Birdcage under Water

My little sister once gave me a lovely decorative birdcage, and I use it to house four bottles of nail polishes. If there's is a nail art that I've always wanted to try, it's definitely the design of a birdcage. As I mentioned before, drawing is not my thing. So, I was hoping that I would find a nail art sticker of it someday. That day has finally come, I found a water decal on eBay with a bird cage hanging on a branch with birds in and around it:

I used two coats of Essie Ballet Slippers, a milky pink sheer polish. The accent nail has an extra coat of Essence Frosted Campaign from the TE Crystalliced.

The water decals are very easy to use. Just cut out the design and soak that piece of paper in water for a few seconds. The transparent film with the design will separate from the paper sheet and you can place it on the nails as you like. The size of this design was actually a bit bigger than my nail, so I had to chop off a part of the branch. 

What design have you always wanted to try?

Have a great weekend!

Lace Fever

Lately, I've been doing a lot of NOTD's from the latest Essence and Catrice nail polishes. The fingers were itching for some nail art, so here is one:

There are 2 coats of Topshop's Hopscotch, my favourite light grey creme with subtle silver shimmer. On the accent finger, there is also one layer of Essence Ahoy! to draw the imperfect white rectangle. Then I used lace stripes to cover the outline of the rectangle. One layer of topcoat is used to seal and shine.

These lace stripe water decals are very easy to use. You just roughly measure the length you'll need and cut it. Then soak that little piece of water decal in water for a few seconds. The water decal will easily come off and you can place it wherever you want. I bought mine at the Born Pretty Store, but I think you can find them at other online stores that sells nail art related products as well.

Have a great weekend!

Brand New Start...

Happy 2012 Everyone!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful time during the holidays!

A great way to kick off the first blog post of 2012: a brand I've not yet tried before =] American Apparel.

 

Here follows some pictures taken in sunlight and ones in the shade, which are actually more colour accurate. American Apparel nail polishes are 4Free, which means that its formula does NOT contain formaldehyde, DBP and toluene and it is never tested on animals. I did not pay much attention to this matter before, but if these formulations do exist, why not choose them. While I was searching for the 4Free definition, I found that there are also nail polish brands with 5Free formulation! So, if you want a more environmental healthy and responsible nail polish, do check it out this list.

Back to the swatches, American Apparel Rouge is a dark raspberry crème. You can get away with just one coat, but I layered two in the pictures. This is the first American Apparel nail polish I’ve tried and I must say that it made a good impression. The formula was great, it applied so easy and the brush worked fine.

The black lace design was from a water decal sheet that I bought from Born Pretty Store a while back. The accent nail has a French tip of OPI Warm & Fozzie. The water decals are quite handy compared to the lace designs of Konad, if you haven’t mastered the art of stamping yet. I find it hard to place the Konad design on the spot where I want it to be. With these water decals, I can easily place and move it to the right place without having to redo the mani. But I’ll practice with the Konad ones more often, the water decals are for the lazy moments.

Have a wonderful one!!!

Viva La Nails Haul

Viva La Nails is an online store which offers a huge variety of nail art products. If you are a blogger or a Youtube artist, it gets even more interesting, because Viva La Nails gives you the opportunity to try and review their products for FREE! You can order the sample pack (worth £12) here.

It is very nice of Viva La Nails to send me the sample pack which contains:

Nail Art Stickers

And

Water Decals

I ordered a few other products as well:


2 Water Decals
Striper Tape - Black
Nail Art Brush Set # 5

Many bloggers have posted pictures of the water decals and they look beautiful. So I can't wait to try them out myself. Stay tuned and be sure you order your Viva La Nails sample pack!!!

Have a wonderful one!!!