Sonntag, 29. April 2012

Hasen in Not

Ok, heute muss ich seit langem mal wieder auf Deutsch posten... ich weiß einfach nicht, ob ich es auf Englisch wirklich so ausdrücken könnte. Ich bin gerade nämlich schon noch ein wenig fassunglos.

Uns ist heute nacht unsere Mutterhäsin gestorben. Woran wissen wir nicht. Da aber 3 Tage zuvor bereits ihre Schwester gestorben ist, nehmen wir an, dass es entweder ein Virus ist oder sie etwas im Futter nicht  vertragen haben. Jedenfalls hinterlässt die Mutterhäsin nun 6 Welpen, die gerade mal 17 Tage alt sind. Sie hoppeln zwar schon munter herum, aber Grünfutter fressen sie noch nicht. Sie haben gerade mal angefangen spielerisch ein wenig dran herumzunagen.

Da stand heute morgen natürlich erstmal das Haus Kopf. Meine Mutter war fix und fertig, weil ihr schon wieder ein Hase eingegangen ist. Der Tod des Schwesterhasens war natürlich auch bitter, aber sie hat zumindest keine Jungen (mehr) gehabt. Da uns letztes Jahr von 11 Hasen auch schon innerhalb weniger Tage 9 eingegangen sind und kurze Zeit darauf der Neuzugang ebenfalls, hat meine Mutter nun beschlossen fürs Erste mit der Hasenhaltung aufzuhören, sollten wir die kleinen Hasen nicht durchbringen. Man fragt sich ja dann schon, woran es liegt, dass die Hasen der Reihe nach sterben und man so gar nicht sagen kann, woran es liegt.


Das Problem sind jetzt aber die sechs Welpen. Hasenwaisen hatten wir in den zehn Jahren Hasenhaltung nicht und darum haben wir auch keine Erfahrung, wie man diese versuchen kann zu retten. Schwierig außerdem, dass heute ja Sonntag ist und folglich keine Geschäfte geöffnet sind. Katzenaufzuchtmilch hatten wir letztes Jahr zwar in Gebrauch, denn wir haben ja den kleinen Kater Mio mit gerade mal 4 Wochen bekommen, aber die hatten wir mittlerweile vollständig verfüttert. Der Anruf bei unserem Tierarzt, der zum Glück eine Notfallnummer hat, war recht ernüchternd. Er meinte nur, dass man da nichts machen könne. Die gehen halt jetzt ein. Würde man sie mit Katzenaufzuchtmilch füttern, würden sie Durchfall bekommen und daran sterben. Jetzt frage ich mich ja schon, was das für eine Aussage ist!? Wenn ich gar nicht füttere, sterben sie ja auch. So unternimmt man wenigstens einen Versuch sie zu retten.

Sah meine Mutter zum Glück auch so. Also überlegten wir, wo wir wohl an einem Sonntag an Katzenaufzuchtmilch herankommen. Da kamen uns zunächst mal die beiden Notfallpraxen in den Sinn. Es kann ja schließlich vorkommen, dass eine Hunde- oder Katzenmutter verstirbt und nicht jeder hat dann ja direkt Päppelnahrung daheim rumstehen. Oder man hat so einen Fall wie wir vergangenes Jahr, wo ein Welpe schwer krank stationär aufgenommen wird. Nimmt dieser Welpe keine feste Nahrung zusich, muss er ja zwangsläufig mit Aufzuchtmilch gefüttert werden. Unser Anruf war aber erfolglos, denn beide Notfallpraxen hatten keine Aufzuchtmilch vorrätig! Was sind das denn für Notfallpraxen!?

Nächste Idee waren dann die umliegenden Tierheime. Da zeigte man sich auch größtenteils äußerst unwillig uns zu helfen. Aufzuchtmilch hatte auch keines da. Wir könnten ja morgen welche im Zooladen kaufen. Ach nee! So schlau waren wir auch. Ob so winzige Tiere aber 36 Stunden ohne Nahrung, und damit vor allem ohne Flüssigkeit, auskommen, wage ich aber doch sehr zu bezweifeln. Eine Idee, wo man denn noch anfragen könnte, hatte auch keines dieser Tierheime. Uns kam dann noch die Idee, ob vielleicht eine private Katzenpflegestelle so etwas haben könnte. Leider kannten wir aber keine solche Pflegestelle in unserer Gegend. Das letzte Tierheim, das wir angerufen haben, zeigte dann tatsächlich etwas Willen zu helfen. Vorrätig hatten sie zwar auch nichts, aber man nannte uns die Adresse einer Pflegestelle.


