31DC2017 - Day 22: Inspired by a song

We write our words on paper planes and ride 'em through the hurricanes. So remember when our memories fade, our love will never age, even after our planes touch down again.

Such a pretty song! The song I chose for today's prompt is Paper Planes by Alexander Jean. I always enjoy listening to it when it comes on and I just kind of love everything about it.

I chose to write out a part of the song and dang, that was hard. The lettering is tiny on these! I also use quite sheer polishes, so I had to go over the words multiple times - which made it more difficult. On the other nails, I painted a paper plane and its sparkly trail.

If I had had more time, I would have made the whole thing glow in the dark - but I'm already ridiculously late as it is.

Colors used:
- LOOK - street (medium grey base)
- essence - let's take an elfie (shimmery sparkly white)
- Catrice - Pink Love Affair (pink with blue shimmer)
- black, white

Magic Bakery ✨

I'm back again! Not for good, but temporarily at least.
Today, I have another really fun design to share with you. I called this "magic bakery", because this design glows in the dark! (I need a lot more glow in the dark stuff - I'm getting bored by the same 6 colors over again)

This was inspired by another trip to my favorite vegan bakery. Today, she's hosting another baker and their theme for the day is inspired by blooming flowers, among other things. So I thought I'd do another design dedicated to her! Check out my cupcake nail art if you haven't already! (I must really have a sweet tooth this year - this is my third candy-inspired design this year!)

I started out with the gradient over a white base - I believe this amplified the glow of the finished product! Then, I freehanded all the rest on top of it. I used a glow in the dark topcoat to make the plate and coffee cup glow, as well as the vase (which was actually supposed to be a white bucket, but it doesn't really look like it).

I also incorporated some (not very) hidden words on my ring finger and pinky. You can see them quite clearly in the picture, but I simply didn't have a closer match to the green I used.

Here are all the colors I used (and there are a lot - hope I didn't miss any!):

• Serum No. 5 - Krypton-Brite (neon green, glows in the dark)
• white
• essence - grey zone (light grey)
• LOOK - street (medium grey)
• black
• Serum No. 5 - Orange You Sunny (orange, glows in the dark)
• dance legend - Termo Trio 1 (purple thermal)
• Serum No. 5 - Indi-glo (sapphire blue, glows in the dark)
• Serum No. 5 - I Gleam In Pink (neon pink, glows in the dark)
• OPI - Skull and Glossbones (off-white/bone)
• China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss (sand)
• China Glaze - Mahogany Magic (chocolate brown)
• China Glaze - Drink Up Witches (neon green)
• China Glaze - Happy Go Lucky (yellow)

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy new year everybody. I sincerely hope 2017 will be better regarding world news and celebrity deaths. 2016 was an eventful, but overall quite neutral year for me. I have set some goals for this next year (which includes some blog stuff as well), so I'm very excited to get started on those! I might mention my progress here or there, but it won't take over my posts, I promise.

So here's to 2017 and all the joy it may bring us.

(side note: Sorry for the crappy pic, I totally forgot to take a picture while I still had natural light :o)

Colors used:
- black
- essence - grey zone (light grey)
- LOOK - street (medium grey) [destashes]
- China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk (charcoal grey)
- Serum No. 5 - Highlight (shimmery nude (gitd))

31DC2016 - Day 25: Inspired by fashion

Okay, so here's the thing. I don't have a big interest in fashion at all. I don't follow things like NYFW or wear designer clothing or anything like that. Therefore, it was quite difficult for me to find something to get inspired by. I tried googling "NYFW 2016" and similar things, but it was way too overwhelming. I ended up getting inspired by an outfit worn by one of my favorite singers of all time - Kirstin Maldonado. In case you don't know her, she's the alto in the two-time Grammy winning acapella group Pentatonix (who I'm absolutely and utterly in love with).

She wore this particular outfit at the AMAs back in 2014. I just love the combination of the midi skirt with the leather top and edgy accessories.

