Heavenly Holo With Subtle Stamping

Allo polish Pals!

I hope you are feeling rested and well after the weekend? I have another question for you; Do you ever create a manicure and really really love it? You feel proud of the end result....Until you look at your pictures. Then you begin to doubt the idea behind the manicure and completely change your mind about loving it? I have one of those. I was quite pleased with how this manicure looked on the nails but seeing the pictures has made me hate it. Ah well, you guys can decide what you think about it.

I used three polishes for this design, Color Club's Cloud Nine, Barry M's 'Silk' and 'Heather'. I used Nail Craze stamping plate 02 for a very subtle effect. I added these crosses that I had been wanting to use for quite some time. I'm not sure it 'fits' the look but hmm... I also thought I did a good job at the clean up – until after I saw the pictures. Apologies for the mess.

What do you think of this manicure? Love it or hate it, like I do?

Have a great day!

Love

Ithi

First Ever Mani Recreation : Rockin' The Peacock

Allo polish Pals!

Hope you are all doing well? How was your weekend? I had a really lovely girls day on Saturday with my sister-in-law; she spoilt me terribly and I am so grateful, I love spending time with her. She has a wicked sense of humor! – I think sometimes its important to have just girly days like that. I was also happy to discover one of our drug stores here in Holland is now carrying Sinful Colors – Wahoo! For today's post I am showing you a recreation of my first ever manicure that I posted here. I am not 100% happy with this new version but I think its still a big difference and hopefully an improvement on the original.

Left: My first version which I created two years ago, Right: Funked up version!

On my thumb, middle and ring finger I began by applying two coats of Hema's Green Chameleon and used Color Club's 'Cold Metal' and Fearne's 'High Tide' to create a gradient (a lot less noticeable then I wanted it – sad face, boo boo) I then used Barry M's 'Gold Foil' to add the peacock feather by using the Nail Craze stamping plate 01. On my remaining fingers I used two coats of 'High Tide' and added Sinful Color's 'Nail Junkie' glitter on top. I finished it off by adding some golden holo hexagons.

What do you think of both manicures? Do you prefer the original or my recreation?

I think I'll still recreate this again one day, I want to get the perfect peacock look!

Have a lovely day!

Love

Ithi

Glitzy Purple With Hearts

Allo polish Pals!

Happy weekend to you all! Do you have any lovely plans lined up? I think this weekend will be a quiet one for me. This past week I've done pretty well at pushing myself with exercise and eating well – people are used to me sticking seaweed in my salads now which is a pretty normal thing for me! Today I have a manicure I am really on the fence about. Personally I hate how it looks in these pictures but in person I think it looks a little prettier, ah well tough luck.

I'm very unimpressed with this manicure..

 On all my nails I started with two coats of OPI's 'My little Petunia' which is the polish I picked up last weekend for a bargain of 4 Euro’s! I then used some striping tape and applied Catrice's 'Let's Get Lost In Las Vegas' to half of my nails. I applied a top coat and stamped these aligned hearts in Barry M's 'Silver Foil' over 'My Little Petunia' using the Nail Craze plate 'NC01'.

Unluckily for me the Catrice glitter had big pieces of glitter which meant that as I removed the tape it left some fairly ghastly uneven lines. My pet peeve with striping tape manicures is when the lines are not perfectly neat.... I still decided to show this anyway.

What do you think of this purple pairing? What colours do you enjoy stamping with the most?

Have a beautiful weekend!

Love

Ithi

The 31 Day Challenge: Day 6 - Violet

Allo polish Pals!

How are you today? Have you had a good weekend so far? Yesterday it was a little crazy here as my two Dutch Niece's came to visit again. I can now say that this house is pretty tired and having a good rest day! My oldest Niece really enjoys seeing my nail art so she was learning the English words for each finger and looking through my notebook of ideas/swatches, so cute!

Today I have my manicure for day 6 of the 31 nail art challenge. Violet Nails!

