Nicki Minaj inspired nails

So many things to post and so little time! At the moment I'm in the middle of my exams, hence the lack of posting this week. But I've got plenty of fun stuff to share with you once things are slowing down. :)

Between all the studying I did manage to create a look for the OPI Nails 4 Life contest on Facebook. My entry had to be inspired by one of the four Nicki Minaj outfits provided by OPI. I chose the outfit she wore to Victoria's Secret and didn't have to think long about my choice, I was crazy about the fun graffiti style in vivid colors. Different techniques were used to achieve this look: sponging for the background, taping for the striped accent nail and a lot of freehanding for the stars, hearts and Nicki's initial, which took a lot of time to make but turned out pretty cute. ^^

If you like my entry, you can vote for me through this page. The prize is the entire OPI Nicki Minaj collection, plus an autographed copy of her Pink Friday album! Isn't that awesome?! I'm thrilled about the whole prize, so I'd appreciate it if you truly want to vote for my entry, though that's entirely up to you of course!

Did you participate in OPI's Nails 4 Life contest?

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Tutorial: Citrus design

Hi everyone, welcome to my citrus design tutorial :) I first made this design for my entry in the Good Enough To Eat contest at Nail Polish Art Addiction, a few months ago. The shape of a sliced citrus fruit has always amazed me for some reason, so for the contest I made this exotic, abstract pattern. A few of you dear readers requested a tutorial for it, so here it finally is :) Continue reading »

Titanic inspired nails

Hi guys, I've entered another nail art contest, themed "Thank God, I'm a woman!". The contest is hosted by Orlica and this time all the entries had to be related with why you like to be a woman. Although I have many reasons why I'm happy to be a girl, I just couldn't think of a fun and original way to capture those on my nails. The theme of this contest was so challenging! After a LOT of thinking, I decided to make Titanic inspired nails. It's one of my favorites movies and I'm not just saying that because of the overwhelming love story, lol. I know many find the movie very corny, but I can't help but loving it :P It's everything about it, there's a reason why it won 11 Academy Awards! So I picked Titanic as my theme, because as a girl, it's okay to love that movie without being frowned upon ;-) I freehanded the ship itself on my thumb and on my ringfinger I have Rose's Heart of the Ocean necklace, made with a dotting tool and rhinestones. Once again, it was a really tough theme, but all the contestants have been really creative to think of something cute, so go check them out and vote for your favorite!

La coeur de la mer

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Sushi inspired nails

Hi everyone, now that the contest at Nail Polish Art Addiction is over I'd like to show you what would have been my second entry. In the end I decided to submit the citrus mani because I thought it was more fun and complete and I was happy to have made the right choice after I saw several other sushi entries from other contestants (beautifully executed though!). Unfortunately my entry wasn't good enough to win any prize at all, hahah. Oh well, you can't have everything! But thanks so much if you did vote for me :) Have a nice day!

Citrus inspired mani

Hi guys! I participated in yet another nail art contest :) This is my entry for the Good Enough To Eat contest at Nail Polish Art addiction. My entry had to be food-related and food seemed like a really fun and broad subject to me, but I had such a hard time coming up with something! After a lot of branstorming I finally had citrus fruit in my mind but it took me until the last week before the deadline to translate it to a design on my nails. I simply loved the stylized shape of a sliced citrus so I used that to create a summery, abstract pattern with exotic colors.

Please have a look at all the other creative, delicious entries at Nail Polish Art addiction and vote for your favorite. There are 48 of them, so you don't want to miss that! :)

Flamingo inspired nails

Hi guys! There are many nail art contests hosted lately. The last two I entered have just ended and I'm already participating in the next one. This time it's the Animalistic nail art contest at Spooky Nails. I found it hard to come up with something animal-related which was original at the same time. Finally I came up with the flamingo bird, I was attracted by its corally pink color and the long, curved neck. So I went googling for some images and found some beautiful ones where the flamingos are relaxing in the water. Their pinky color formed such a nice contrast with the water and I immediately knew that I wanted to make something that would capture that contrast. I tried to keep the overall look simple by using the flamingo design as accent nails only. The colors I used were Essence You're The One (corally pink), China Glaze For Audrey and Rimmel Sky High for the tips. I also added a layer of White Cap over For Audrey on my accent nails, which is barely visible in the pics. But in the second picture below, where I didn't add the birds yet, you can see it a bit better.

There are many others participating in the contest, so please visit Spooky Nails to have a look at all the creative entries and vote for your favorite!

UPDATE: Unfortunately my entry didn't win in the contest, the winner was Mada with a cute and simple, sillhouette cat creation. Congratulations, Mada! Also thanks if you had voted for me! :)

Smells Like Teen Spirit won!

Hi everyone, I'm very happy to say that Smells Like Teen Spirit has won the franken contest at More Nail Polish! There were so many other pretties competing, so it feels incredible to win and I'm very thankful for it. Thank you so much if you voted for it, it wouldn't have won without you! Also big thanks to Cathy for hosting the contest, it must have been so much work to do, and for the amazing prize; a brand new bottle of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Turquoise Opal! I can't wait till it arrives, it's so pretty! Thanks for stopping by :)

Flower design for inspiration contest

Hi everyone, lately I've been busy, busy, busy... 'Cause the franken contest at More Nail Polish isn't the only contest I've entered, Swaafie also hosted one for which you had to let your design be inspired by something.

