I actually won a nail art contest :O

So some of you might have seen on my facebook page that I entered the Digital Dozen's Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest - and guess what? I tied for first place with Rose from Manicured and Marvellous!!!

I won the honour and a feature on the Digital Dozen blog!! So take a look at how I did my Easter Nails over there - they were actually quite cute.

Golden Oldie Thursday #15: Hot Pink

Well here is a challenge that was almost impossible for me. I am not a pink person and my stash is almost without the colour - and only one polish I can call hot pink: OPI I'm All Ears. And since we're on holiday in Sweden with a lot of kids running around, this is just going to be a basic swatch to show you guys this stunner. 'Cause that is what this polish is!!! And I never thought I'd ever say that about a pink polish...Strangely enough all these pics turn red from the transfer from my phone :O.

 Just look at this - I mean, what's not to like about it? It has glass flecks for goodness sake!!! And I was lucky the sun was out and did all sort of great stuff with this polish.

I need to wear this again soon, this should not be packed away in my Helmer!!

*still a bit stunned that I like a pink polish*

Darling Diva Polish The Opals collection part 1: Blue and Violet

It is not often I do specific reviews but I was so fortunate to get Darling Diva Polish's Opal collection through the door for your viewing pleasure and boy are these polishes one stunner after the other. Due to my not being able to kill my darlings I've had to seperate the collection in to three posts, with the blue and violet Opals as the first ones.

Blue Opal is a light sky blue polish jam packed with iridiscent mylar flakes, sea blue and iridescent hex glitters, and micro glitter that catches the light in the most crazy way and give an insane depth to the polish. These swatches are three thin layers without undies.

There is a feel of looking down through water - it really blew me away, I don't think I've ever had that sense with a mylar flake polish before. I have to say I tried it with white undies but I prefer it by far without, the translucent character that I love so much in this polish is lost when you use a base colour.

It has to be said it was a little on thick side (but nothing a little thinner can't help you with) so I had to be rather careful and use thin layers to ease application - and remember since the mylar flakes are rather coarse they tend to drag through the polish so you need a light hand. Furthermore I also used my trusted glitter tamer, Gelous, so the polish didn't look too rough.

And you get this very soft and delicate feel from it when it is in indirect sunlight.

Look at that layering of the flakes...Awesome!!

Violet Opal is Blue Opal's daring and evil twin. The mylar flakes and hex glitters are the same as in Blue Opal but in this violet base the character changes 180 degrees.

This is a bold statement type of polish that had my oggling my own nails every 5 minutes.

The consistancy of Violet Opal was almost the same as Blue Opal but it was a little bit more temperamental to work with so I had to use VERY thin layers not to get too much drag. I used three layers for this look but they can be opaque with two regular layers.

Remember to let layers dry COMPLETELY before applying the next or you will risk the mylar flakes drag through your already painted nails.

I must say I love these polishes - they are totally unique in my collection. They may need to be handled precisely and with care, but all the more enjoyment to be had from the gorgeousness adorning your nails!!!

Darling Diva Polishes can be purchased at Llarowe, Norway Nails, Edgy Polish, and in Carrie's own BigCartel shop.

You can follow Darling Diva on Facebook, twitter, and Instagram.

These polishes were sent to me for my honest review.

Fancy Friday #50: Tribal/Pattern

For this challenge I was going to do a tribal mani but then one of my fellow Nordic nail addicts who runs Svartebloggen shared a blog post she did on reverse stamping and an awesome way to use it. Batcheeba's style is grungy and highly creative - in a remarkable way that reminds me of how Missy of Gnarly Gnails does things.

So this is became a pattern mani instead of the tribal, inspired by Reverse Stamping - The Cut Up:

I started out with these small fellows:

And then cut them into different pieces that I sort of randomly placed on my nails:

These were taken outside in indirect daylight:

As you may have noticed I moisturise before I take pictures :D.

The next pics are in artificial lighting:

I have used a different top coat here but I'm not totally convinced of it's use. I don't really find it fast drying and it made dents next to the edges of the decals - not cool in my view. But I still need to work a little more with it before I cast my final judgement.

So how do you like this? Something you'd try out or is it just not your thing?

Ugens udfordring er Tribal/Mønster. Jeg ville egentlig have lavet tribal men så faldt jeg over noget reverse stamping på Svartebloggen som jeg virkelig gerne ville prøve af. Og det er egentlig lykkedes meget godt ;)

Fancy Friday #49: If the Shoe Fits

Today's second post is this week's Fancy Friday manicure. As the title suggest it's supposed to ne inspired by a shoe. I'm not big on shoes these days since my knee is acting up and I can hardly wear anything but my MBT shoes. They are comfy as hell to walk in and relieving my knee of a lot of pressure and tension. But they are not good nail art material either :D.

Then I thought what about sneakers and then I was instantly bought back to my very early twenties anf my favourite pair of shoes: my red converse sneakers.

And in my stash is the gorgeous Elevation Polish Matsuda which is almost a perfect match to that colour. So here they are:

Golden Oldie Thursday #13: Pastels

This is short and to the point - and a day late. Blue and green pastels. Hope you like them - I sure do ;)

Fancy Friday #48: Negative Space Nails

It's been a whirlwind week, last week. Hubby went to Sweden with his dad to do some long awaited maintenance on our summer residence - when on a Zero budget it is good to have a family full of handy men :D

That left me home in Denmark with the rascals and having little time for painting the nails. I had decided not to do anything but then I saw this on Nailstormings Instagram account:

http://instagram.com/p/lxohi8BcDB/#

Which I thought looked super cool and figured it would fit perfectly with this challenge - so I did it anyway and the reason why this post is really late.

Also our computer gave up last week which means I couldn't get hold of my mani for Golden Oldie Thursday which is why there wasn't any posts last week :( - so those yellow nails may not ever see the day of light on the blog.

But onto the nails for FF:

The weather was really nice today so I decided to take these outside but the afternoon sun was really playing hide-and-seek so I only got them in shade.

All three polishes used are Elevations. The baby blue is Alphubel, gorgeous in-tone shimmer in this polish:

The glitter topper is Jbel Ayachi, a silver and matte ice blue concoction with a subtle shimmer that is VERY gorgeous!!

And last: Pic de Sottlo...I mean, it is blue. Like AWESOME in it's blueness. If you love blue like me you really need this. Lovely jelly like finish with the first layer but wonderfully opaque in two layers!!

I used a black BarryM nail art pen for the black stripe detail. It is without any doubt perfect if you feel brush work is a bit challenging ;)

Though I usually avoid VNL like the Plague I really like this design, that peek-a-boo effect you get with the naked nail in random places is really eye catching. I will definitely try this again!!!

Alene hjemme med ungerne er som regel ensbetydende med minus negletid, hvilket også holdt stik denne gang. Så jeg havde egentlig ikke regnet med at få tid til at kigge på noget nail art i sidste uge. Men så faldt jeg over et negledesign hos Nailstorming på Instagram som jeg altså bare måtte prøve af. Jeg er selv virkelig glad for det, synes mosaikeffekten er vildt fed. Er ellers ikke glad for synlig negl, men det FUNGERER bare i det her design :D