On all my nails I began with two coats of China Glaze's 'Something Sweet' and stamped a few stars (Not very well – I need to improve on stamping) using the Nail Craze plate 02 and Barry M's 'Silver Foil'. I then created a simple cloud design with Barry M's 'Plum' and Color Club's 'Eternal Beauty' on the tips. Overall its a very simple manicure but I just love cloud designs; Its easy to make something striking when you have little time.

I'm looking forward to showing you day 7 which is black and white nails, I've had the pleasure of trying something new for that post.

What do you think of this purple cloud design? Have you worn a cloud design before?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Love

Ithi

The Gate To The Secret Garden

Allo polish Pals,

How are you today? I hope your having a good start to the week :) I have to apologize for my slow posting again, I've been feeling a little rough over the past couple days but I'm feeling better now! Yesterday I attempted some more stamping, while I love doing nail stamping I have always had trouble. I can never get the pattern neatly consistent or the tips of my nails aren’t covered by the pattern. That's why I decided to make my stamp pattern by creating my own whole-length decals. I found it worked much better. Sometimes I really believe that you have to find your own way to make something work for you. Not always will the same technique work for everyone.

I started by applying Barry M's 'Gold Foil' on my ring finger and added one blue gem and two pink gems on top. On my other fingers I applied two coats of Model's Own's 'Blueberry Muffin' and on top of that added Deborah Lippmann's 'Glitter In The Air' (Love love love) I used Barry M's 'Gold Foil' again to create my decals using my Nail Craze's plate 02. On of my all time favourite patterns to stamp with.

I feel I got the pattern laid down more consistently than if I tried to stamp directly onto my nail. The decals where pretty easy to work with too. I did find I didn't quite cover my middle finger nail but all in all it was easier for me.

Maybe this manicure is not for everyone but I really liked how the pink and blue glitter peeks through the pattern :) What do you think of this manicure? Do you like glitter polishes paired with stamping?

Have a great day!

Love

Ithi

A pop of Colour!

Allo polish Pals!

Are you having a good weekend? Hope yours is going better than mine! I'm still sick, yuck but I'm making the most out of it.Happy happy! I decided to go for something sweet on my nails today, something simple little things like that lift your mood, don't you agree? Who's up for some cherry-pop?

A pop of cherry colour!

After applying my base coat I painted three coats of gorgeous light milky-pink (Its super sheer) from Herôme on all my nails. I then sectioned off all nails diagonally with tape and stamped using the NC03 plate and Nubar's 'White Tip'. Once dry I used striping tape to create different direction diagonal lines with Model's Own 'Banana Split'. I did pretty much exactly the same on my ring finger except I then stamped with Cheeky nail plate CH13 using Layla's '05' for the red cherries and Essie's 'Mojito Madness' for the green stems.

I rather like how this came together. While I like doing partial stamping (Only stamping in desired area's) I do think this stamp is far too beautiful not to be used fully so I'll be using the full pattern in the near future. What do you think of this manicure? Do you like the pop of color or do you think the cherries look out of place?

As always I appreciate your comments and thoughts :) Have a dazzling and wonderful weekend!

Love

Ithi

Holographic Butterfly Wings

Allo polish Pals,

Hows your week going? I've been a little behind again this week, my apologies. Today is the 100^th post and I want to thank my readers so much for their patience, kind words and encouragement.  I've met some lovely people so far! These last 100 posts have been so fun to share with you. I can't believe how much my life has changed, I have changed within 100 simple blog posts. I'm really looking forward to the next 100 too! Today I am sharing my holographic butterfly wings manicure with you!

I started with a base coat and two coats of Color Club's 'Cloud Nine'. I made a gradient using Color Club's 'Eternal Beauty' on the tips (Double the holo! ~ how yummy!) and sealed with a top coat of Seche Vite. I then took the NC01 nail stamping plate and Rimmel's 'Black Out' to create the wings outline. I love this look simply because I am a huge holographic fan and when I turn my hand in the light the color shift is beautiful!  I had the NC01 plate for a long time but I'd always been a little nervous about using the butterfly pattern. My nails are not too long and I always worried I'd get the stamp the wrong way round. I think I learnt a few lessons from this manicure and I *think* my next time doing butterfly wings will turn out better. Tidy up time was not a great job..