Der Anruf dort war mehr als erfolgreich. Die Dame hatte zwar auch nur noch abgelaufene Aufzuchtmilch da, aber das ist doch schon mal ein Anfang, schließlich geht es ja erstmal nur um einen Tag! Also schnell ins Auto und hingedüst. 20 km (Hinweg) sind für ein bisschen Nahrung zwar kein Pappenstiel, aber was muss das muss. Die Dame erwartete uns bereits und hatte in der Zwischenzeit ihren gesamten Vorrat durchgesehen und noch mehr gefunden. Zwei Dosen Katzenaufzuchtmilch und zwei Beutel veterinär-exklusive Päppelpräparate hat sie uns geschenkt. Das war wirklich freundlich von ihr. Heilfroh, dass wir die Hasenwelpen nun versorgen können, haben wir dann den Heimweg angetreten.

Nun gilt es alle 4 Stunden die 6 Welpen mit der Spritze zu füttern, den Bauch zu massieren und den Käfig warm zu halten. Hier haben die Hasen fast noch Glück im Unglück, denn ich habe bis einschließlich Mittwoch Urlaub und kann damit die Zeiten überbrücken, die meine Mutter nicht zuhause ist. Bis Mittwoch bin ich dann bestimme Profi-Bauchmasseuse. Ich hoffe inständig, dass die Kleinen es schaffen... Es würde meine Mutter bestimmt animieren ihr Hobby nicht aufzugeben. Außerdem muss ich ganz ehrlich sagen, dass ich dem Tierarzt gern den Erfolg unter die Nase reiben würde. In Zeiten, wo jedes Wehwehchen bei Hund und Katze mit an Humanmedizin erinnerndem Aufwand behandelt wird, finde ich es doch schwach die kleinen Hasen direkt abzuschreiben.

Google sei dank haben wir nun ein paar "Anleitungen" zur Waisenaufzucht gefunden und werden unser Glück nun versuchen.

Hat vielleicht jemand schon Erfahrung mit der Hasenaufzucht und hat ein paar Tipps? Wäre natürlich super!

Zum Abschluss mal noch ein Foto von Mio, unserem Sorgenkind letztes Jahr. Groß geworden ist er! =)

Samstag, 28. April 2012

Gilded Cherry Blossoms

A few days ago, I decided on a nail design that was actually not part of the Spring Challenge. I just had to do a cherry blossoms design. I love cherry blossoms so much and their time for this year is almost over. So I decided to do this instead of the next Spring Challenge theme.

Also, I decided to enter a nail art contest with this one. If you like it, I would be more than happy if you would head over to Mada from Happy Nails and vote for my design. It's Number 8, btw.

First of all, the picture I sent to Mada to enter her contest.


Instead of a classic pink and white design, I decided to use one of my newly bought polishes, essence Mojito Green, as my base color. Then I applied this beautiful gold glitter polish I bought in Japan. I wish the glitter was a bit more dense, but it's meant to create a gradient, so I guess it's fine. Using white and pink acrylics, I painted my flowers. At first, I attempted to do them using the one stroke technique, but that didn't work as I wanted it to. (Hence the weird flower on my ring finger) After one coat of essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Sealer, I applied some microbeads in the center of the flowers.

I took the above picture before the second coat of top sealer, because I anticipated that they would start bleeding again... Well, they did. But this time, I actually liked the effect. It's like subtle yellowish gradient around them that blends quite well into the pink.


This is a picture of my right hand. I just thought it turned out quite pretty as well, so I took some pictures. I'm slowly getting better at painting with my left hand. This, too, was taken before the second coat of top sealer.

Only sad thing was the weather. All rainy and dark, so I didn't get a chance to take color accurate pictures. Both pictures above were taken under my desk light.

But! This very morning it's sunny outside! And actually super hot already. So here's a picture under sunlight. Excuse the tip wear please, as this was taken on day 4!



Mojito Green appears a little bit to light in this picture. Just imagine it a little more intense and that's what it really looks like. Very pretty color in my opinion. I'll show some proper swatches soon.

Ok, of to work now~ Have a great weekend!

