Golden Oldie Thursday #8: Orange

Nothing much to say, the title sort of gives it all up :D.

Couldn't figure out what kind of nail art I wanted to do, so I basically just sponged some glitter on top.

But I did use my favourite, favourite orange polish: Riveting. Glass Flecks. What's not to love? And the glitter topper is Electrify. Both from the China Glaze Colours of the Capitol collection (Hunger Games) from 2012.

This leans a bit on the blue side, but the glass fleck shimmer is so obvious here - and ta-daaa this is definitely Going in Circles fiery big sister ;)

I love this orange polish, if I should ever only choose one orange to own, this baby would be IT!!!

Fancy Friday #43: Stripes

Have you ever had an idea for a mani or some nail art that in theory just seemed totally amazing? Well I have on several occasions and some of them are just as marvellous as intended.

And then there are those manis that just don't translate well to the nail in the end. This is one of those.

These four bottles stood on my table the night I did this challenge and I tell you - in real life they looked spectacular together. It turns out they don't translate as well in photos:

Pic du Gar                      Matsuda                            Sarychev                      Streetside, NYC

I tried them on as a skittle and then made alternated stripes. It turned out they all failed miserably - and then I chose the less miserable combination and did as a full mani.

Streetside, NYC as base colour and stripes with the rest.

Hopefully I will soon be able to do a mani that is not so full of fail as the past couple have been.

Remember to check out the rest of the girls, I promise they won't have as much fail as me ;)

Tja, det her er så en af de challenges hvor ideen virker bedre i teorien end i praksis. De her fire farver så virkelig fantastiske ud ved siden af hinanden og jeg besluttede at lave en skittle mani med striber af de andre farver. Det fungerede mildt sagt slet ikke. Valgte den mindst triste og malede så alle fem fingre i den kombination. Tænker jeg da snart må kunne få gang i noget uden så meget fail i :D

Husk at smutte forbi de andre piger for at checke deres striber ;)

Golden Oldie Thursday #7: Chevron Fail

If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably know about my tendency to share my nail fails on a fairly regular basis. This is one of those days...

My nails have a fairly deep c-curve which can make stamping a bit challenging at times - in particular if you don't have a squishy stamper and the design itself need to be very straight, like chevrons. At the moment I use an XL stamper that has a more firm silicone head which gives me slight problems to say the least. I didn't really realise how bad the problem was until this mani. But I'll return to that in a moment.

Most of my Illamasqua polishes are more than a year old because ever since that awful debacle with Royal Mail last year their shipping prices have gone up considerably so I've found myself only wanting to purchase when they have sales - and then I still only buy make-up AKA I haven't bought them in more than a year. So off I went and dug into my Illa polishes for this week's challenge.

Illamasqua Elope       Illamasqua Nomad     GOSH Forest Floor       BarryM Gold Foil

And since my freehand Chevrons sucks big time I decided to try stamping them instead - as if that would make any difference :D

The base for this mani is a "circle gradient" where I applied the polish in a circle like a layer cake diagram and then pressed it on the nails, making sure to get a smooth transistion by moving the sponge in all directions when I applied the polish.

As you can see the chevrons are all wobbly due to the c-curve. When I stamp I can't push the head down enough to get a perfect transfer so instead I have to roll the stamper, which results in these very much curved sides on the chevrons...a loose-loose situatuation.

Hopefully my next stamping session will go more smoothly - and my next GOT challenge for that matter ;)

Remember to check the other awesome manis:

Fancy Friday #42: Love is in the Air

And my second Valentine's day mani is part of the Fancy Friday challenge - if you need to recap why this is a darker version of a Valentine Mani you can go read my little rant here.

As I wrote in my last Fancy Friday challenge I wanted to try the fan brush gradient with regular polishes so I did that as a base. I started with a layer of China Glaze Pelican Gray and when it'd dried I used the tutorial at Neverland Nail Blog I talked about last week using Pelican Gray, YSL Gris Orage, and Dior Gris Montaigne. The look can best be seen on my ring finger on the picture below:

It became the perfect base for the rest of this mani I think, I'm just bummed I totally forgot to take pictures of it. I love that the effect is so subtle that you hardly realise it is a gradient.

