Icy gradient

I'm into sponging lately! I really like the gradient effect. There were many things I could do to take this design to the next level (painting snowflakes, adding rhinestones, etc.), but I couldn't decide and just left it like this. It actually doesn't need more!

I used two blue colours for making a perfect gradient (OK, nearly perfect). The lightest blue, in the middle, is Essence Choose Me! (a beautiful glittery greenish blue) and is currently one of my favourite polishes. In the end I applied Essence Glisten Up! (blue flakies) all over the nail. I really recommend these two if you like the colours, they have great application and are very cheap!

Argh, I hate it that the shape of my nails aren't all alike on this picture...

Snowflakes 2.0

So here's the second version of the snowflake manicure, I used different colours but also added a silver gradient (using a sponge) on the background. I made this one on my sisters nails.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Quidditch

Last week I went to the new Harry Potter movie with a friend and I made her an appropriate manicure. Ah well, I know that Quidditch isn't played at all in the seventh movie, but I really liked the idea and wanted to make it.

The gorgeous blue sky is What's With The Cattitude from OPI, with sponged clouds. With a nail art pen I painted two players on broomsticks (one from Griffyndor (Harry!) and one from Slytherin, as you can see from the colours of their capes) and the six hooped goal posts (three on each side). The balls are done with a dotting tool: the red Quaffle and the two black Bludgers (one of which is chasing Harry), and did you already notice the Golden Snitch? The player from Slytherin is just flying away from it... Haha.

Sinterklaas

The very first post on this brand new blog is about Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands (and in a very few other countries), celebrated annually on the 5th of December. (Thank you Wikipedia.) He's some kind of Santa Claus: they both wear red, have a white beard and come along in December to give presents to children. Actually, Santa Claus is derived from Sinterklaas! Dutch people brought the celebration to other parts of the world and started to pronounce it in an English way. Anyway, I'm going to celebrate it this weekend with my family so I painted Sinterklaas' head on my nails!

For the beard I used a sponge, a nail art pen for the eyes and mouth and a striper for the little yellow cross. But if you just omit the crosses and perhaps add a little white... it's Santa!

For my fellow Dutch nail art fans who're not that experienced yet, here's a picture of my nails last year (it's only Sinterklaas' hat). This is something anyone can do!