Mittwoch, 25. April 2012

p2 - navy washed denim (Swatch)

Today, I want to show you a simple swatch of a polish by p2, the dm drugstore in-house brand. They have just launched a new limited edition called Denim delight. The collection consists of various cosmetics, but for me the polishes were the only thing interesting. There are four polishes in total. Two blue shades, a grey and a red shade. At first, I wasn't very interested in the collection, but after I had seen them in the store, I decided to take some back home.

One of those polishes is called navy washed denim. It's the lighter blue of the two blue shades and I really love the color. If I think back, I used to hate jeans, but I came to love them about 4 years ago. Especially dark blue jeans. But this classic jeans color is really pretty. I haven't seen a jeans like that around, but if I'd see one, I might be tempted to get one.


Anyway, navy washed denim is a light greyed blue with a hint of lilac packed with loads of tiny silver shimmer particles. It applies well, drying time is ok. You could get away with one slightly thicker coat, if you are careful. I applied two coats out of habit. The interesting thing about this polish is its matte finish though, which makes it look like some real fabric.

I don't really like the design of this limited edition, but I like what's inside. I'm looking forward to wearing the other two shades I bought. I rarely wear polish just on its own, but this shade was pretty enough that I left it like that. I hope the other two are just as nice.

That's it for today!

Dienstag, 24. April 2012

Spring Challenge 6: Ombre

Today, I want to show you my take on the ombre manicure. I googled a bit and found out that ombre can mean a lot of things. Some are doing a skittle mani using polishes from a similar color range, others are doing gradient manis. I felt that a skittle mani was a bit boring, but I had already done a sponged gradient, so I was left with the same problem as before. I still decided to do a gradient. This time, I wanted to try it a different way though. I'm playing a bit with texture lately, so I tried to give the gradient a little texture by painting it instead of sponging.


I used about 5 different shades of blue to achieve this mani. I mixed them together to create a smooth gradient. I just painted small strokes in an alternating way. It almost looks like fish scales, I think. I got a few nice comments from co-workers on this one. My boss thought I had hurt my hand at first though, haha. It's simple, but I liked it. Am I doing too many blue/green manis lately? I just reached for the blues again... maybe I should have done a pink gradient instead.


I wore this for 2 days only, because by the end of day 2, I had quite extensive tipwear... It had already started after I applied topcoat, as you can see on the pictures. Oh well.

Since I haven't posted it in a while, here's the chart once again.


And the list of participants too~

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Hannah from Polished Prisms
Sarah from All This Polish
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails



Sonntag, 22. April 2012

Studded sponging experiment

Today's mani is obviously not part of the Spring Challenge. I'm not finished with my nails yet and I'm not sure if I'll manage to post them today.

Today's nails were done a while ago on a whim. I just felt like playing around and trying stuff I wanted to do for a while. I had gotten so much nail art stuff that was still unused. I always feel bad about my buying habits... What makes me want to post about this mani is a small contest held by Dani from Dani's Beauty Blog to celebrate her blogiversary. It ends today and I forgot to post the blogpost I had almost finished preparing, but since I didn't like what I did anymore, I'm rewriting it. :P Well, Dani basically wants her contestants to show her some inspirational nail art and I just thought that my experiment might be inspirational to her, because the experimental part is easily done and I'm pretty sure she has the stuff I used.

So here's what my evening sponging experiment looked like.


There were actually three things I wanted to try that night. First was to see how the silver email color I just bought is behaving. It's not meant to be used on nails, but I had read on several stamping sites that it works great for stamping because it's so highly pigmented. It is indeed and one pot of 14ml cost me less than a bottle of polish! Second was the striping tape that had just arrived in the mail. I experienced something similar to yesterday's mani, but I had completely forgotten about that. My top coat (same as yesterday's) was peeling off and the color was a bit faded the next day, but not as badly.

But what I wanted to try most was sponging using the scratchy side of a cleaning sponge. I don't know where I read about it anymore. It was last year, I'm pretty sure... took me a while to finally try it. Using the scratchy side creates a completely different effect, but I loved how it looked. Basically, it's the same as using a regular (makeup) sponge, but the texture makes the difference. I roughed it up a little bit, because it's a bit too flat on its own. Not enough texture.

So for the sponged nails, I painted my nails white using essie Marshmallow and let that dry completely. This time this was really important, because the scratchy sponge can actually pick up some of the base color if it's not dry enough. Then, I cut a little piece out of my big kitchen sponge, dipped it into black polish and then started sponging lightly. I tried to sponge triangle shapes on two of the nails. On those nails, I added another triangle in black. Afterwards, I cut some striping tape to cover the "edges" of my triangles. My ring finger also got a tiny bit of gold polish sponged upon as well as a few gold studs.

