Dandelion Stamping on essie - Avenue Maintain

Hello Sweeties!

I hope you're having a fabulous Sunday! Today I want to show you a simple stamping manicure, that I did a while back when I first swatched essie - Avenue Maintain.

I used the design from my #10 stamping plate and some white stamping polish to create this dandelion design. It looks like one of these blowballs that I had so much fun with when I was a kid. I loved plucking them, blowing in and watching the seeds fly away with the wind. Did you do that too?

To give my design a little more colour I added some yellow dots with Wet 'n Wild - Sunny Side Up to the center of each flower. I like those little flowers a lot, but unfortunately the polish didn't transfer too well on my ringfinger. I still think it's cute!

How do you like this manicure? Do you like stamping on short nails?

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essie - Avenue Maintain

Hello Beauties!

I hope you had a good week and are ready to start this Friday. Only a few more hours until the weekend is finally here! I was experiencing some trouble with my SD card reader this week and have to have it looked at this weekend - so today I am going to show you a manicure I did quite a while ago, as you can see from my short nails. What I am wearing is essie - Avenue Maintain (822).

Avenue Maintain is a light blue creme polish with a glossy finish. I applied two coats for full coverage and the formula is fantastic. I had absolutely no trouble with this polish and also the brush was super easy to handle. It fanned out nicely and spread the polish evenly. Avenue Maintain dried pretty fast and as you can see with a highly glossy finish. I did not use a top coat for these swatches.

The colour is a bit darker and more intense than a baby blue, and reminds me of a bright, cloudless sky on a warm summer morning. Looking at it long enough you can almost see some white clouds passing by.

I really like the colour, but only with these short nails. Now that my nails are longer I can not imagine wearing it. But maybe this has something to do with summer being almost over too. I can't tell...

How do you like Avenue Maintain? Is this a colour you would wear too?

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essie - cute as a button & button stamping

Hello Sweeties!

Happy Sunday! I hope you had a lovely weekend so far and can enjoy the rest of it. Today I want to share with you essie - Cute As A Button (73).

This gorgeous coral creme has an excellent formula and is fully opaque in two coats. It applies smoothly and dries quickly. I love the flat brush that comes with most essie polishes. It allowes easy application and in most cases there is absolutely no clean-up required. 

That was no different with Cute As A Button. What I love about this polish, next than reminding me of watermelons, is its glossy finish. I did not use a topcoat for these swatches.

To underline the cute name of this polish I decided to do a little stamping on top. I picked a pattern that fits the name perfectly: BUTTONS! :-D

I used my black stamping polish for this manicure. I have no idea what the name of the stampingplate is. There is nothing engraved, but the number 05. I ordered a bunch of plates online a while back, but there never was any mention of the producer.

Here is a quick look at the pattern I used for my button manicure.

I really love the combo of Cute As A Button and the button stamping. 

How do you like this manicure? Doesn't this underline the polish name perfectly?

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Rainbow Gradient for Christopher Street Day

Hello Lovelies!

Happy Saturday! Do you have any plans for the weekend? I am going to hit the road in a few minutes to go to Austria to celebrate my mum and aunts birthday. I decided to stay there for a couple of days, but don't worry, I have a few blogposts scheduled for that time. So make sure to stop by!

Today is Christopher Street Day here in Munich and therefore I want to show you a colourful rainbow manicure. 

As usual when working with bright colours I started this manicure with a white base - two coats of china glaze - White on White - , and let that dry for a while. To avoid making a mess around my cuticles I taped my fingers with some scotch tape.

Then I sponged on the gradient nail by nail with my make-up sponge. I repeated this step until I was happy with the opacity, wich was about three to four times depending on the colours. For cleanup all I had to do was to remove the tape and it was almost done. There were only a few spots where I had to go in with a flat brush and some polish remover.

To blend the colours together even better I added a layer of china glaze - Fairy Dust. My favourite nail is the indexfinger. I accidentally turned around the sponge and put the colours on to the wrong side. I think in the end this really helped blending them together. You hardly can say where yellow starts and orange ends...

Let me show you the polishes I've used. 

Maybelline - Power Red - Nyx - Pop Culture & My Sunshine - essie - vice versa & mesmerized - Maybelline - Purple Gem. 

As a finishing touch I added a rhinestone in the fitting colour to each nail and sealed it in with Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.

I love how these turned out! Perfect to wear today.

How do you like this manicure? Would you like to recreate it?

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July 4th Manicures pt.4

Hello Lovelies!

I just wrote this post, posted anotherone and boom it was gone... I am sorry that there are only pictures for now. I just don't have any more time to rewrite it all again. I have absolutely no clue what happened! Frustrating.

Have a wonderful Independence Day!

Accent Nails using Tip Guide Stickers

Hello Lovelies!

I am a bit late with posting today, but my morning was incredibly busy. I only want to show you a quick manicure with some French Nail Tip Guides I recently purchased.

Here they are: The pack contains three different patterns. A rounded one, one V-shaped and one with a drop-like tip. I used the V-shaped Tip Guides for this manicure.

I started off with two coats of essie - cocktails & coconuts and let that dry completely. Then I chose two accent nails and placed my stickers on. Using essence the gel nail polish - prince charming I painted over those two nails twice and then quickly removed the stickers again with some tweezers.

To finish it off I applied a layer of Seche Vite, wich leveled out all the edges.

This is such a fun and easy way to do chevrons. You could also use this technique to spice up a day old manicure so it looks different with hardly any effort!

How do you like the combination? 

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essie - cocktails & coconuts

Hello Beauties!

Happy Friday! Today I have a gorgeous nude polish to share with you. This is essie - cocktails & coconuts from my huge haul a few weeks back.

Cocktails & coconuts is a great summer polish. It has a hidden silver shimmer in a nude creme base. The silver microglitter is hardly visible, but if the light catches it at the right angle, it looks absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately there was no sunshine the day I took the pictures and you can not see that much glitter in my pictures. But take a look at the polish bottle in the first picture and you will see a soft silver shimmer.

The formula of this polish is really excellent. I used two coats for full opacity and the application was so easy and required no cleanup at all. It only took me 10-15 minutes to do a full manicure with base and topcoat.

This is by far my favourite nude polish ever! I love how it only shimmers sometimes so it is totally appropriate to wear at the office but also nice at any festive occasion. 

How do you like this essie shade? What is your favourite nude polish?

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