Ehe sich wieder so viele Nailart-Bilder bei mir ansammeln, muss ich wieder posten. Die zu sehenden Bilder stammen von Anfang Oktober, als es plötzlich so kalt war, dass es kurzzeitig schneite.


Vielleicht sollte ich diese Maniküre erklären - sie ist in der sogenannten "Pond-Manicure"-Technik erstellt - Nagellack-Nerds können hier lesen, wie das geht. Für alle, die nicht die Geduld haben, das zu lesen: Ziel ist es, die Nägel wie kleine Teiche voller Blätter, Blumen oder ähnliches aussehen zu lassen. Der etwas wässerige Look ist also durchaus gewollt.


Ich habe an einen sehr dunklen Teich gedacht - potenziell einer, wo man eine Wasserleiche im Geschilf (ist das überhaupt ein Wort?) entdecken würde. Wenn etwas/jemand quasi ultimativ in die Binsen gegangen ist... Das erinnert mich wiederum an eine Englischstunde, in der unser Lehrer davon erzählte, wie er während seines Studiums einmal einer Autopsie einer Wasserleiche beiwohnen durfte. Anders als in Nick Caves Song "Where the Wild Roses Grow" mit ihrer selbst Kylie Minogue ist daran nichts schön. Aber wann sind sich auflösende, bis zur Unkenntlichkeit aufgedunsene Leichen schon schön...


Aufmerksame LeserInnen werden bemerkt haben, dass ich mich in einer anderen Location zum Shooten befand (haha, das klingt so professionell). Die Zeitschrift, die ich während des Bildermachens auf meinen Knien balancierte, war die Baumeister von Oktober. Ein sehr schönes Architektur-Magazin, das einen modernistischen Stil pflegt. Mir gefällt die klare, aufgeräumte Aufmachung im Stil der Kunstepoche der Moderne.


Noch bin ich unsicher, ob ich diese Technik je wiederholen werde - das Trocknen und die handgemalten Blättchen dauern unendlich lang. Vielleicht würde ich beim nächste Mal auf die aufgeklebten Blümchen verzichten, auch wenn ich den 3D-Effekt ganz gerne mag. Und vielleicht würde ich nächstes Mal einfach an einen Tag am Strand statt an einen herbstlichen Tümpel denken.

Diese Maniküre wird wohl die letzte Sommermaniküre sein - damit war ich in Paris. Nach dem Super-Sommer bin ich fast ein wenig wehmütig. Noch weiß ich nicht, welche Farben ich aus den Untiefen meiner Sammlung ziehen werde. Vielleicht bordeauxrot, indigoblau, silber? Oder doch schokobraun?

Good news everyone: I finally got a new laptop - rejoice! All my systems are up and running again. Also got the new Windows 8 - I am still figuring out the best way to work with it. While it has some cool ideas (the tiles look pretty good in my opinion), I need to get used to it ("where the heck is everything hidden?")

Currently I am trying to figure out a way to adjust my pictures (i.e. Gimp - I don't own PS at the moment). The cold and dark season has just begun, and under-exposure and washed-out colours are a problem.

Nevertheless, here are some pictures of my most recent manicure. Think chocolates...


The colder it gets, the more I want to stuff myself with chocolate and gingerbread - oh the temptation.


Dry cuticles are a downside of autumn/winter season. But all the gingerbread and chocolate and cinnamon, however, is definitely on the plus side.


The colours I used:

• Dark chocolate brown: Essence Who is Mr. Brown?
• Milk chocolate brown: Essence Most Wanted
• White chocolate: Essence Flying Higher
• Strawberry flavoured dots: P2 Perfectly

That's it for today. Have a nice week and see you soon for more mouth-watering nail designs :P

Winter time is not a great time to take pictures of nail designs - especially not when you are at work all day and come back home when it's already dark.

It's been quite a while that I last posted a manicure. My finger nails were painted most of the time during my "nail art on blog" hiatus. I just didn't feel it was worth showing. Also, I was too lazy to take pictures and my laptop broke in between. Currently I am using my old laptop and it. is. f***ing. slow.

Now with no further ado - the pictures:


Nothing spectacular, just dots and so on - it's a nail design that's inspired by Japanese nail art, but I didn't use a particular design from my nail art magazines - next time maybe.


My replacement laptop is so slow that I can't even put Photoshop or anything on it - it would just break down. It's a wonder that it still works - after all it is seven years old and still runs on Windows XP... I'm sorry if the colours look a bit off - at least the nail polish colours seem accurate.