The remaining two nails were painted black first (p2 eternal). Using a tiny brush (I used size 3/0, but I cut away about half of the brush hairs) and my newly bought silver email color (Revell #90), I freehanded the flowers and dots. I had to find out that email color takes longer to try than regular polish, which means that topcoat has to be applied later. I smudged my silver a bit, because I didn't know.

There's only one picture, sadly. When I looked through my usable pictures, I found out that they all looked somewhat alike. Boring. But here's a picture of what I used.


So that's my experiment. I'm not saying it's overall successful. There was something I didn't like about it. Not sure what though.

What do you think? Did you try sponging with the scratchy side?

Samstag, 21. April 2012

Spring Challenge 5: A Rainbow after the Rain

...fail... lol

Hm, I was thinking about what to do for the rainbow theme and some polishes or techniques I hadn't used yet. I had done some gradient sponging already, so that was out. I didn't feel like painting rainbows either. Then I remembered the striping tape I bought a while ago... still unused. I had enough colors to do a rainbow, so I went with that.

First of all, I painted three layers of essie Marshmallow as my base. It took forever to dry as always. Then, I cut my striping tape and applied it. After cutting the edges, I applied 2 coats of essence BTGN Top Sealer to smooth everything out. It is pretty smooth actually. So far, so good. Since I did this late at night, I was quite tired and decided to go to sleep and take pictures the next morning. That was my mistake.

When I woke up, I had to find out that my topcoat had melted the colors of the striping tape, leaving silver tape with a hint of color around the edges. All that was left from the quite bold colors of the original rainbow was a pastel rainbow. For some reason, the topcoat had also heavily bubbled on top of the striping tape. :( The original colors were violet, dark blue, green, yellow, red...


I'll try again with some other top coat, but if it's happening again, I'll probably have the throw it away, or use if for tape manis only. Did anyone else experience something similar?

Here are the links to the other wonderful ladies participating in the Spring Challenge:

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Hannah from Polished Prisms
Sarah from All This Polish
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

Mittwoch, 18. April 2012

Spring Challenge 4: April Showers

Wow, the last few days were really tiring... I didn't get around to do anything. It's just horrible if half your colleagues are sick and you have to do their work too... But well, it's the same every year, so nothing we didn't expect. Last year around this time I wasn't doing my nails as frequently though. I managed to do my nails for theme 4 as planned, but I forgot to take pictures at first. Yet, this turned out to be a good thing!

I didn't really have an idea for theme 4, April Showers, so I ended up looking at random pictures that turned up when searching for rain patterns. I'm sure a few have done the same and have seen the pattern I ended up using. I wanted to do something quick and easy and this pattern just did the job for me.

First of all, I removed my previous manicure just to find out, that the polish had stained my tips even though I had used a base cost. Boo. I cut them down a bit to minimize the damage. After applying two coats of base coat this time, I painted my nails using two coats of essence Into the Dark, which is a polish from the fall LE called Vampire Love. So far, I hadn't used it. In the bottle it's a greyish dark blue with some shimmer which reminded me of rain clouds, hence my choice to use it. It doesn't translate like that to the nail though. It's darker and the shimmer is not as prominent. Still a nice color though... more of thunderstorm clouds maybe.

On my ring finger nail, I painted the pattern using white acrylic paint. The white also makes the colored drops pop a lot more. Here's the end result:

 

The next day, when I was showering, I was looking at my hands and had another idea. I thought, why not try to make the dark nails look like they were just hit by some rain. Using clear polish, I tried to imitate this. What do you think?



No spring-like manicure, but I like the rain effect. I didn't go to work leaving it like this though. After taking pictures, I added top coat which smoothed out my little raindrops somewhat. It was an interesting effect, almost 3D. I might have to try this again... doing it on purpose next time.

And again, here are the links to the other wonderful ladies participating in the Spring Challenge:

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Hannah from Polished Prisms
Sarah from All This Polish
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

Donnerstag, 12. April 2012

Spring Challenge 3: Glitter Sammy

Theme Nr. 3 of our Spring Themed Manicure Challenge is creating a glitter sandwich. I haven't done one in a while, so I was really looking forward to this theme. I just didn't think I'd do Theme 3 so fast. But... I didn't like my ladybugs so much, so here is my glitter sammy...