I did some very subtle shading on my index and pinky fingers (and thumb, but you can't see that in the picure), topped off with a semi-matte top coat. I wanted it to simulate leather and I think it looks quite good!

On the other two nails, I chose to somewhat replicate the pattern on her skirt. I simplified it a bit, then sealed it in with matte topcoat. Overall, I'm really pleased with the outcome!

Colors used:
- black
- China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk (charcoal grey)
- LOOK - street (medium grey) [destashed]
- essence - grey zone (light grey)

#PTXWorldTour - Nail art inspired by Pentatonix!

Man, this weekend was crazy!
If you couldn't tell by the title, this design is loosely inspired by the 2 time Grammy winning acapella group Pentatonix.

This weekend, they came to Vienna as part of their world tour. Of course I HAD to go. The whole night was insane! But I won't go into too much detail here.

On to the nails!

The nails were basically inspired by the color scheme of their newest album. I tried to make the colors as accurate as possible.

I started off with a white base, then I did several layers of colors, using the watercolor technique. This particular look was also inspired by Chalkboard Nails. She even has a short text tutorial on her post, check it out!

I used a TON of different colors, basically trying hard to mimic watercolor on paper.

Colors used:
- Monochrome shades:
  - white
  - essence - grey zone (light grey)
  - LOOK - street (medium grey) [destashed]
  - China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk (dark grey)

- Pink shades:
  - China Glaze - Heat Index (neon pink)
  - China Glaze - Rose Among Thorns (darker hot pink)

- Blue shades;
  - China Glaze - Bahamian Escape (light blue)
  - China Glaze - Sunday Funday (light - medium blue)
  - essie - make some noise (medium "neon" blue)**

- Green shades:
  - China Glaze - Drink Up Witches (neon green)
  - China Glaze - Kiwi Cool-Ada (darker neon green)

- Yellow shades:
  - China Glaze - Happy Go Lucky (sunshine yellow)
  - Formula X - Dynamite (darker, slightly orange-y yellow)
  - China Glaze - Lady And The Vamp (neon orange) [I added this to Dynamite to give it a bit more dimension]

**This polish actually stains - a lot. I don't recommend this if you don't know how to get rid of stains on fingernails and cuticles (or just don't want that kind of mess).

Chibi Koala

I'm on a roll this month!
Today, I have a really cute koala mani to show you. First things first, I did copy the koala from here. It basically jumped at me when I first saw it!

Grungy Spiderwebs

The sun paid me a little visit when I was taking my pictures! :)

Wee! My first Halloween manicure of the year! I've done a similar manicure to this last year and ended up really loving the look of it, so I decided to re-create it this year!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

 I love stripes. Unfortunately, I suck at freehanding them. Regardless of that, I tried my best with today's mani.

I started off with a medium gray base, then sponged on black white and dark gray. I love the way the base turned out. It looks a little like spray paint. (Bonus picture at the bottom)

Then I started painting on the lines. I'm actually quite surprised how well I did with these. They're not perfect and they're also a little uneven, but I still really love the look of this mani.


Colors used:
street - LOOK (medium gray base) [destashed]
Concrete Catwalk - China Glaze (dark gray)
black, white

Bows & Polka Dots

I had the idea for this mani back in May when I first bought these two polishes.
Unfortunately, these are by a brand called LOOK, which, as far as I know, is only available in countries like Austria and Germany. Not sure if these are attainable online somewhere.

The colors I used were grey delight and glitter lilac, which is a sand/textured polish.

The one polish I know that seems to be similar to grey delight is deborah lippmann's Love In The Dunes. I am solely basing this on online swatches though, I don't actually own this polish, so I can't guarantee they are dupes for eachother.

I don't currently know of any polish similar to glitter lilac. It is a dark purple polish with gold shimmer/particles in it. Fun fact: This actually looks great when you put a couple coats of top coat over it.
As always, sand polishes are super hard to remove & unfortunately, that is also the case with this one.