The Rest of the Year Challenge 7: Christmas

The Rest of the Year Challenge 7: Christmas

Christmas is green and red in my world. Green for the tree and red for the pretty ornaments on it. Obviously my Christmas mani had to be red and green as well.

I started out with L. A. Splash’ “Money Honey”, which isn’t as Christmassy green as other green polishes. But I wanted a green without golden undertones, and this green hasn’t got any gold in it at all.

The formula is quite thick on these L. A. Splash polishes, and the brush is a bit wide. It’s not a problem though, because I like both :)  It took two easy coats to build up to desired opacity. And I added a layer of Seche Vite top coat before moving on to the next step. Here’s how it looks so far:

And from a different angle:

This polish is really blingy! It just needs a bit of red glitter to bling it up even more. I chose L. A. Girl’s “Animate”, which is a clear base packed with various sizes of red glitter.

I made stripes on two of the nails, and dots on three. And when I was done I gave it another layer of Seche Vite top coat, and my mani was done!

Here’s a pic from another angle:

This is pretty much as glittery as it can be!

If you like the green glitter, I can tell you that it’s a total b*tch to get off again! :D

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for a Christmas mani.

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

Merry Christmas, everybody! ♥

The Rest of the Year Challenge 6: Winter Wonder(land)

The Rest of the Year Challenge 6: Winter Wonder(land)

I bought a polish specifically for this challenge. I am talking about Isadora’s Polar Nights, which is from their Christmas collection of 2012, “Northern Lights”. There are only three polishes in this collection, “Polar Nights”, which is a dark blue jelly with silver glitter, “Arctic Treasure”, which is a golden glitter, and “North Star”, which is a silver glitter. I bought the blue and the silver.

Anyway! Polar Nights shows a lot more glitter in the bottle than actually transfers to the nails. I hate it when that happens. But since I had nail art in mind for this baby, I didn’t mind so much.

The formula is great, and the brush is wide. It took two easy coats to build up desired opaqueness.

 

I actually really like the colour, even though it doesn’t show as much glitter as I’d like it to. It’s a nice, dark blue, and it can definitely be used for more than just winter and Christmas manis!

The pics show two coats of Polar Nights and one coat of Poshé top coat.

Then I painted on it – large frost flowers on each nail. And behold! I didn’t paint them with polish, but with acrylic paint! This is my first attempt of painting with acrylic paint. And the credit for teaching me this goes to Maria, who was patient enough to let me play in her polish room. Thanks for that, I really appreciate it, Maria! :)

One layer of Poshé top coat finished my Winter Wonder mani.

I am really pleased with this, and actually had some unexpected compliments at work. Like:

Colleague: What’s that on your nails?
Me: Oh, that’s frost flowers I painted on yesterday!

Colleague: You painted them on?

Me: Yes, yesterday.

Colleague: Like, you painted them on yourself?

Me: Yes

Colleague: Whoa…

Me: Thank you! :)

I enjoyed that little conversation! What do you think? Did I do well with the acrylic paint?

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Winter Wonder(land).

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

The Rest of the Year Challenge 5: Thanksgiving

The Rest of the Year Challenge 5: Thanksgiving

We don’t celebrate thanksgiving in Denmark. In fact there are only five places in the world they celebrate it, and that’s USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Norfolk Island and Liberia. That means that I don’t have a relation to Thanksgiving.

I knew for sure that I didn’t want turkeys on my fingernails, but then what? I decided to make some simple nail designs, each design representing something I’m grateful for. How’s that?

My base colours were three coats of Models Own “Snow White”, and two coats of Sinful Colors “Gogo Girl”, H&M “On Ice” and Hello Kitty “Pink Summer”.

Here’s my final design:

 I drew a heart on my pinkie, because I’m grateful for love. I used China Glaze’s Ruby Pumps, which is a legendary glittery China Glaze. I love that red glitter!

I stamped a heart line on my ring finger, because I’m grateful for life. I stamped with a no name black stamping polish, and I used Mash’s plate #38.

