Bye bye Beatrix! With OPI tricolore and wimpel

Koningin Beatrix (bron)

Prince Willem Alexander (bron)

Today is the day of the abdication of the throne by queen Beatrix of The Netherlands. Her son Willem Alexander will be king from this day forward.
To celebrate this last Koninginnedag (Queensday) I created a festive Holland nail art thingy....with 4 OPI colours:

    OPI - Y'all Come Back Ya Hear

    OPI - Red Lights Ahead.....Where?

    OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls 

    OPI - Eurso Euro

The Flag with "wimpel" (bron)

First there was the "wimpel" (banderol) I used OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear as a juicy canvas for the tricolore (3 layers).
The flag was made with a dotting tool in the OPI colours Red Lights Ahead Where, My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Eurso Euro (in that order).

The result:

OPI - Come Back Y'all - Red Lights ahead Where? - My Boyfriend Scales Walls - Eurso Euro

I am very pleased with the result, the only thing is that the polish retracted a bit from the edge of the nail....a very Seche Vite thing to do for my Poshé topcoat......
The jellyness of the orange gives a nice little contrast with the creme dots.
Well; happy happy, joy joy, I'm ready to party!!!!!!!

Thank you Beatrix and welcome Willem 4!!!

China Glaze - Sunsational Summer neons 2013 - Bottoms Up

YEAH: PrettyPolish has the China Glaze Sunsational Summer Neons in stock.....I just couldn't resist: I bought some (they ship internationally, you just have to send them an email)!
Today I will show you Bottoms Up, a soft neon pink. It is a cute pink with a lot of white and a lot of umph, like Barbie on steroits or something!
The formula was horrendous...it dries extremely fast so it does not level properly and leaves a bit of a streaky result. I have two layers here but tree would have been better I guess (I just hated the formula and couldn't get myzelf to go for a third round....). As much as I hate the formula I love the colour: I am not a pink girl by any means....but this is just fun and bright and summery and in your face and sweet and it makes you look tanned all at the same time!

Look:

China Glaze - Bottoms Up

Looks like I average pink......

The most neon I could get it.....

OK, my compact just does not pick up the neon like I see it.....but trust me it is bright and highlighter pink!
You need it :-)

OPI - Fly compared with China Glaze - Sunday Funday and OPI - Can't Find My Czechbook

A little comparison between 2 OPI's and a China Glaze.
What do we have here:
    OPI - Fly
    OPI - Can't find My Czechbook
    China Glaze - Sunday Funday
I read in a comment from Beachgal on Short 'n Chic , blog by the lovely Stephanie (thanks for following me: you're a doll, as are Ivana and Polishjunkie: love you guys) that Fly looked a lot like Sunday Funday and since I am fortunate enough to own both, I felt compelled to do a little side by side.
Fly is a completely different colour, >no dupes here<, then Sunday Funday. Fly is more petrol toned and darker, while Sunday Funday is more blue with that little hidden shimmer to spice it up a bit.

While comparing the two I found Can't Find My Czechbook to be more in line of Sunday Funday, altough CFMC is lighter and a little my turquoise and dirty then SF.

I tried to capture the differences in some pics of the bottles and some nail wheels:

top: Can't Find My Czechbook, middle: Sunday Funday, bottum: Fly

left: Sunday Funday, middle: Fly, right: Can't Find My Czechbook

left: Fly, middle: Sunday Funday, right: Can't Find My Czechbook

Hope this helps to decide which blue is a must have for your collection!

Essence - Grey-t To Be Here

This is such a lovely colour: Essence - Grey-t To Be Here. It's a soft, light grey with pink (shifting to orange) shimmer that is a bit hidden but comes out to play in direct sunlight. The formula was lovely and very workable: this is 2 normal coats. It has an gel like quality to it that makes the shimmer come out and the grey look a bit juicy and squishy.

Here it is:

Essence - Grey-t To Be Here

It was hard to photograph the shimmer.....it was in real life more visible then it is in the pictures: my little compact just had trouble capturing it. All in all it is a lovely shade (not too cold in colour) with lovely shimmer that I will most certainly wear again!