I really love blue glitter sandwiches... but since I have done one before and I knew that Hannah would also do a blue sammy, I thought about what to do about that. When I do a blue glitter sandwich, I always have to think of a starry night sky. So to me it was obvious to think about a variation of that theme.

What I came up with might not even be a real glitter sandwich, but it was fun to try and I love how it turned out.


I tried to do a very early sunrise mani here. So first I sponged my sunrise using a yellow polish that I watered down using some clear polish, a light turquoise and my two favorite blue jellys. This turned out okay, but I had to sponge twice. Otherwise, the colors would be too light. On top, I applied a generous layer of a silver holo glitter polish from Japan. Man, that one got really thick over the years. I really need to finish that bottle soon! On top of the layer of glitter polish, I applied a coat of a light blue jelly that I mixed myself using clear polish and a baby blue. My "sunrise" became a little foggy that way, but fog is something we have here a lot lately around sunrise.








The placement of the glitter could have been better on pinky and pointer, but all in all, I'm quite satisfied with my glitter sammy. Can you see the belt of Orion!? xD




What do you think? Does this still qualify as a glitter sammy? The jelly polishes loose some of their "squishy" jelly qualities when spongend, so it doesn't have as much depth as before...


The next theme is going to be April Showers. Hm... need some inspiration here. Since I like my current mani quite a lot, I'll have a few days to think about it~

Please take a look at the other girls' manis. Here's a list of who has completed Theme 3 so far:

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Hannah from Polished Prisms
Sarah from All This Polish
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

Mittwoch, 11. April 2012

Spring Challenge 2: Ladybugs

Here's my take on the second theme, ladybugs. A few of the other ladies had already finished theirs while I was still pondering on what to do. Well, one of them had done bugs on a leaf which became my inspiration of sorts.

I don't like how my bugs in the green grass turned out though. I imagined the whole thing a lot brighter... meh. This is also the reason why there is only one picture...


The little bugs kind of look like spiders... :( Red spiders. I like the antenna of the big ones though.

I used OPI Bubble Bath to even out my discolored nails first and then used Catrice I Sea You! and Sold Out For Ever as well as Rival de Loop  #01 Spring Melody to create the green parts of this mani. The bugs are painted using acrylics for the black and an unnamed red polish. That's it.


And here are the links to some of the other ladybug manicures ;)

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Suen
Karine from Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
and of course Hannah from Polished Prisms

Sonntag, 8. April 2012

Spring Challenge 1: Spring Pastels

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you have a great weekend! It's nice and sunny here, but so cold... so we ended up not doing our annual Easter stroll. xD

Since I finished my first challenge, the Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge, I was keeping my eyes open for another challenge that sounds fun and is flexible timewise. The other day I stumbled upon a challenge hosted by Hannah from Polished Prisms called "April Showers Bring May Flowers. A Spring themed Manicure Challenge". It contains a total of 14 different themes without a set timeframe, which made it very appealing to me. Here's a chart of the themes:


Sounds fun, I think. I'm going to try this challenge from today on! I think I'm going to try to do 2-3 of the themes each week. I'll probably settle with Thursdays and Sundays as these are usually my days off. If I'm in the mood and have enough time, I'll try to do a third inbetween these days. Which means that this challenge will keep me busy for a minimum of 4 weeks. Sounds do-able.

So first theme is spring pastels. This is kind of convenient, because Easter is always a pastel colored holiday for me. I used to paint eggs in all kinds of pastel colors and patterns. I usually even wear a lot of pastel colored clothes around this time of the year. I used quite a few pastel nail polishes lately, even though I haven't posted most of those manicures yet. One color has been missing though, which is pastel pink. Last friday night (...xD) I decided that I would do a quick Easter themed manicure to calm down my nerves. I was really nervous because I was writing a job application... I don't know it always wrecks me...

Here's my quick and easy Easter manicure. Nothing special, but I like it.


I used two coats of a pastel pink polish by Jade, that I got from my mom a few weeks ago. It is kind of old and a little goopy. I like the color though. On my ring finger and thumb I used three coats of essie Marshmallow. I hadn't used this in a while, but I think it's actually a little bit too milky white for what I intended to do. The white is acrylic paint, the eggs, grass and odd flowers were painted using various Catrice polishes.

I like how the bunny turned out. It's a little on the heavy side... (We actually had bunny for lunch today...)


