St. Patrick's Day Manicure

Another post from me today to show you the actual manicure that I'm wearing today for St. Patrick's Day. It is kind of exciting to have the blog match reality for once. Usually there is a delay between when I wear something to when I actually get to posting about it.

Pure Ice Not Now and Lightning Strikes for St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! It looks as though I didn't catch a Leprechaun in time to get some luck since I managed to break a nail and had to cut them all. Maybe it is not such a bad thing though, sometimes shorter nails are good too.

I have for you swatches of another Crackle & Ice Duo from Pure Ice. It contains a shimmery metallic dark green named Not Now and a silver crackle named Lightning Strikes. The combo works really well to give a little pop of green through the crackle. Although for St. Patrick's day, I wonder if a gold crackle would have been a better match.

Black and White Challenge Day 6 - Color Base with White

It is day 6 of the Black and White Challenge which means creating a manicure with a color base and something white. This fire engine red from Color Club's All About Color set really stood out to me, so I grabbed some white acrylic paint and a dotting tool and the pattern practically created itself. It somehow reminds me of traditional Belorussian/Ukrainian folk dresses and towels so must have come up from my subconsciousness. While the true folk patterns are much more beautiful, elaborate and complicated this one is just rows of dots layered. I have had dotting tools for a while, I'm just now starting to really play around with them and loving all the possibilities...

UPDATE: The Color Club polish is named Cadillac Red. See swatches here.  

I would love to know what you think of this! :)
What is your favorite manicure tool?

Check out all the other lovely ladies participating in the challenge...
Biba's beauty corner , Biberlee-Džumbus, Colores de Carol, Emerald sparkle, Hooked on polish, Lacquered Tips, Mateji ustvarjata, My Little Vanities, My Nail Grafiti, Nail crazy, Oje Gemisi Kalkiyor, Omgnoodles, Pink Polish Addict, Polish nail art, Purple Glitters, Taya, The Nail Buff, Welcome To Brianna's World!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Barielle Budda-Ful Flowers

I was really lucky to be sent some amazing polishes by Barielle to play with. One of those polishes is a lovely flakie named Budda-Ful. The name led me to dream of lotus flowers on the corners of each nail. As it often happens, what I think up doesn't quite come out as I pictured it. In this case, I'm not convinced that I ended up with lotus flowers, but whatever flower that is, I do love the manicure.

Black and White Challenge Day 5 - Color Base with Black

I'm back from vacation and trying to catch up with all that I missed, including your lovely comments to my scheduled posts. I'm sad to report that I did not see a sunset like the one I dreamed of here. Hawaii got hit with a major storm which lasted the entire week and included torrential rain, flooding, loudest thunder I have ever heard, lightening, high winds, hail the size of golf balls (luckily on the other side of the island) and more. The first few days we barely wanted to leave the hotel room, wearing rain ponchos whenever we went out. The last few days it started to clear up, but the tours around the island were still cancelled due to washed out roads. The storm is similar to one in 2006, which happens to be the last time I was there. Maybe I bring the bad weather with me? Oh well, it was still nice to get away from work for a week and spend quality time with my mom! :)

Now back to the matter at hand, Day 5 of the Black & White Challenge. The challenge was to create a manicure using a color base with black. I started out with a Color Club fuchsia polish that unfortunately does not have a name. It comes from an All About Color collection that I believe was released in 2010. I will post swatches of it soon. Using reinforcement labels, I blocked off random areas of the nails and applied one coat of Sinful Colors Secret Admirer, a pretty black with a silver shimmer. After removing the labels, I topped everything off with a top coat.

UPDATE: The Color Club polish is named Overboard. See swatches here.  

One thing that I learned is that not all reinforcement labels are made equal. I got cheap ones at the dollar store and while they do stick to paper, they refused to stick to my nails. I had to fight them to stay down the whole time, which resulted in a wobbly edge. I will definitely be trying this manicure with different labels next time...

I hope you enjoyed this manicure and I would love to know what you think of it!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Essie Luxeffects Collection

I hope you have been enjoying the Sinful Colors swatches throughout the past week while I was away, but now I want to show you what I paired them up with. Each of them was topped with a different Essie Luxeffect polish, which I won in a giveaway from Kristen of The Manicured Monkey. Thank you again Kristen, I love them :)

Black and White Challenge Day 4 - White Base with Color

It is time of another Black & White Challenge. For day 4, the challenge is to create a manicure with a white base and some color accent. Inspiration for this was in the form a bracelet given to me a while ago by a friend. I really like the symbols and flowers on it as well as how beautiful the blue looks against the white. I started out with Wet 'n Wild French White Creme and stamped the round symbols using Sinful Colors Midnight Blue and Bundle Monster plate BM-224. When stamped the blue is lighter than I would have liked, but not too bad. I then added the flowers using Midnight Blue, white acrylic paint, and a dotting tool...

I would love to know what you think of this manicure and where do you get your inspiration?

NOTE: This is a scheduled post. I appreciate all your comments and will respond as soon as I return from my trip! Thank you in advance for commenting :D

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)