St. Patrick's Day Nail Art

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Here in Greece we don't actually celebrate this day, but oh well..I thought it would be fun to do a design for the sake of it!

So here it is!! 

I wanted each nail to have a little something, but tried to keep the design pretty simple just so it wouldn't be very time consuming. Now let me break it down for you.

I used a gold glitter polish for my index finger. On my thumb and pinky I used a mint creme polish, a bright emerald green and gold glitter to layer dots on a clear base. On my middle and ring finger I used the mint creme polish as my base, painted little clovers with the emerald green and added a gold four leaf clover on the ring finger for good luck! Finally I topped everything with a fast drying top coat.

That's it!

I hope you all have fun today!! :)

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat

Orly - Jealous Much

Golden Rose - Rich Color No18

Nails Inc - Chelsea Embankment

Orly Sec 'n Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

Color the Lines

Do you ever have those days when you're not at your best, but still want your nails to look pretty without trying too hard? Well that's definitely one of those days for me. I'm sick, feeling quite awful and thought that doing my nails would cheer me up! 

I was inspired by a simple design I found on Instagram done by @rosebnails, in which she had painted random black lines on a nude base. So I decided to try this look and give it my own little twist.

And here it is..

I used a pink nude polish as my base and I chose 3 polishes, a red, an iridescent pastel purple and a dark burgundy to paint random lines on all nails. To make it more fun I used a gold glitter polish to make dots on the lines and sealed my design with fast drying top coat.

I chose these colors because I thought they compliment each other, but of course you could choose anything you like for both the base and the lines!

P.S. It's been a long time since I had done a design only with nail polish and my lines aren't as clean and as straight as I'd like them to be..So let's all pretend we don't see that! LOL!

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat

Orly -  Angel Face

Essie - Lolipop

Essie - She's Picture Perfect

Essie - Sole Mate

Nails Inc - Chelsea Embankment

Orly Sec 'n Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

OPI My Voice Is A Little Norse Swatch

In the past posts I showed you swatches of all the creamy colors in the mini Nordic Collection and today I have a swatch of "My Voice is a Little Norse", the only glitter polish in there. I was never really a big glitter fan, but the past year something's happened to me and I'm so excited to share this one with you. I think it's gorgeous!!

This is a holographic glitter in a very sheer grey base. It gives a good coverage compared to other glitter polishes I own and in the pictures I have three coats on. Although I think you'd need to apply it with a sponge in order to get a more opaque result. As for the texture, it's a bit gritty and when it comes to topcoat I'd say it's very thirsty! LOL. In the swatch I've used two coats of a fast drying topcoat and you can still see and feel the texture. You'll need at least three coats of topcoat for a smooth look. Either way, textured or not, I love it!!

Normally, I would only wear glitter polish as an accent on my nails, but I really like how this looks on a full hand. Maybe because of the grey-ish base? I don't know! It's just hypnotizing!!

I also took pictures of it over "How Great Is Your Dane?". This is only one coat of "My Voice is a Little Norse" and one coat of topcoat as well.

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat
OPI - "My Voice is a Little Norse"
Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

The Heart Wants What It Wants | Negative Space Design

I've been flirting with the idea of doing negative space nail art for such a long time, but I never had the courage to try it. Or maybe I just didn't have the right inspiration. I don't know! Anyway, lately I've been obsessed with "The Heart Wants What It Wants" by Selena Gomez and while I was watching the video, it hit me!!! Her outfit was exactly what I needed for a negative space design. On to the outfit...

As you can see in the pictures below, in the video she's wearing a black see through top with a beautiful bralette underneath and some killer statement earrings. So, inspired by her clothes, I decided to do some black negative space on my thumb, index and pinky. I used a sheer white polish on them as a base to neutralise the color of my nails as they were a bit stained and then painted the design with a black polish. I did the front part of the outfit on the thumb and index finger and the back part on my pinky. On my middle finger I painted the shape of her earring, on a black base and finally I applied a silver glitter polish on my ring finger with a sponge to add a more glamorous touch!

Now, I had to do some research to find out if the earrings were silver or gold, since the video is black & white and they turned out to be gold. But somehow silver just seamed right and I went with that instead...

I was really nervous about how this design would turn out, since it was my first attempt at something like this, but I'm really happy with it! What do you think? Feel free to leave comments. :)

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Basecoat

Orly - Sheer Beauty

Orly - Liquid Vinyl

H&M - Silver

H&M - Jo is in the House

Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

Faking A Glitter Indie Polish!