I used MoyouLondon Princess Plate 10 for the girly skull and heart doodle stamp and VividLacquer plate VL007 for the kissy lips - and like my other VDay mani I also used Leighton Denny Indulgence as stamping polish here.

And La Pièce de Résistance: Elevation Polish Yeti's Broken Heart - an awesome glitter topper with a wide variety of white matte glitters and heart shaped glitter in white, black and purple. Add a little bit of holographic micro glitter pieces and you got a killer polish. I think it is a brilliant polish with a slight nudge to all the Valentine frenzy...

 

Lastly here are all the polishes together that I used for this manicure:

China Glaze Pelican Gray, YSL Gris Orage, Dior Gris Montaigne, Elevation Yeti's Broken Heart, Leighton Denny Indulgence

Ugens Fælles Fredag udfordring er Love is in the Air - det er Valentins dag og det fejrer jeg ikke ;). Jeg kan ikke rigtig få armene op over en begivenhed som er blevet indført af rent kommercielle årsager, en dag som vi aldrig har haft tradition for at fejre før i Danmark. Og nej, vi fejrer heller ikke Mors og Fars dag i den lille familie ;). Men det skal da så ikke forhindre mig i at lave en Valentinsmani med et twist - min base er en grå gradient i stedet for en lyserød eller rød lak, som jo ofte bliver brugt i den sammenhæng, og så har jeg valgt en anti-valentinsdagsneglelak til at toppe et par af fingrene: Elevation Polish Yeti's Broken Heart.

Golden Oldie Thursday #6: Valentines Day

So here I am, a girl who does NOT celebrate Valentine's Day doing not one but two challenges with a Valentine theme :).

In Denmark it is a commercially instituted custom that has no foundation in anything Danish, but has been tried established by florists as early as 1950's. It wasn't until the late 1990's though that the custom took off with eager participation from florists, chocolate makers and the general Commerce.

In my very personal view this could be considered the most Cultural Imperialistic AngloSaxon (since it is as much British as American ;) ) piece of Boohaha ever tried implemented here :D. Yes, it beats Halloween by several million miles in my view :).

Personally I celebrate the love for my husband and kids by being supportive, loving, and showing my affection through random acts of love and kindness throughout the year.

But on to the polish it is why you came here, right?

I am so very fond of Skittlettes that I've chosen it as the basis for this mani as well. I chose two lovely Dandy Nails shades for this: Flamingo Kisses and Bound to Fall.

For the glitter accents I dug in to my small Collection of Red Dog Designs (man, I need more of those - soooooo much awesomeness!!!) and picked out Let's Fall in Love.

The stamping plate is VividLacquer 001 and I used Leighton Denny Indulgence, a fantastic blue leaning red that is a one coater (stains like a boss, though) and perfect for stamping.

 

I am really not into girly types of polishes like Flamingo Kisses but it is very delicate and that glass fleck like shimmer is a type that I go all crazy about - and this is no exception.

There are heart shaped glitter in Let's Fall in Love but I totally forgot to let the bottle sit upside down for a couple of minutes. But I still love how it looks.

I overlayed the hearts but as you can see the last did not survive the rolling :D

 I hope those of you that celebrates Valentine's have had a wonderful day ;)

Fancy Friday #41: Match Your Eyes

Yay, a blue challenge Again, since I've got blue eyes - and late again, my life has been taking over but in a good way ;).

This time I decided to play with texture polishes...and a fan brush. I saw a sneak peak of a fan brush gradient my good friend Jacki from Adventures in Acetone did earlier in the week and I thought I'd try it with textures.

And it all ended up looking like this:

I used these beauties for this gradient:

Sinful Colors Blue Persuasion,  OPI Tiffany Case    Julie G Blueberry Fizz

I really like the fluidity of this in particular the transition from the dark to the lighter polish.

It is difficult to see the transition from Tiffany Case to Blueberry Fizz, but that is mostly due to my inexperience with the fan brush and how to align it on the nail to get all colours placed correctly. And my nails are really small which I also didn't take into account when I layed out the colours. Note to self: the stripes of polishes need to be much thinner than I think!!

I found the technique itself a good alternative to spongeing.

I will definitely try the fan brush for a regular gradient - perhaps for the challenge later this week...and if you want to try this yourself there is a great tutorial for this at the Neverland Nail Blog.

