H&M Notoriously Beautiful & glitter funky French

H&M - Notoriously Beautiful, 1 coat

H&M - Notoriously Beautiful & glitter funky French

Depend 220 & red crackle funky French

Depend - 220, 2 coats

Depend - 220 & Depend - Red crackle funky French, 2 + 1 coats

GOSH Milky Way, OPI Passion & funky French w/ nail art stickers

 GOSH Milky Way & OPI Passion, 2 + 1 coats & funky French w/ nail art stickers

I didn't take a picture of Milky Way - a neutral light beige with a strong pink flash - on its own, but it was quite streaky after two coats so I put a single coat of OPI Passion - a nude jellyish creme - over it. What I got was a pretty subdued pink colour that looked lovely against my pale yellowish skin. :) I could still see where the free edge starts on all my nails and thus decided to do yet another untraditional French mani. I drew the smile lines with a black striper brush and filled them in with Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème, slapped on some floral stickers and added a little extra bling with a silver glitter striper.

 GOSH Milky Way & OPI Passion, 2 + 1 coats & funky French w/ nail art stickers

I felt that the daisy stickers I used on my left hand were a tad too big, so on my right hand I switched to smaller rose decals. In retrospective, I think that I should have painted a tiny white leaf or two next to each rose.

OPI Windy City Pretty & funky French with nail art stickers

OPI - Windy City Pretty, 2 coats

Here is Windy City Pretty from OPI's 2005 Chicago collection. In the bottle it's a pinkish dusty mauve with beautiful golden shimmer, but on the nail it dries darker and the shimmer pretty much disappears. As with all the older OPIs the formula was fantastic. However, I wanted to spice up this one since I thought it looked too grannyish on me.

OPI - Windy City Pretty & funky french with nail art stickers, 2 coats with sponged tips

I sponged the tips with Nubar Pink Crème and dug up these super pretty nail decals from my vast nail art stash. I dabbed a little bit of fine silver glitter onto the centers of the flowers, and voilà! From drab to fab in minutes!

Milani Hi-Tech & pink funky French with fimo fruit slices

Milani Hi-Tech, 2 coats

WOW x 10,000 - Hi-Tech is a scattered (or more like shredded?) bright lime green holo that everyone should own! It's noticeably holo even in indoors, but in direct sunlight it almost explodes! I cannot put into words just how muxh I love this. ♥♥♥

Milani - Hi-Tech & pink funky French with fimo fruit slices

Fruit salad nails! The vibrant green begged to be accompanied by other happy colours, so I painted the tips pink and one by one placed pink opalescent hexagons on them. Some fimo fruit slices and a couple of silver rhinestones later I was left with cheery spring nails! The tips are a bit chunky (I. HATE. CHUNKY!) but I'll survive. :p Tomorrow, I'll go to the police station to apply for a new passport and will get my fingerprints taken, I'm imagining that I'll be getting some funny looks. :D

Maybelline Berry Best & Zoya Roxy funky French

Maybelline - Berry Best, 3 coats

I didn't think I'd like Berry Best as much as I did when I first held the bottle in my paws... Or it may be my memory that's playing tricks on me since these photos are from mid/late January, and I actually hated this one. :p Anyhoo, a slightly duochromey berry pinky red (imagine that!) & three thick coats for acceptable opacity.

Maybelline - Berry Best & Zoya - Roxy funky French, 3+1 coats

I *too* envy them super nice funky French manis that Chloe does with just a few pieces of Scotch tape (and a buttload of talent and magic, I'm sure) so I reached for my scissors, some tape and a bottle of Zoya Roxy. But it seems as if my nails are too curved for the DIY tape method to work for me, as the edges of my FF are pretty wonky. :< Oh well, I'll just have to stick with my old trusty store bought French stickers.

Claire's Twinkle Twinkle & chevron funky French

Claire's - Twinkle Twinkle, 2 coats

Twinkle Twinkle = ♥. This little beauty has silver and blue glitter in very saturated blue jelly base. I wish I could have this in every colour imaginable! This is two coats of Twinkle Twinkle plus additional two coats of a fairly thin regular clear polish and then a coat of SH Insta-Dri top coat to finish things off. Glassy-glossy! Oh, and can you see how my free edges are curling inwards? We've experienced some seriously cold weather here for the last week or so, thus my nails are rapidly losing moisture.

Claire's - Twinkle Twinkle & chevron funky French, 2 coats

I used pieces of tape as makeshift chevron guides and went over the tips with Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème. Any jagged lines were then covered with a silver glitter art liner, and finally I slapped on a couple of heart shaped silver rhinestones. The colours remind me of the Estonian flag which is blue, black and white.

Girly polkadot funky French with fimo fruit slices

H&M Kitty Princess, Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme, fimo fruit slices and rhinestones

It's almost 4 AM but I can't go to sleep, first I have to share this super cute mani I finished last night! Also, my right hand makes its debut in the blog! ;D I started with two coats of yet another new lacquer from H&M called Kitty Princess. H&M have featured some very cool polishes in their licensed Hello Kitty line this year and their Xmas collection includes three new shades - Kitty Princess (a sweet & delicate pale pink with glass fleck), Kitty Queen (flashy raspberry with fine silver flecks) and a silver foil which I didn't even pick up from the display and thus didn't catch its name. Anyways, I then painted the French tips with Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme and added polkadots with a dotter and a random white creme. I waited until the tips were dry (I could have used a quick dry top coat but I wasn't in a hurry) and then started placing the fimo slices. Finally I added a few randomly placed silver-coloured rhinestones and topped the whole thing with a generous dollop of SH Insta-Dri top coat. Kawaii! ♥

Nail art stamping spam!

I should preface this post by stating that I'm really bad at stamping. It may be because of the shape of my nails which are super curved - they're half spheres, actually. In addition to the normal Konad rubber stamper I got myself a brandless one made of silicone. Smaller designs I can stamp with the Konad one but larger full nail designs are impossible without using the silicone stamper I rarely bother with stamping just because the whole process is so time consuming and the results I get often disappoint me.

Make Up Store - Dolly, Wet 'n' Wild - Black Creme & Konad M66 w/ Konad special white

Dolly is a pretty one with iridescent yellow shimmer in a blue/mint green base and I think Misa Silk Robe is a close relative of hers. I love this polish although it needs some extra decor or it looks like poo with my skintone. I think I was inspired by (= ripped off) one of Konad's promo pics.

Revlon - Not So Blue-Berry & Konad M69 w/ Konad special white

Not So Blue-Berry was my first scented polish - it's such a pretty blurple foil and smells delicious, but oh how it bubbled on me! I had to make sure that the first coat was bone dry until I carefully applied the second coat, hoping that it would cover the rash-like texture.

 Revlon - Grape Icy & Bundle Monster 03 w/ Konad special white

Another one of Revlon's scented polishes was Grape Icy from their 2010 Scents of Summer collection which I was somewhat disappointed with. It was streaky and sheer, recquiring three coats for opacity, plus the colour is very ordinary (I must have half a dozen near dupes). The smell was nice, though.

Color Club - Yachty Yachty Yadda & Konad M39 w/ red franken

A manicure with super girly pink base and super girly magenta butterflies make for a happy Bruno.

Grey franken, GOSH - Wild Lilac & Konad M3 w/ Wet 'n' Wild black

This one was actually inspired by a studded t-shirt I found in a secondhand store! The base was some random quick grey franken using Wet 'n' Wild black and white polishes, then adding a gradation with GOSH Wild Lilac and a makeup sponge. Next, I stamped on tons of stars and finally added small violet paillettes from a craft store.