First post of the year, I'm so excited!!! I haven't posted anything for quite a long time because I was sick and the smell of nailpolish wasn't exactly helpful with my breathing problem and coughing. But here I am now and my resolution for 2015 is to be happy, to do things I love and to post as much nail art as I can.

I was going through pictures on instagram and I came across a swatch of Picture Polish "Frosting", which you can buy here. This puppy and I instantly had a very special moment! I fell in love! Unfortunately I do not own any polishes of the brand, they don't ship to Greece as far as I know, so I decided to recreate this look on my own.

I used some hexagon glitter on top of my base coat, using a fan brush to apply it and then topped it with two coats of a sheer pink polish. I bought the glitter from the crafts section of a local toy store and I'm thinking of getting these from ebay as well. You can also find this kind of glitter in any craft store or on bornprettystore. I used the 3 top glitters of the picture below but the actual nail polish also has heart glitter pieces which I don't have. Oh well!

I am really happy with the final look, I think it looks very girly and cute. What do you think? Is this something you would try?

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Basecoat

Orly - Angel Face

Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick Dry Topcoat

Geometric Christmas Nail Art

Continuing the Christmas theme, I wanted to take a break from the acrylic paints and the cartoons. So, I decided to keep things simple and do a more wearable and less time consuming design. Now, I did want something simple, but I still wanted it to be playful and more on the elegant and feminine side. (I hope I managed to achieve that.)

For this design, I chose a red wine color as a base for all my nails and used a gold glitter polish to make some geometric designs on my index and ring finger. As you can see, I also used a dotting tool (from ebay) with the base color to make some dots on the glitter. On my middle finger, I used the same glitter polish to make a minimal Christmas tree and a gold round stud instead of a star. Finally, I used the same studs (from ebay) to decorate my thumb and pinky and sealed everything with a fast drying top coat.

I really hope you like this nail art design, tell me what you think. If you try this out, I would really love to see your recreations, so don't forget to use the hashtag #xrisompouklitsa on instagram or leave me a picture on Facebook. :)

Polishes used:

OPI Nail Envy Maintenance Nail Strengthener

OPI - Malaga Wine

Nails Inc - Chelsea Embankment

Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Coat

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Nail Art

Only 17 days left till Christmas..Are you excited?? This year I'm getting in the Christmas mood a bit more that the past years, something that doesn't happen to me that often. To be honest I have a love and hate relationship with Christmas Holidays, on one hand I love getting together with family and friends, decorating, on the other hand too much "Fa la la" makes me sick...

To match the mood I usually have during the holidays with my nails, I thought Dr. Seuss's Grinch would be ideal! I don't know about you, but I love Dr. Seuss and for some strange reason I had never seen the cartoon..So I finally watched it to get some inspiration! Here are the pictures I chose for today and here's how the story goes..

"Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot...But the Grinch,who lived just north of Whoville, did NOT! The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be that his head wasn't screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all, may have been that his heart was two sizes too small." - Dr.Seuss

For this design I used a dark metallic blue polish from my index to pinky as a base color and I topped it with a glitter polish. On my thumb I used a light grey polish. Then, just as I did in the previous post, I used acrylic paint to paint all the characters and some polishes for small details such as the ornament Cindy Lou is holding and the ornaments on the tree. In the end, I topped them all with top coat. TIP: When you use acrylic paint for designs you always have to use top coat to prevent them from smudging or coming off when you wash your hands etc.

Polishes used:

Essence Studio Nails XXL Nail Thickener

Essence - Space Queen

Seventeen - 96

Seventeen - 270

For the Christmas ornaments:

Tommy G - 431

Tommy G - 469 

OPI - Red Dazzle (As far as I remember, I lost the sticker.)

Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Coat

Do you want to build a snowman?

I promised to post Christmas inspired nail art from now on and yes, you've probably guessed it right by the title..Today I have a Disney's Frozen nail art design for you. So, let the storm rage on... :)

Frozen is probably my favourite from the latest Disney films, with my favourite scene being the one where Princess Elsa sings "Let it Go". I loved everything about this film and I could watch it over and over again. Princess Elsa is absolutely stunning and Olaf is adorable, so I couldn't possibly do this look without them...