My camera had a hard time with this manicure. Not enough contrast, I guess.

Next theme for this challenge are ladybugs... I don't really have an idea yet...

The list of participants for this challenge is still growing. I think it's convenient to have it under the blog posts. Please take a look at the other participants manicures! Thank you~

Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails
and of course Hannah herself from Polished Prims

Have a nice day!

Donnerstag, 5. April 2012

Ruffian using Catrice Houston's Favorite

What I'm going to show you today is actually a pre-challenge mani. I never got around to post it, but the day has finally come. This is my first try on the ruffian manicure. The one I did for Challenge Day 1 was my second.



The polishes I used for this mani are Catrice Houston's Favorite from the Out of Space LE from 2011 and essence white glam, a recently discontinued polish from their French collection.
First of all, I painted my nails with two coats of white glam. I really like this one. I only got it when it was on sale due to the discontinuation and then even got mysef a second bottle, because I think it's a nice base for a franken polish I have in mind.



When that was dry, I applied one coat of Catrice Houston's Favorite. It covered quite well and the brush made it easy to create the ruffian too. I think it came out quite well. The polish is a very dark teal leaning blue. I love this color and the pretty shimmer to it.

Since I really like the base color too, I took some quick pictures before covering it up.



white glam is a milky white with tiny light green glitter inside. It just seemed like the perfect underwear for Houston's Favorite. I used this one a couple of times now and I'm quite sad that it is not available anymore. I would probably not wear it alone though... too sheer.

After two days, I added two coats of essence Dancing Top Coat to the mani and mattified it. The effect is great. Houston's Favorite looks green now, not teal anymore and the flakies really pop. The pictures don't show the change in color though.



What do you think? I'm starting to feel that I need more flaky polishes. Like a pretty green/blue shifting one... Aaah...

Sonntag, 1. April 2012

Girly-Girl Nail Art Challenge: Day 8, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

So here I am with my take on the last day of our Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge. I'm kind of sad that this is going to be the last challenge manicure... Anyway, today's theme is "girl's just wanna have fun", so I don't really want to start with the sad stuff, haha.

I had some trouble coming up with an idea this time. Since I was travelling last week, I didn't get around to prepare some ideas and mani's in advance. Work this week was also more tiring than I anticipated, thus I realised that today's mani had to be rather simple. I settled with trying the acid wash technique which I have seen on several blogs over the past weeks. Inspired by the coloful manis of my fellow challenge bloggers, I decided to use bright colors also.

Here's my first try on the acid wash manicure:


The polishes I used for this mani are essie Navigate Her, depend 295, Manhattan 51K and essence Sundancer. I got the depend polish when I was travelling in Sweden last week and it's really amazing. I wish the bottles were a bit bigger though...


I was also surprised just how easy it is to achieve this manicure. I prepared this over a total of 3 days because of my lack of time. I just painted a new coat of color on top of the previous every night. On the morning of day 4 I simply took a q-tip, dipped it in acetone and started scrubbing lightly. The acetone melts the different coats of polish quite fast. The longer you scrub, the more the layers are going to show up. I think I needed a total of like 15 minutes to do both hands and I'm confident that you can be faster once you get the hang of it.


Obviously, it might be best to use one coaters because you don't have to melt away so much polish if you are doing as many colors as I did or even more. The depend polish worked great. 51K on the other hand needed two coats and when I started scrubbing, it started to discolor the yellow... I don't know, but the consistency of the polish+acetone was a bit weird. I also think that this kind of mani is actually a great way to touch up a manicure.

What do you think? Have you tried this technique before? What are your results like? Got some tips maybe?

So this was my last girly-girl manicure... This past month has been a lot of fun, I got to know a lot of wonderful new blogs and I was also really overwhelmed with the feedback I got during this time. Thank you everybody, who took the time to comment! I was, and still am, really happy to read all of your comments!

I'm pretty sure this won't be the last challenge I'm participating in, but on the other hand, I'm still sure that I can't handle the daily kind of challenge. If anyone knows of a challenge with a similar time frame or wants to create their own, I'd gladly participate!

Please take a look at all the awesome nail art everybody else has been doing to!

Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of DevilishPolish
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Lacquer Lover
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Eugenia of Talon-ted
Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Amanda of Nox Nails
Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Emily of The Lacquerologist
Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail
Amanda of Berry Polished 
Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins
Bonny of Over Stuffed 
Taylor of REJOICE! 
Jess of Nearly Natural Nails
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