Nails for Peace

On Saturday the nobel peace prize was given away in Oslo. I got tickets to the CNN conference afterwards so I made my nails fitting for that occasion. It was really cool and inspiring to hear all three peace-prize winners speak. And here are my nails:

I've used OPI - Green-wich village and Got the blues for red, and Linda Johansen - Pumpkin pie. 

Today is the last chance to enter my Fowl play giveaway here: Giveaway

The winner will also get this lovely Christmas tea!

#Did you watch the CNN conference with Jonathan Mann?

#What do you think of my peace nails?

Inspired by an Animal Sunday

Sorry for not posting this on Sunday guys, but my internet has been gone all weekend so haven't had any chance at posting! Now I'm at school so I'll try to post two times while here.

So yesterday was inspired by an animal Sunday and I really wanted to do pinguins! But how... I didn't want to do the normal cute face and beak. I knew I wanted to do something with the orange chest.

I don't know if I'm happy with the result or not... It's kinda interesting I guess. I of course had to do the little bowtie on the index finger:

 The orange is China Glaze - Papaya punch and the black and white are just some randoms.
#What do you think of my pinguin inspired nails?
#Do you have any ideas for next week?

Essence - Where is the party?

I got this polish from Sophies advent giveaway, and boy am I glad I got this one! It's a wonderful green and purple duochrome! Just check out how great it looks in the bottle:

Okey, so it doesn't look as amazing on the nail as it does in the bottle, but it's still nice on the nail too.

I got it opaque in two coats and it was very smooth to apply. Dried very fast too... Since the color is called "Where is the party?" I decided to make some holographic stars to sport that name:

Nfu oh # 66 of course.

#What do you think of this polish?

Red Snow Flakes!

Yey, my first pure snowflake mani this year! I was so inspired by the first snowfall yesterday and all the amazing snowflakes I've been seeing on other blogs! I choose to make red snowflakes on a blue background. I don't know why, maybe 'cus I haven't seen it anywhere else and though it would be cool.

 Started with two coats of Essence-Choose me, then sponged on some Orly - Au champagne and made the snowflakes with essence - Red-y to go with a small brush. And the last finish is a great glitter by China Glaze called Fairy Dust, I just love it!

So there you go! I'd love to see your own snowflakes if you've made any!

#What do you think of my snowflakes?
#Have any good ideas for winter inspired manis that aren't snow?

Copy That Copy Cat's 700 Follower Giveaway!

Just wanted to share this giveaway from Copy that copy cat. There are some amazing prizes here so you should really check it out!
 http://copythatcopycat.blogspot.com/2011/12/copy-that-copy-cats-700-follower.html
First prize are China glaze polishes:

Green Love!

Green is my absolute favorite nailpolish color, and it's actually weird that I don't have more green polish than I do. I don't think it's the color that I have the most of...
Anyway, here's a splatter mani I made a while ago and totally forgot to show you. I love it so much, a combination of emerald sparkle and grass green:

Nfu Oh# 56 and OPI - Green-wich village

#What is your favorite nailpolish color?
#Do you like green?

Golden and Red

This is another mani inspired by Christmas colors. Red, gold and green:

I used Isadora- golden sparkels, Nicole by OPi - berry sweet and green rhinestones. Yey! This mani makes me happy in some way, maybe it's the combo of warm colors?

It just started snowing in Oslo, so I'm hoping to make some snowflakes very soon!
#What do you think of these christmas colors?

Christmas inspired french mani

I love the combination of matte and shiny! Here I have used Revlon - Emerald city matte suede and Isadora - Golden Sparkles. This didn't turn out quite as I hoped since Emerald city isn't extremely matte only a little and Golden sparkles is more metal than shiny... But I like it anyways!

I'll probably make more of these manis in Christmas colors!

#How do you like this mani?

My top 8 winter colors!

I've delayed this post for such a long time now, 'cus it hasn't seemed like winter in Norway. Without snow and stuff. It still hasn't snowed, but I'm guessing it will happen this week! (Edit: It just started to snow, hurray!)
So today I have collected my top 8 favorite winter polishes:
Some of them there are swatches of so just press the name and you'll come to the full swatch.

Orly - Au Champagne

Isadora - Frozen Lilacs

Gosh - Gasoline

NFU Oh - #66

Orly - Sweet Peacock
OPI - The color to watch

Kleancolor - Winter wonderland

H&M - Peppermint fusion

If there are any that I haven't swatched and you'd like to see more don't hesitate to ask! 

Christmas

Here are this years winter and X-mas design(I'm adding more as I make them so keep checking for new ones):

Icy roses

Golden and red

Green and golden french

Winter wonderland

And since we're talking about Christmas, I recommend you all check out this advent calender were you can win amazing homemade sweets: http://www.tantejul.com/adventskalender2011.php. It's by my aunt and she's amazing at making sweets. It's in Norwegian, but google translate is a good friend and you can answer the question in English! Enjoy!