Liebster Blog Award nomination (!)

Liebster Blog Award. 

The lovely Polishjunkie from Nail Polish Heaven has nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award! How amazing and fabulous and cool is that(?!): thank you so very much!!! :-)
She has the most awesome blog with heaps of nail polish and a variaty of nailart...well, go check her out and see for yourself!

RULES:

1. Link back to the person who nominated you.

2. Write 11 facts about yourself once nominated

3. Answer the 11 questions from the person who nominated you.

4. Nominate 11 blogs with 200 or less followers

5. Create 11 questions for those bloggers to answer.

11 Facts About Myself:

1. I am very tall: 1.87m.
2. I have 2 fantastic children (boys).
3. I love doing my nails on the couch in the evening when the children are in bed.
4. I am very unorganized. But as Albert Einstein said: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
5. I love writing (in dutch); my dream is to write a novel...
6. I live in The Haque in The Netherlands, in a very old house from before 1900.
7. My nails and cuticles often look like crap because I do a lot of diy in that old house. And, as many of you might know, terpentine is terrible for your hands, as is sandingpaper, as is paint, as is soil etc. etc. etc.
8. I love eating "haring" (herring) with pepper and onions.
9. Nailart is lovely on nails as long as they are not mine; I will do some dotting, (glitter) gradient or skittle but that's it. On my fingers more would look >how to put this mildly?<, pathetic (and that says a lot about me and not about nailart!).
10. I collect stuff: it is VERY hard for me to throw things out....I might need it some day, you know!
11. 10 facts are easy but number 11 is hard to come up with (what is it with this number?)! I love colours: they make me happy :-)

11 Answers to Polishjunkie's questions:

1. Would you rather have matte or shiny nails? I am a shiny kind of girl! I love glitter and I love shine! But I love contrast as well, so a combo of shine and matte would be very nice.
2. Glitters or Cremes?  Owwww, both. I can not choose >sorry<
3. What's your favorite brand of polish? I love OPI a lot (next to China Glaze, Zoya, Koh! etc) and don't forget indie polishes >love those<.
4. If you could only wear ONE polish for the rest of your life, what would it be? That is very restricted! It would be a neutral like OPI Berlin There Done That or Essie Pop Art Pink.
5. What's the brand of polish you own the most of? It fluctuates between OPI and China Glaze.
6. Do you like doing your own nails or others better? My own nails. I don't think I ever did somebody else's nails.....>hmmm<
7. How often do you paint your nails? Twice a week approximately, it depends on my mood and how my old polish is holding up. I hate chips and tip wear, so if there is any I start painting again.
8. Have you seen my blog before I nominated you to this? If so, what is your opinion on it? Yes, I have seen Nail Polish Heaven before, I have it bookmarked! I love her creativity and the way she paints her nails very precise and neat!
9. What polish do you really want but don't have? Ah, an easy question: OPI DS Glamour!
10. What is your favorite blog (doesn't necessarily have to be a Blogger.com blog)? That would be the queen of polish Scrangie and the runner up would be The Polishaholic. 
11. Do you use Instagram? If so, what is your username? No, I do not (yet).

My 11 Nominees: 

1. Ida Nails It
2. The Manicurette
3. Nails And A Westie
4. The Quest for the Holy Nail
5. Vique's Varnish
6. Sara lackiert
7. Nail Polish Cravings
8. Miezziej's beauty polish blog
9. Beauty blog Ivana
10. Business Lady Polish
11. Pink Dynamite

My 11 Questions:

1. What is your holy grail in nail polish?
2. What is your biggest lemming?
3. What's your favorite brand of polish?
4. How many nail polishes do you own?
5. Top 3 favorite brands?
6. How is your personal situation (boyfriend, married, living at home, job, kids, university, school etc)?
7. What is your favorite nail polish colour for every season?
8. Why do you blog?
9. Where do you like to shop?
10. What is your favorite icecream flavour? 
11. Who is your favorite polish blogger and why?