If you want to see the colours of the other Fancy Friday girls, hurry on over to check out their blog posts.

Hurra for endnu en udfordring hvor jeg kan lege med blå neglelak :D. Jeg har denne gang kastet mig ud i at lege med en viftepensel til en teksturgradient, overraskende ok resultat synes jeg. Det er dog lidt svært at se overgangen mellem de to lyse lakker, men det er mere fordi teknikken er helt ny for mig og mine negle ALT for små til de ret tykke streger jeg fik påført penslen :D.

 

Golden Oldie Thursday #5: Green

So here is my GOT polish post for this week. One of these greens here is actually one of my very old polishes.

Illamasqua Rampage is from 2009 I think. Back when Raindrops was released, I'd read about the three polishes made by fans of the brand at Scrangie's blog - and she had a promo code, so naturally I bought those plus some others, Rampage among them.

For the leafy pattern on my thumb and pinky I used nails inc. emerald street which I got through a lucky dip at their home page two years ago...thank you my british mules for being helpful back then before the horrendous Royal Mail scandal.

I decided to stamp on top of Rampage and to make it pop I picked out my Nubar Reclaim, my first ever Holo back before I really knew what a holo was. And I got it for real cheap at BeautyBay at a time where they shipped fast and had reasonable prices on them. By the way, I used Moyou Pro Collection no. 02.

Attitude Adjust-mint, which is on my ring finger, was in my first batch of Lynnderellas bought through preorder at Llarowe, it was her first shipment in December 2011.

For some strange reason it decided to chip on me less than a day after I did this manicure - and my Dior gel top coat also shrunk Rampage - that's a first for me!!

Mount Yu is the base for the leafy nail art and is an Elevation polish. It is also a "first batcher" - I purchased it back in November 2012.

Hopefully you enjoyed this and hurry on over and check the other girls and their green fingers ;)

Fancy Friday #40: Something About Me

When I first saw this challenge way back when I really had no idea what I would do, mostly I was thinking about something Firefly, Sherlock or Doctor Who inspired since those TV-series means a lot to me.

But then my birthday came along and it turned out the wonderful Nailant had actually made three polishes for me, that I knew nothing about - and then it all became so much more easy ;)

So please say hello to Mad Man with a Box, a wonderful bright blue holo polish that caters to my Doctor Who obsession and naturally in one of my favourite colours.

Ooooohhh is that holo I see?

Next up is 42. The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything - and incidentally it is also my current age...and whatever you do, Don't Panic!!! Once more the geeky Marilu dances around excitedly :D

I love, love, love this lilac polish accentuated with two shades of matte pink circle glitter.

And last but not least: Marie-Luise - and with the words Fun, Bright and Full of Life in mind (yes, I am that kind of person ;) ) Stinna created this beautiful glitter polish.

I had such a hard time capturing the holo in that amazing blue polish, no matter what I did I couldn't get it to show off properly...but I digress.

I was moved to tears when I received the polishes and so happy with them I didn't want to take them off, they are all so me - they cater to my geeky side and still have room for that bubbly part that always ends up in fits of giggles when someone makes a fart joke.

Though it is way overdue, I think you should head over to the other girls to get to know them a little bit better :)

Jeg er meget forsinket denne gang, men den ene af tvillingerne lå med mellemørebetændelse i sidste uge, så det var ikke lige bloggen jeg havde fokus på. Men eftersom jeg har haft den her i støbeskeen i lang tid ville jeg SÅ gerne dele det her indlæg med jer. Det er nemlig alt om mig :D. 

I december blev jeg 42 år gammel og i den anledning havde Stinna fra nailant kreeret tre lakker til mig - jeg blev så rørt og glad og flæbede næsten :D. De to af dem er hyldestlakker til den nørdede Marie-Luise som er vild med Doctor Who og Science Fiction og som synes at 42 er svaret på Livet, Universet og Alt det dér. Den sidste - den med mit navn -  er en fejring af min personlighed, som med Stinnas egne ord er sjov, lys og fuld af liv...

Jeg regner med de fleste som følger fast med har været forbi de andre piger, hvis ikke, så smut lige forbi og lær dem lidt bedre at kende ;)