Results:


Thursday, September 4, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 4: Food

Introduction:

Today, the theme is food. And I decided to make colorful citrus mani using my first ever nail polish collection from Zoya "Irresistible". I love all bright colors of polish in this collection and their foil finish. Basically, these polishes, which I got in October 2013 became a foundation of my entire collection, which now is more than 100 bottles. And it's not even a year since I started to collect them.... ohh well, they are liquid beauties in the bottles, who can resist? Definitely not me ;)

Results:


 Figure 1. All five nails stamped with the same citrus pattern on top of different background colors. Accent nail made using decal technique.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 3: Cat/Dog/Pet

Introduction:

Today I have black & white stamping to share with you and it features cats. When I was a kid our first pet was classy black & white cat with pretty wild character, but we all loved him. Unfortunately, after several month it turned out that I have serious allergy to cats and my parents had to remove cat from our home. We were told that cat was brought back to our summer cottage and left there to have free life. It was the most serious lie my parents told me and I totally believed it until several years later accidentally discovered sad truth (the cat was euthanized). Given reality of our country back then, it was a right thing to do, but it did not make it easy for my parents. So this mani is dedicated to all the bright memories about my first and only cat Tishka.

Results:

 Figure 1. All five nails stamped with various cat related patterns including super cool fish skeletons and free hand writing "meow".

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 2: Lace

Introduction:

Doing different stamping everyday is fun, but full change of mani is too demanding. So i decided to cheat little bit and used my right hand with the same Toxic Buttercup background for second day lace stamping ;)

Results:


 Figure 1. All five nails stamped with one lace pattern, but I tried to shift pattern for each finger to make it more interesting.

Monday, September 1, 2014

September Nail Art Challenge: Stamping Month! Day 1: Flowers

Introduction:

This month I decided to participate in the nail art challenge proposed by Tina, which is all about various stamping themes. Also from now on I will start to make real, full size posts in this blog describing in more details my nail art. And just to add personal touch each post will be shaped in the style of scientific paper including following sections: Introduction, Results, Materials and Methods, Discussion and References :) Hope it's not too nerdy... 

 Since it's just the beginning for me, I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions for blog improvement. 

Results:


 Figure 1. All five nails stamped with two different flower patterns. This combination of yellow and purple turned out very nice for my taste, especially considering pink shimmer of background polish: Toxic Buttercup,