I'm still hating my lighting situation. I have so many swatches to do but I'm worried my light is going to wash the colours out and make it pointless.. Hopefully I'll find a fix for this soon as two smart phones and a builder's light is getting a little tedious!

How do you think I did for my first time butterfly wings? Have you tried butterfly wings yet? Did you go freehand or use a stamping plate?

Enjoy your day, lovelies!

Love

Ithi

Sweet Dreams Are Made of... Unicorns

Allo polish Pals,

Hows your week going? I intended to post a lot sooner but I had something that was just picking at my mind. I knew how I wanted my manicure to look but getting it to it to look JUST like I had imagined it in my mind was problematic. Do you ever have that? Well after three attempts I can honestly say I want to eat my own hand, I am so disappointed. I am so unhappy with this look but wanted to post something for you. Maybe this is a lesson to myself because sometimes when I try too hard I seem to do awfully as opposed to when I am relaxed and chilled.

Please please, please, excuse the messy cuticles, the sponging was a nightmare to tidy up.

I started with two coats of China Glaze 'Light as Air' and roughly dabbed on Picture Polishes 'Twinkle' onto all of my nails. On all fingers apart from my Thumb and Middle finger I also dabbed on Picture Polishes 'Mirage'. I wanted this to be a rough dabbing of colour so it almost looked floaty and cloud like as opposed to a gradient blend. I then added NYX Girls 'Dreamy Glitter' and stamped in Nubar's 'White Tip' with the fabulous Nail Craze 02 Magical plate. The next thing I post has to be 100% prettier than this!!

What do you guys think of this look? Is it dreamy or just a mess?

I hope you guys have a fantastic day/evening

Love

Ithi

x

Sweet Nothing's In The Wind

Allo polish Pretties!

Are you have a fantastic start to the week? I had a great weekend watching my man play and win a darts tournament on Saturday night, I love watching him play and I'm so proud :) I also got a lot of spring cleaning done. I really blitzed everything!

Today's look is one I feel quite happy with. Its a frosted gradient with stamping.

I started with my usual base coat of OPI's Nail Envy before adding two coats of China Glaze 'Nude'.

I then sponged on Picture pOlish 'sky' to make the gradient. Next I added a single coat of Ozotic Sugar 903 (Wowee at this glitter! It was almost a shame to cover the glitter up, I look forward to using it in all its glittery awesomeness soon) Then I added a coat of Model's Own Pro Matte topcoat. Finally I took Color Club 'On the Rocks' and stamped the dandelion image from the NC01 plate.

I'd been wanting to use this pattern for a long long time but I really wanted to find some colours to really make it stand out and do it justice. Hope I managed that! 

So what do you think of this look? Its really grown on me. I think there's something slightly sweet and romantic about it. Do you like how frosted it looks? What’s your opinion of stamping over matte nails?

Have a fantastic day, lovelies!

Love

Ithi

x

Super Sparkly Shooting Star

Allo polish Pals!

Apologies for such a delayed post! How are you all doing? I am loving my life in Holland. 

I have to thank you all so so much for your wonderful supportive comments; It was lovely to read then while in the midst of my big move. I truly appreciate them all. 

I am going to be back to posting like before now. I am still getting to grips with getting my lighting right with my pictures but today I have a very glittery starry look to show you.

Swirly Starry Goodness

Click Click!

Autumn Nails & Give Away Info

Happy Cosy-Sunday everyone. Hope you've had a lovely weekend. I'm loving hot cups of tea and wrapping up in this cold cold weather!
I'm going to cut right to the point here and show you lovelies what I've been up to. I can babble after!

I'm not entirely happy with this but hey..There's things I would do differently!. You live and learn, right?