Gameboy nails


Hi guys, guess my nails! I'm not even sure if you can say that. And the title might've been a big hint haha... but they're gameboy nails :D I made these for a reader who is going to dress up as gameboy for halloween, how cool is that? I thought it was such a fun theme and was beyond excited to work on them. My base color was Essence Got A Secret and I freehanded all the gameboy features with a tiny brush. For the glamorous index finger I used Orly It's Not Rocket Science, it's supposed to be the screen. The screen's kind of green, right? ;-) Anyway, hope you like them and goodnight everybody! :)

Other polishes I've used:
OPI - Dim Sum Plum
China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk

Pyramid tips with Essie Fair Game


Hi everyone! These pyramid chevron tips were made with Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever and Essie Fair Game. Both polishes are amazing to work with. Raspberry Fields Forever is a bright folly red, which has a pink hue that's much better visible in real life. It has the great formula and easy application that I'm used to from most of Catrice's creme polishes, I only used two coats and a layer of Seche Vite, shiny! Because Fair Game has that hint of blue that makes the polish so special, I thought it would look nice next to the pinkish Catrice. I just love the combination of pinks and blues, no matter how subtle ;-) I've never worn Fair Game as a full mani and question if I ever will, because as much as I like it, I just think it works better as an accent next to other colors. At least, on my skintone that is, I bet it would look gorgeous on people with a nice tan!

Cartoon hearts


Hi guys! Because you've all been so great to me, I wanted to show you some love with this cartoon heart mani ^^ I've received so many sweet messages since the start of this blog and they mean so much to me. I'm not good with words, nails are more my thing ;-) so this one's for you!

The hearts are freehanded and you can find a tutorial of the design here or at the tutorial page above. On the rest of my nails I'm wearing one of the best glitters ever made: OPI's Mad As A Hatter. It has so many colors, love it! For a better view of the mad glitters, just enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Mad Dollies nails


Hello guys! Today's post is another custom mani, I abosolutely love doing these! I got this request from a player from the Greensboro NC roller derby team The Mad Dollies. She asked if I could come up with some fierce nail art designs, in her team colors teal and yellow, that she could use for an upcoming game. She also loved the use of tape for nail art, so the first thing that came in mind was a fierce lightning bolt tape mani! ;-) (Which all went great until my topcoat decided to smudge my hard work!) On my thumb and pinky I have the symbols that two certain players carry on their helmet. I made the star using tape and I really like the design, but it took a lot of precision to get all the tape strips right. So I'm still thinking of a more efficient way to make the design in the future. And the index and middle finger resemble the distinctive tights I saw players on pictures wearing, mostly striped or fishnet. And luckily I had Konadplate M57 to make the last :)

So Kristin, I really hope you like these designs! You can use all five of them or just pick the ones you like best ;-) And good luck with the rest of this season!

I really enjoy working on these custom nails requests I'm getting lately, so if you would like me to make some designs for a special event or just for fun, feel free to leave your idea in the comments or send me an email at: nailside@gmail.com.

Polishes I used in this post:
Essence Stamp Me! White
Essence - Let's Get Lost
Color Club - Almost Famous
Color Club - Where's The Soiree?
China Glaze - Ink

Pink, black and bling


Hi everybody, today's post is something I made for a reader who'd requested a design for short nails. Two of her favorite colors were pink and black, so I made a simple stripe design with those colors. I love stripes, because they're never out of style in my opinion and also vertical stripes are a great way to make short nails seem a tad longer.

A stripe pattern with even-sized stripes is lovely, but it can be hard sometimes to make all the stripes exactly the same size. So I did a quick and easy-to-recreate pattern with random-sized stripes. The pink is OPI Don't Know Beets Me and for the stripes I used a China Glaze striper polish called Ink. (It's actually a very, very dark blue which looks pretty much black on the nails.) I just drew a few lines here and there, some bigger than others. And instead of actually drawing the stripes myself, I just let the whole length of the thin brush touch the surface while I pull it towards the tip, leaving pretty straight lines. So the brush does all the precise work for me ;-) Very easy and also nice with multiple colors, like I did here a couple of weeks ago. Just use pigmented polish for the job so you won't have to go over the same spot over and over again.