#What do you like to wear this winter?

#Have any good ideas for winter designs?

Inspired by an Animal Sunday!

So recently I've been looking at a bunch of animal photographers and animal photos, and I've been so inspired! It all started when I came across This article in dailymail. Thes animal eye photos are taken by Photographer Joel Sartore, his homepage his here: http://www.joelsartore.com/. Also the great Nicolas Reusen that you can check out here: http://www.nicolasreusens.com/

 
Now this guy is REALLY talented, and his photos are also very original. I spent hours looking through them all. And I was so inspired to make nailart. So I've decided to have themed Sundays, inspired by animals. When you think about animal patterns I guess the first thing that pops in your head is leopard print, and ofc I WILL make some leopard prints too, but there are so much more to be inspired by! I'm really looking forward to doing this! Hope you are too!

For this first Sunday I choose this picture of a Veiled Chameleon eye to be inspired by:

And this is how it turned out:

I've used: White basecolor from essie, China glaze - papaya punch, isadora - mellow yellow, HM - bellas choice, isadora - ocean drive and black form Essie. The brown is just papaya punch mixed with black!

#What do you think of my Chameleon nails?

#Do you think Inspired by an animal Sunday is a good idea?

Commenting System Feedback

I've tried 3 different commenting systems now. The regular commenting box for blogspot, the popup commenting box for blogspot and the disqus box I'm using now.
Now I'd like some feedback from you guys, because it's you that use these commenting boxes the most. What do you prefer?
The reason I changed to disqus was because I was having problems with the blogspot box, but now that I've changed from internet explorer to google chrome I don't have these problems anymore. It's up to you!
What do you prefer: Regular blogspot box, popup blogspot box or disqus?

Please give me some feedback, I'll be very grateful!

Nail Polish Anonymous Giveaway

Just wanted to share this giveaway with you guys! You can win China Glaze, Revlon and the amazing Dollish Polish!

Heres a link to the giveaway:
http://nailpolishanon.blogspot.com/2011/11/npa-50-follower-giveaway.html

H&M - Peppermint Fusion

I absolutely love this color. It's very unique and I don't think I have anything quite like it in my collection.
Peppermint Fusion is a light blue with purple undertones and a a great blue shimmer. Applies like butter, mmm. So great:

A wonderful winter color.

Closeup

It goes great with silver, here I've made some bars with Orly - Dazzle. I also think the name is adorable, and it fits the polish very well
#What do you think of Peppermint Fusion

Gina Tricot Nail polish - Grape Wine, Billard and Petrol

The shop Gina Tricot has launched a series of 13 nail polishes, you can see them all HERE. Since they are new they had a buy three for 99 kroners deal, so I picked up Grape Wine, Petrol and Billard.

These are all really pigmented and great. They apply perfectly, and easy. I needed no clean up and it dried super quick! Wow, these were actually very great. You kinda expect polish from clothing brands to be crap, but not these! Let's take a look:
Petrol:
One coater! Gotta love that. Petrol is blue/green creme, for a darker finish you could use two coats, but I liked it this way!

Billard:


A grassgreen shimmer, I absolutely adore it! I could have used only one coat, but since it's so pretty I just wanted more and used two!

Grape Wine:
A warm purple/red/burgundy color with blue undertones. There is a slight hint of blue shimmer, but nothing much. I used two coats for this one, and this is the only one that it was necessary for. A very very nice color.

I'm very happy with the result, and I really can't chose a favorite! I want to use them all at the same time, haha. But I ended up using Grape Wine today.

#Have you gotten any polishes from Gina tricot?
#Which is your favorite?

Gradient Nails

Today I'm gonna show you three different ways to make gradient nails with a sponge.

You can choose to either use a makeup sponge or a regular kitchen sponge. I prefer a kitchen sponge, it's cheap and when I use a makeupsponge I often experience that pieces of the sponge stick to the nail. But you should try both and decide for yourself. You can also decide if you want to use tweezers or just your fingers when doing this. I feel like a get more of a "feeling" of the polish when using just my fingers, but that's just me. But sometimes the wet polish on the sponge gets on the already done fingers... Again decide for yourself.

Upwards Gradient:

 The most classic gradient. For this I used Essie - bright tights, china glaze-papaya punch, Linda johansen-pumpkin pie and Orly-flagstone rush


Inwards gradient:

This one is really fun. Maybe my favorite. Just started doing it, but will make it a lot more! I used: Revlon - minted, OPI-greenwich village and gina tricot - petrol


Downwards gradient:

Always needs a lot of cleanup around the cuticles. I used: Essence-fall for me, Hm-peppermint fusion, Isadora - bugatti blue and Orly - sweet peacock

And just to show that gradients don't have to be done with more than two colors and the same color in different shadings:

I love these kinds too, they can turn out great!

       If you have any other questions about gradient nails, just ask!
#Which type of gradient is your favorite?