So this is my entry. I was inspired by a little tin can with flowers I have. The can is empty but I just had to buy it because it was so cute and I loved the colors so much. It looks very cheerful and summery so it was a suiting inspiration for this time of the year. The colors and the flower pattern are what makes the can so nice to look at, so I wanted to capture that on my nails but without being too literal. Later I added purple rhinestones, I think they compliment the design and are just within the limits of cute instead of tacky, haha. What do you think?
About the contest: only a few entries will be presented to the judges who will pick the winner. But before that can happen everyone can vote who should be part of those few. So check out all the entries and vote for your favorite three designs. You don't have to be a GFC follower in order to vote. Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: I'm proud to let you know my entry won first prize in the contest! Thanks so much if you voted for it, it wouldn't have won without you! The prize is awesome and of course I'll share the pretties here with you all :)

Before the rhinestones

Vote for my (first) franken!

Hi guys! My first franken! I've finally managed to finish a bottle of topcoat so I had an empty bottle to start the long-awaited frankening. I wanted to post my franken sooner but then I discovered the Franken polish contest at More Nail Polish, so I entered! And I couldn't post my entry anywhere yet before it was published on More Nail Polish.

My franken is called Smells Like Teen Spirit, named after the famous song from one of my all-time favorite bands Nirvana, as a tribute. The song isn't my favorite of them but it was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the finished franken. I think the name fits the vibe of the franken well and I really wouldn't be able to come up with any other name for it, this franken was meant to be Smells Like Teen Spirit!

The polish is a blend of many different glitter and shimmer polishes. The result is a blue-toned purple base filled with silver, gold, blue, purple and iridescent glitter/shimmer in different sizes. And it needs three coats to get opaque.

So check out all the 21 amazing frankens that have entered the contest and vote for mine if you really think it deserves to win. The grand prize is a bottle of the rare Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Turquoise Opal!

In the sun

In the shade

 

And here's the recipe for those who are interested, it's a looong list of 11 polishes, I think I poured in about the same amount of each and I also included a picture of everything I used, 'cause isn't a picture worth a thousand words?

China Glaze - Gold Digger
China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
Orly - Galaxy Girl
OPI - Last Friday Night
H&M - Blue Wave
Essence - Choose Me!
Deborah Milano - #838
Paris Memories - #253
Paris Memories - #254
Diamond Cosmetics - Turquoise Glitter
LA Girl - Overdose

My babies arrived!

Hi guys! Remember my winning Vegas-inspired mani for the Herôme nail art contest? Well, yesterday evening my prize arrived and it's gorgeous! All the polishes came in four sleek, black cases with bows and they look so cute!

All in!

Hello followers! Second post today. This mani was my entry for a national nailart contest at the Dutch site Girlscene.nl, sponsored by Herôme, a Dutch nailcare brand. Herôme already had many nailcare products and since a while they also have their own nailpolish collection called World Inspired Colours, consisting of 79 polishes, all named after big cities all over the world. The challenge was to let your nailart creation be inspired by such a big city, so guess which city I picked... That's right, Vegas, baby! Though I've never been to Las Vegas, or anywhere in the U.S., movies, TV shows, music, images and internet let you taste a little of what it's like there. So based on that, Vegas (partly) reminds me of money, luxery, odds/luck, decadence and glitter, all in the surounding of hundreds of casino's. And that's what I wanted to capture on my nails. I spent ages on this mani, but the price to be won would be worth it! The winner of the contest would receive the entire W.I.C. collection of 79 polishes! So all this time I had my fingers crossed... hoping they'd pick me out of all the entries... Though my hopes weren't high, since they must've had hundreds of entries. But! Today I received an e-mail from Girlscene... saying I had won! My Las Vegas mani had actually been chosen as winner of the contest! I just couldn't believe it and still don't. I've never won anything besides small coloring-contests when I was little, haha. So that e-mail really made my day... My week! Month! Year! You know... And it feels like a little make-up for not winning Orlica's Disney contest, hahah :P

All the designs are freehanded except for the index finger which needed a little help from tape. And that little shiny thing on my ringfinger is a rhinestone, pretending to be a roulette ball.

Thanks for reading this looong post, if you've made it this far, hahah. And have a great night :)

Aladdin

Hi everyone! A little while ago I made this Aladdin mani for the Disney nail art contest by Orlica at Confessions of a Polishaholic.

So my Disney mani was inspired by Aladdin, my absolute favorite Disney-movie. When I was a little kid, I already loved the movie and had a crush on Aladdin, lol! And now that I'm older I still enjoy Aladdin, maybe even more because now I finally understand all the words, songs and jokes :) Everything about the movie is just wonderful; the visuals, the script, the AMAZING songs and of course all the characters! So on my nails I have 5 favorite characters depicted, the magic carpet, Genie, Aladdin, Jasmine and of course little Abu! All are freehanded with tiny brushes and an ocean of patience... And as a finishing touch I added some rhinestones to the magic carpet on my thumb and Jasmine's headband.

So go check out all the 22(!) amazing entries and vote for mine if you truly think it deserves to win! And make sure you're a GFC follower of Confessions of a Polishaholic or you won't be able to vote!

EDIT: The other day Orlica announced the winner of the contest, which was Kleopatre. She made a really cool Cruella de Vill mani, it was one of my favorites in the competition and truly deserved to win. So sadly I didn't even make it to the top three, haha, but I had a lot of fun making the Aladdin mani and just wanted to say thanks to those who had voted for me :) So thank you!