Hugs and 11 kisses to the Polishjunkie nominating me and for letting me participate on this fun experience!<3

OPI Eurso Euro with a festive touch

From the OPI Spring 2013 Euro Centrale Collection we have Eurso Euro today.
It is a intense cobalt blue but it is definately on the dark side of cobalt. It was a lot darker then I anticipated it to be. So I added a accent nail with Cirque XX from the Object d'Art Collection as a topper over the Eurso Euro. I liked it a lot but it does not give you the feeling that spring is in the air.....it's more wintertime for me.....

Lookie look:

OPI - Eurso Euro and Cirque - XX

This was two easy coats of Eurso Euro and one of Cirque's XX on the ringfinger.
This one will rest in the drawer till autumn I guess...perhaps that it will grace my toes at the beach this summer...just to see if it has any mediterranean quality at all?!

OPI - Suzi's Hungary Again glitter gradient

OPI Suzi's Hungary Again is such a yummy colour! It is a warm leaning medium pink with a touch of silvery hidden shimmer. SHA is part of the OPI spring 2013 Euro Centrale Collection. To make it even more festive I added Lush Lacquer Summer Lovin as a gradient glitter at the base of the nail. Summer Lovin is a fun matte glitter polish in a slightly yellow-orange tinged base.

The result:

OPI Suzi's Hungary Again and Lush Lacquer Summer Lovin

The coloured base gave the gradient an extra dimension....it was juicy :-)
Loved that the glitter was on the sparse side, it worked nicely with the tinted base and Suzi's Hungary Again.

OPI - Liquid Sand - The Impossible

My hands were so very dry from the persisting cold and my diy-ing that my skin resembled sandpaper more than anything else ...so I took a small break to get back my hands and cuticles to a somewhat normal state again.

I am not completely there yet but I needed some nailpolish again!!!
My eye was cought by OPI The Impossible, one of the first 4 Liquid Sand polishes of the Mariah Carey Collection by OPI (spring 2013). First off I was not convinced and I still am not..really.... Scrangie (here) made me buy it. Usually I totally get her and love her advice but with these Liquid Sands she was a bit off in my humble opinion.

The Impossible is a lovely coral red with silver hexagon glitter and holografic stars. The stars are notoriously difficult to get hold of and the polish itself is a bit on the transparent side.

It looks like this:

OPI - Liquid Sand - The Impossible

As you can see some stars stick out (very annoying) and when they are in the first layer of polish they do not shine trough the following layers... The colour itself is lovely, it just could be a bit more opaque and matte to my taste.
Next time I am going to skip the stars and try to put some nice red polish as a base under The Impossible....just to see how that will work!

OPI - Who Needs A Prince

I am into the neutrals these days....bear with me it'll pass ;-)

Today it is OPI - Who Needs A Prince? (OPI Princess Charming Collection 2009). I find this name the coolest ever!
The colour is whitish jelly with a pink/red pearl shimmer: The red shimmer makes it look light pink...which it is not! I did two layers but I should have used three, to make it more opaque and squishy and less streaky.

Here it is:

OPI - Who Needs A Prince?

The conclusion: I like this shade. It's a bit streaky but at three coats it will be OK. The pearly shimmer in these transparent shades (like also OPI At First Sight) makes them a bit more interesting. Perhaps I should try these for a nice glitter sandwich......

Easter nails: Zoya - Shay

First things first...yesterday my dragonfly nails were featured on the Imperfectly Painted nail blog (here)!
It is sooo cool to see your nails somewhere else then on your own blog :-) Thank you Stephanie!!!

For Easter I wanted something easy, not the obligatory yellow, neutral with a twist.....
I ended up with Zoya Shay (2011 Touch Collection), a nude with some pearly shimmer, and one thin coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Strenght Jewel Overcoat in Multi-Faceted. I quite like the end result, I tried to get a small amount of glitter on there so it would look a bit like speckled eggs ;-)

Well, see for yourself:

Zoya Shay and Sally Hansen Mutli-Faceted

This was 2 thin coats of Shay with one very thin dab of Multi-Faceted topped off with topcoat.
I needed to add some thinner to get Shay to level out better.

Happy Easter!