I drew faces with a mix of the pink and the white I used earlier, and drew hair and eyes on the little faces. I drew them because I’m grateful for my friends and family.

And last, but not least, I stamped a peace sign on my index finger, because I’m grateful for peace. I used the same black no name stamping polish, and stamping plate BM07 from Bundlemonster.

So that’s the things I’m the most grateful for. What would you have picked, given the same question?

The polishes I used:

 Models Own: Snow White, Sinful Colors: Gogo Girl, H&M: On Ice, Hello Kitty: Pink Summer, China Glaze: Ruby Pumps, Claire’s Black Striper

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Thanksgiving. I am heading over there right now, because I’m very curious!

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

The Rest of the Year Challenge 4: Movember

The Rest of the Year Challenge 4: Movember

I’m learning a lot from this challenge. Before I started, I hadn’t even heard about the phenomenon “Movember”.

Movember is a portmanteau of moustache and November. It is an annual, month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of prostate cancer and other male cancer initiatives. The goal of Movember is to "change the face of men's health.”

The rules of conduct given on the Movember site are:

• Once registered at movember.com each mo bro must begin the 1st of Movember with a clean shaven face.
• For the entire month of Movember each mo bro must grow and groom a moustache. 
• There is to be no joining of the mo to sideburns. That’s considered a beard. 
• There is to be no joining of the handlebars to chin. That’s considered a goatee. 
• Each mo bro must conduct himself like a true country gentleman.

I obviously can’t grow a moustache, so I’ll paint it onto my nails instead!

I started out with two coats of Borghese “Fantastico Lime”, which is a lime green crème. I don’t like it much, to be honest, but it works for this mani.

Here’s a pic of two coats, no top coat:

Now for the moustaches. I’ve seen a tutorial which make it look ridiculously easy to draw moustaches. It’s basically done by making four dots on your nails with a dotting tool, and then connecting them with either a thin dotting tool or a tooth pick. Let me just say that I found it in no way as easy as it looked, and I ended up being not pleased at all with my little moustaches.

Here there are, sealed up with a layer of Seche Vite top coat:

It’s not very nice, is it? And here’s another pic:

My boyfriend, who is very supportive, thinks it looks a lot like Ned Flanders! LOL 

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Movember. I know for sure that they did better than me! :)

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

The Rest of the Year Challenge 3: Halloween

The Rest of the Year Challenge 3: Halloween

Halloween actually hasn’t been a part of Danish culture since the year 1770, when the number of national holidays was reduced by 9 days. Halloween was one of the holidays the government repealed back then.

In 1998, 228 years later, one of our national newspapers made a huge Halloween event in Copenhagen, with monster movie marathons, scary decorations, witches, spiders, ghosts and prizes for best costume. It became a yearly event, and two years later, our biggest chain of toy stores began to sell Halloween stuff, and in 2006 Tivoli began to have a yearly Halloween event with pumpkins and everything that goes hand in hand with a traditional Halloween party. Today you can’t enter a supermarket in October without facing pumpkins, horrible tasteless Halloween figures, candy and costumes. It’s a little bit weird, since it’s obvious that the shops that are only interested in Halloween because of the money that’s in it – Halloween is still not a national holiday here, and a lot of the so called traditional elements, such as ‘trick or treating’ are unknown. It’s purely a money spinning promotional exercise by, and for, the retailers!

But anyway – so much for the history; now you know why I’m not hugely interested in Halloween. But since the challenge requires it, I’m going to show you my attempt at Halloween nails.

First I painted my nails with Pastel #310. I received that in a swap with sweet Aylin, and I’m hugely impressed that she managed to find an orange that I like! I gave it two coats, even though one was actually enough.

Two coats, no top coat:

My pics aren’t colour accurate. The orange is darker and deeper than my pictures show. 