To make this design I started off with a white nail polish as a base and then used a sponge with three different shades of blue to create the ombre effect on all nails. On my thumb, index finger and pinky I used a glitter polish to add some sparkle and create the illusion of snow falling and painted on some snowflakes. Finally on my middle and ring finger I painted Olaf and Princess Elsa. To do this I used acrylic paint, that I got from a local craft store, because nail polish dries extremely fast and is not exactly the best choice when you want to do such detailed work.

Now don't get me wrong, you can do this with nail polish if you like, but you will need a variety of colours to get every detail right and lots of patience. On the other hand, using acrylics for nail art can be a life saver. With only a few basic colors you can create so many different shades, you can use water to thin them out for easier application and you can take your time to paint your designs. Well, not all the time in the world because acrylics do dry pretty fast, but definitely not as fast as nail polish.

This design is the most time consuming of all the other designs that I've done, but I enjoyed doing it and I think it was worth it. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you decide to give this a try be patient and have fun with it! Oh! And if you do, I'd love to see your recreations so don't forget, you can use the hashtag #xrisompouklitsa on instagram or just send me a picture on my blog's Facebook Page. :)

Polishes used:

Essence Studio Nails XXL Nail Thickener

Orly - White Tips

Essie - Butler Please

Tommy G - 429

Tommy G - 431

Essence - Space Queen

Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Coat

World AIDS Day Nail Art

Finally December is here, the month that most of us were waiting for!! Christmas is only 24 days away and I'm sure all of you are already getting in the right mood and can't wait to start decorating (If you haven't already decorated of course.). I hope that this month will be very special and unique for all of us, full of health, joy, love and creativity! And before the Christmas nail art craziness begins I would like to do just one more post for a very important day...

December 1st is World AIDS day. AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and is the final stage of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). It can be transmitted by sexual contact, injection drug use, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, occupational exposure and rarely by blood transfusion/organ transplant according to aids.gov. It is very important for all of us to spread awareness, to know how HIV/AIDS is transmitted, what the signs and symptoms are and how to prevent it. So, take some time to read and learn about it. After all it's for our own good and health.

I wanted to keep things very simple for this design. As you can see, I painted all my nails red except my ring finger which I painted white. I painted two red ribbons on it and used red hexagon glitter to decorate around the nail. As for the rest of the nails, I used silver hexagon glitter to make little triangles on top of them. The glitter I used was from a local toy store and I found it in the crafts section. You can also find it on ebay and bornprettystore.

P.S.: I'll be posting Christmas inspired nail art designs the following days, so keep your eyes open. I'll try to post as many of them as possible. :)

Polishes used:

Essence Studio Nails XXL Nail Thickener
Essie - Lolipop
Orly - White Tips
Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Coat

International Children's Day Nail Art

November 20 is International Children's Day, a very important day, but for me it's even more special since it's my niece's birthday. So, to celebrate both I decided to take some of my niece's drawings (picture below) and use them to make a nail art design. I know I'm a day late, but life happens...And it's better late than never!

As most of you have probably noticed, children are very creative when drawing and have a crazy imagination. That's what I love about them! They can draw things that you would never imagine, not even in your dreams!

On to the nail design.. I present you my friends Princess Mermaid (Oops! I forgot her bow.), Turkey and Elephant. They are all one of a kind!! I know, this design might look crazy to you. But for this special day I had to see things from my little girlfriend's eyes and pretend I'm 6 years old. I suggest you do the same.. The more colors we use, the better! And we have to have some glitter, because let's face it, glitter is FUN! Oh! And of course, you can't be a princess without any glitter!!

PS: Letting your inner child come out, is very fun and creative. If we did it more often, we would smile more! Children have a very simple way of thinking which makes things very easy and as grown ups we tend to complicate everything. Remember..You don't need to over think everything all the time, just do what makes you happy!

 I had a great time creating this design and I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave comments. :)

Polishes used:

Essence Studio Nails  XXL Nail Thickener

Essence - Destination Sunshine

Essence - Circus Confetti

Essie - She's Picture Perfect

Essie - Butler Please

Erre Due - Heart Trick

Golden Rose Rich Color- 18

Seventeen - 103

Seventeen - 208

Seventeen - 110

Seventeen - 63

Sinful Colors - Hazard

Sinful Colors - Energetic Red

Tommy G - 467

Tommy G - 473

Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Coat