*PR samples

Hello lovelies,

So just to update you a bit - I'm feeling better than last week but I'm still a bit ill and very tired all the time. But on the plus side I got my wedding dress! I'm so happy I got one, it's a lot of stress off my shoulders. Obviously I can't show you until the wedding but it's very pretty ;) Now let's do some nails...

It's not too late for snowflake nails, is it? ;)

I've got sent Snowflake stencils from Whats Up Nails* and I've decided to try and do Snowflake Half Moon design. It was super easy with them an I've used half of one stencil for all 5 nails so you can do with just one snowflake stencil cut in half for both hands.

I've used two coats of Zoya Prim and topcoated them. Then I've applied half of the snowflake sticker to the nail and sponged on white Zoya Purity with make up sponge. That creates that softer snowy look. I removed the sticker immediately to get crisp edges. Once the white polish dried a bit I applied topcoat and added a silver crystal rhinestone*. I got these particular ones from Light The Box shop (they come in a pouch so I put them in the rhinestone wheel). Oh and the tweezers are from the same shop as well (available here).

Here's a picture tutorial to show how I've done this design:

This design is so simple to do with the Whats Up Nails Snowflake stencils and I'll probably use them again before Christmas. If you're not very skilled in intricate nail art then stencils are great tool. Whats Up Nails have many different types from the regular chevron and stripe stickers to holiday and Valentine's Day themed stencils.

TIP: They also carry THOSE awesome nail art brushes that so many nail artists including me use - Pure Color! I will show them to you again in some future post.

Have a good start of the week! Lucie x

*PR samples

Hello lovelies,

Merry Christmas!!! Yes, for me it's Christmas today as us, Czechs celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. We have a Christmas dinner (carp and potato salad is traditional food but I cook schnitzels and potatoes) and after dinner we go hide and wait for the presents to appear under the tree (mum & dad always sneakily put them there). You wait till you hear a bell and once you hear it that's a permission to rush to the Christmas tree and open the presents. Of course now I'm grown up & living with my OH so we don't do all this but we will when we have some little ones :) That's all the Christmas talk sorted, now back to the nails...

Today's manicure is based around the newest addition to my nail polish collection - Nails Inc Whitechapel which I got in a goodie bag from Nails Inc who sponsored the Nailartists UK meet up (read about it here). We weren't obligated to blog about the Nails Inc products but we agreed we would do a glitter gradient nails with a Christmassy accent nails. Here is my take on this:

I have started with a coat of the Nails Inc Superfood NailKale Base Coat. Then I applied two coats of Zoya Purity (white creme) and let them dry for a bit. Then I started applying the Whitechapel glitter from tips towards the middle of the nail, creating gradient effect. I have a video tutorial here. The accent finger is stamped with China Glaze passion and MoYou London Festive 03 plate. The last step, well at least I thought it would be, was to apply the Nails Inc 45 second Top Coat with Kensington Caviar. Here's where it all went wrong - first coat of the topcoat was quite ok although it smeared the white polish a bit and tinted it lightly. But because it is not very thick it didn't give that smooth finish over the glitter gradient so I decided to do second coat of topcoat. For some reason unknown to me, the tips of my manicure went matte! So now I had more tinted white which wasn't white anymore and half of the nails matte and half glossy! Could this get any worse? Oh yeah! I thought I would cover this all up if I make the whole manicure matte. I found SpaRitual Matte Effect topcoat in my collection decided to use it. If you don't know it, it has yellowish tint to it so now I have tinted my beautiful, pure white nails with pink and yellow! Lovely! I didn't have time to re-do the manicure so it has to do :D

Looks like I just wrote a mini novel..

Have yourself a very merry Christmas or any other holiday you celebrate and I'll be back in two days! Lucie x