First I drew a little spider on my ring finger nails and my thumbnails. Then I stamped a black web on my pinkies and my middles, and last I stamped some bats on my indexes. I used a no name black stamping polish, and the big plate K with holiday designs. I topped it all with a layer of Poshé top coat:

Poshé decided to pull a little bit on my design. I don’t know why, because it usually doesn’t do that. Fortunately it doesn’t show much, and it’s not visible in real life at all.

The last pic gives a bit of an impression of how deep the shimmer is in that Pastel polish. It’s really beautiful.

Please check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Halloween. Who knows, we might get the national holiday back at some point ;)

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

The Rest of the Year Challenge 2: Breast Cancer Awareness

The Rest of the Year Challenge 2: Breast Cancer Awareness

1 out of 9 Danish women are diagnosed with breast cancer. More than 4,000 Danish women are annually diagnosed with breast cancer, and it is thus the most common type of cancer among women.

Breast Cancer Awareness is symbolized by a pink ribbon. I decided to go “the easy way” with this challenge, and try and paint a pink ribbon on my nails. Beware and behold – we’re taking freehand painting here!

I started out with two coats of Dare to Wear’s “Social Butterfly”, which is pale pink with holographic glitters and bars. It’s easy to apply, it covers well, and even though it’s a bit too pale to be “my colour”, I quite like it.

Two coats of Social Butterfly, one coat of Poshe top coat:

 And from another angle:

Even though it sounds pretty easy to draw a ribbon, it’s really not. Not when you’re not gifted with great freehand skills. I decided to dot the ribbons on. First with Models Own’s “Snow White”, which is a plain white crème. And then with Dare to Wear’s “Hey Girl”, which is a magenta shimmer. I dotted a white ribbon first, and then a magenta ribbon on top of it. I did that to make a white line around my ribbon.

After a bit of struggling with the dotting, I added another coat of Poshe top coat, and my Breast Cancer Awareness mani was done:

 And another pic:

I know that this is nowhere near perfect, but I’m pleased with it anyway. Both because I like when I get challenged, but also because it’s for a good cause.

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Breast Cancer Awareness:

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

The Rest of the Year Challenge 1: Suit Up Day

Hi girls, 

I’ve teamed up in another challenge with a bunch of other Danish girls. Sweet Sonja from Sunday Manicures made up this new challenge, and all credits and kudos for this collage go to her:

Click on the pic for a bigger size pic

So that’s what this new challenge is about. I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun.

So here’s the first challenge coming up already:

The Rest of the Year Challenge 1: Suit Up Day

Today is Suit Up Day. It’s a phenomenon that has taken the Internet by storm.  We all have the TV series “How I Met Your Mother” to thank for this latest holiday. Fans of How I met your mother have borrowed Barney Stinson’s catchphrase “Suit Up!” and declared 13th of October International Suit Up Day. It’s really easy to celebrate the new holiday: All you need to do is wear a suit anywhere you’re going today. I’m wearing my suit on my nails!

I started out with one coat of H&M’s metallic red, “Look at me”. Perfect formula, perfect coverage, perfect price.

Then I applied a single coat of OPI’s “In a Flirtationship”, which I just realized is an early version of “Excuse Moi” from the Muppets collection. Fortunately I didn’t buy that one, but seriously OPI, you should stop (re)producing old nail polishes and passing them off under new names.

Anyway, here’s that step. There’s no top coat involved just yet:

And from another angle:

I quite like that glitter. It’s definitely too opaque for me to wear on its own, but as a layering polish it’s perfect!

Now for the tux. I used a striping polish from Claire’s and freehanded my little suits. I also made a little bow tie on each nail, to make it look more classy. It is Suit Up Day after all! ;)

And here’s another shot of the final mani. There’s one coat of Miss Sporty top coat on.

And here are the polishes I used: 

So there you have it. If it hadn’t been for this challenge, I wouldn’t have known anything about Suit Up Day. I’ve never watched “How I met your Mother”, you see. So – are you wearing a suit today? ;)

 

Check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for Suit Up Day:

http://sundaymanicures.blogspot.dk

www.passion4polishdotcom.blogspot.com

http://nailant.blogspot.com

http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/