Cherry Blossom nails

Hello again, it's been one busy month! I'm always surprised of how short a month May is - the trees burst out to leaves and suddenly it's summer with schools ending and everyone making holiday plans. Seems like just yesterday we had mountains of snow where the grass now grows green, waiting for a trim...


This is a sister look to my Willow nails - Cherry blossom nails :)

I've been wanting to do this for a long time. The final kick to try it was when I saw this pretty radio on Clas Ohlson catalog (my hand on the catalog page, not on the actual radio):


It seemed like a good fresh look for my daughter's graduation (from kindergarten LOL).

There are plenty of beautiful takes on cherry blossoms out on the nail community and most combine a cool base with rosy blossoms. See for example a gorgeous Cherry Blossom Sakura Tree - YouTube tutorial by Love4Nails here.

My choice of base was For Audrey by China Glaze. The flowers are done with acrylic paint (mix of red and white). The branches and lining dots are same as in Willow nails: brown by Nail Star, pearly white by Migi.


I do like this combo though my nails are soon too long for straight french tips. The free edge is a bit over half of all the length now!

See you back soon!
Thanks for all the new and old readers for stopping by :)

Busy Mother's Day nails

Happy Mother's Day to all moms! Did you get your morning coffee to your bed? I was the first one awake so I got up to check new updates from Blogger... Then I tried to sneak in back to bed but my youngest wouldn't give me a blanket anymore! I wasn't tired anyway but had to get "out of the way" so the rest of the family could prepare the breakfast table to "surprise me". So I grabbed my polishes and went to the back room polishing :)

(picture indoors)

The idea I had didn't transfer as glamorously as I thought it would... First off I thought I took toothpicks (for the glitters) with me to my "hideaway" but I ended up taking only q-tips! And the top coat I grabbed for attaching the glitters was a fast dry! So... I had to be quick and I was clumsy with the glitters. I would've liked them to follow the edge of the polish more frequently.

I wanted to combine a holo and a matte black and spice it up with the glitters. The base is OMG by China Glaze, with a black stripe in the middle with Nero by GOSH. The matte top coat is by Rimmel.

(outdoors)

Outside you can see the holo and sparkle. Hard to capture it with all the bling when some spots look more white and silver in the sunshine.

All done in about 15 minutes... I was afraid it might look too much like fish scales with the hasty application and all but it's not as bad as I feared. Still I liked the idea more than the end result. Will try this combo with a differend pattern and more time someday. Maybe a black side-swipe across the holo, so it breaks down the form a bit better. And I'll definitely use the toothpicks for lining the glitters LOL

(by my son, for Mom's Day when he was 7)

Have a beautiful day!

Creative #182 Blushing (with some memories)

I wanted to wear opaque nude polish for a change so I pulled out the old Creative polish called Blushing - probably the oldest polish I have! Last time I wore it was for my job interview (got the job and been working since :)).

Back then I thought the shade was too brown for me and lightened it a bit with a milky white (see here). Now I'm more pale and I like the color more. I'm thinking the next time I organize my polish bottles I should go for seasonal categories: what suits me on Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. For this polish I was almost ready to let go and now I'm really liking it in these early days of Summer :)

I should tell you the first time I got really interested on nails was after I saw a commercial of some detergent with model wearing total "mannequin hands"-look. I was probably 11 years old. Luckily my mom had some nude shade of Lumene on her stash and I used the bottle to the last drop. I thought it was cool to mask the nails totally from the tips. Years following I wore mostly brown polishes but there were some dark purples too.

When my nails were coated I also forgot to bite them - a bad habit of mine since the childhood. When my nails got longer I got more bold with colors. One summer I used up a bottle of very very bright neon green, I must have been 13 or something. Then I had nails as long as I have now and people found it hard to believe they were not fake nails. That green had satin finish so it really made my nails look alien LOL

Now I wear brown (and neon green!!) very rarely - and when I do I get the urge to pimp them quite fast... After the day turned into night I did spice the Blushing up with glitter bomb too... Layered here with Orange Ocean by Sinful Colors.

Glad you stopped by!

Double french for May Day

Towards the summer with more color... This was my manicure for May Day.

I wanted happy, feminine colors so I chose Lilac Dream by La Femme Beauty and a pastel yellow by Claire's + a fimo slice to complement them. Just free-handed the stripes so they are not as precise as they could be. One stroke of each color, then a second coat of them both.

Rimmel Maxx Wear as a top coat with 2 layers to get the fimos stay put. I was afraid they'd come loose during the night but all was well still in the morning :)


We had a quiet weekend although the May Day (and especially it's eve) is a day of celebrations... I did take kids for a cruise along the coastline to see how the ice has gone off the sea... The water looks colder than ice (and almost is!) but all signs of summer are in the air: birds are chirping like crazy and you can almost smell the grass starting to grow... :)

I hope you had a great weekend!

See you next time with a more toned down mani...