At last I added a few rhinestones for fun. I hope you like this, Maja! :)

OPI DS - Extravagance


Hi everyone! For this post I'd like to show you OPI Extravagance from the Designer Series. Some of you might have seen it before here, a looong time ago, but I thought it deserved its own post :) Extravagance is my first and only DS polish so far, can you believe it! I own this pretty for a while now but for some reason I've haven't used it often. This weekend I decided to wear it on my nails again and I'm so glad I did because I fell in love for the second time... I'm amazed by the sparkly, holographic finish. The holo effect isn't as evident like the one in Gosh Holo, used here in a lightning bolt mani, but I don't care, it's so pretty anyway! I used two smooth coats to reach full opacity, no topcoat, look at it shining! What do you think about OPI Extravagance?

Skittle and dots


Hello nail polish friends! Today I decided to practice some dotting. I envy those who can make perfect, even-sized dots, like the talented girls from Emerald Sparkled, Another Bottle Of Polish and Rebecca Likes Nails. Click on the links to see some amazing dotting manis they made, too gorgeous! My own attempt was very modest though, but definitely something I would wear again. I love the big impact of dots and how they can be achieved with little effort. The polishes I used:

China Glaze - For Audrey
China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk
China Glaze - Adore
Color Club - Uptown Girl

In case you're wondering, I used the same colors for my thumbs as the one on my pinkies ;) Thanks for reading!

H&M - Plum


Hi everyone, this is H&M Plum, a quite dark purple creme. The color wasn't that special to me, but I completely fell in love with the bottle! The shape in Art Deco style looks so slick and the matching font compliments it, really pretty :)

The polish itself was very nice too, it needed two coats to cover, the formula was great and it was only 0.95 for 7ml/0.23 fl.oz.

Leopard chevrons


Wow! This look so isn't me, hahah. But once I had the idea I just had to make it reality. I used tape to make the chevrons, then I added H&M Golden Treasure for my gold background and finally I used konad plate M57 for the leopard print. Normally I suggest people to remove the tape right after applying the polish, to prevent the polish from sticking to the tape, but this time I ignored my own advise. But it turned out alright, as you can see :D I applied very thin coats and then after I stamped, carefully removed the tape strips, one by one. The pretty blue metallic/shimmer is Sephora's Summer In Bangkok, my favorite Sephora polish after It's Time To Rock. It's actually more turquoise in real life, very pigmented and unfortunately also stains so bad! That's why I'm wearing two layers of base coat underneath... Anyway, would you wear this wild design? Or does it scare ya? ;)

OPI The One That Got Away + Blue Shatter


Hello everyone, this week I wore OPI The One That Got Away. I love the berry pink color and the shimmery finish, but I got bored of it already the next day, so I added a coat of Blue Shatter for a quick metamorphosis. It's not the best combination, but at least it was different, haha. It's the second time that I used Blue Shatter and I absolutely love it. It's so bright and has a shimmery glow when it's matte. Gosh, I wish there was a regular, non-shattering version of it!

In the pictures, however, I also used a topcoat, which made everything shiny again, to minimalize the difference in finishes of the polishes. It was a bit too much for my taste :) See you soon!

Aztec tips and a comparison

Left Orly Lucky Duck, right OPI Jade Is The New Black
(Completely on the left is Konad Solid Pop Green)

Hello everyone :) Last week I attempted my first aztec nails, or should I say pixel nails? The nice green you see is Orly Lucky Duck, it had an amazing formula, a bit in between a jelly and a creme, which made it very easy to apply. So you'll end up with a glossy and opaque finish after two coats. On the swatches of it online, it looked more turquoise, that's why I loved it so, but in real life it leans a lot more towards green. Still very pretty, though I don't think I needed it, since I now find it very similar to a polish I already had: OPI's Jade Is The New Black. They're not dupes, JITNB is a bit dustier than Lucky Duck as you can see, but still I think they're so similar, that you probably won't need both. They both have a great formula and cover in two coats, also the drying time of the two polishes is pretty good, so the big difference must be in the brush/cap (or price). I like both the rubberized cap of Orly and OPI's Pro Wide Brush, but you might not agree with me ;)

About the nail art, I used tape strips to make the aztec pattern, what else, right? ;) The white is Essence Stamp Me! White and the red is OPI's Big Apple Red. Yes, it took me forever to make, haha, but I'm quite patient when it comes to nail art, so I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. Though using it as an accent nail would be a nice compromise, like the polished perfectionist AmyGrace did here. Accent nail FTW, right! She's awesome. And that's it for this post, good night!