Nail polishes used:

• China Glaze Grape Juice
• Essence Can't Cheat On Me
• Essence Chic Reloaded
• P2 Glitter Grey

Thanks for stopping by and I apologize to all the readers who are not so much into nail art and have to tolerate it in their RSS feeds :D

Hi everyone,
I think my love for nail polish might be a little bit contagious to the women in my environment. As soon as I start talking about nail polish, women all around me start to feel the urge to rush to the next drugstore and buy some fancy nail colours ^^;

Just yesterday I painted the nails of one of my colleagues during lunch break - she got an accent ringfinger nail in silver for her raspberry red manicure. That was great fun - I told her all the things I knew about applying polish, the right colours for her skintone etc. If I ever stop working in PR, doing nails would be my second option.

And finally, my new nail art magazines have arrived, hooray! Look forward to amazing new nail designs - more glitter, more rhinestones, more everything XD

Moving on to today's manicure:


And now my own version of this:


I chose a dark cherry red instead of dark purple. Please excuse my veiny hands, I didn't exactly photoshop anything.


About the nail polishes I used... since this manicure is from the vault again I try to recall the names of the polishes.

• cherry red: H&M Cherry (this applied oh so silky smooth)
• lilac: Essence Enchanted Fairy
• yellow: Essence sundancer
• pink: Nivea Cherry Glacé
• green: Essence Nail Art Twins Bella
• silver: Essence striper Silver Surfer
• basecoat, topcoat

 That's it. Have a nice May 17! (It's the Norwegian national day ^^)

The weather is awful at the moment (cold, rainy, meh.. of course I took some days off when the weather is crap... meh). Let's have spring on the nails instead...

I chose this design that I would describe as "cloudy with a chance of glitter". As you can see, the nails have a marble effect and it's quite easy to do. Just follow the guide on the picture: two coats of a base colour. While the second coat is still a bit wet, drip white polish on the nail. Take a dotting tool or a tooth pick and drag the white polish, mixing it with the base colour. Don't worry if you can see your natural nail while making the design. Modern polishes have self-leveling properties so the design will even out by itself.


Instead of pink I chose green. There are so many pink designs in this nail art magazine. I didn't feel like it, so green it was. These are the polishes I used:

• Essence Blossoms etc. A Hint of Mint
• Essence Crystalliced Frosted Champaign
• base coat and top coat
• rhinestones from bornpretty store

I hope to receive a new issue of Nail Up! and Nail Max soon. More cool nail designs, hooray! ^^

See you soon :)

Hi guys! Finally, a new Japanese manicure :) I was quite busy with the new work, meeting friends etc. (if any new colleague has dropped in: hi to you as well!)


On friday we had a creativity coaching organised by the company. We were taught some useful techniques on how to boost our creativity. One thing that seems to be utterly important is dividing between diverging and converging thinking. A diverging mind is wandering around, thinking as many thoughts as possible, how silly or stupid or unrelated to the problem they might be. The idea behind that is simple: the more ideas you have, the bigger the chances are that you will get one or two brilliant thoughts.


In converging, you evaluate the thoughts you had and can use some to solve your problem. There might even be a chance that this one idea that seemed so silly or nonsensical can transform. It might turn into the most unorthodox, creative solution you would have never thought of before by "problem oriented reasoning".


Maybe this could be useful for my nail art and other creative projects (like music or this blog). I often limit myself, thinking too much about why this or that idea won't work/is stupid/not interesting. I guess I should allow myself to play more ^^


But I digress... the nail polishes I used for this design:

• light blue: Essence Multi Dimension Fall for me
• electric blue: Flormar Supershine 47
• silver lining: Essence Style for Summernights

The colours are quite accurate on the pictures. This electric blue is just *___* I took the pictures about five days after application. It still looks quite neat, don't you think?

Have a great sunday!

Another nail art post :) I thought that I would post more in February because I was unemployed *coughs* But no, I actually had quite some stuff to do. Application processes aside, I went to see the physician and the dentist (things I have been wanting to do for a year now), did some paper work, corrected scientific theses for friends and family, wrote an article about a new software and helped my brother out on film set. Also, I finally had a bit more time to tidy up the apartment etc.

On monday I will start at a new company. From now on, I'm in PR, i.e. public relations. Wish me luck ;)

Today's manicure is the look I wore for the job interview. I don't think that my nails had any influence on the outcome of the interview, but I still consider it somehow a "lucky manicure":


It's grey, yes. My take on "business look on nails with a twist". This is the longest that my nails will ever be. The longer they get, the more inconvenient they are, especially when you type a lot.

The polishes I used:

• Essence Movie Star (grey)
• Essence White Hype (white)
• China Glaze Passion (gold)
• rhinestones from bornpretty
• basecoat and topcoat as usual

I sponged the white on and used an old eyeliner pen to draw the stripes on. Oh, by the way, the pictures were taken six days after I painted my nails. It still looks good. There are very very few nail polishes that don't work on me it seems.

Have a great weekend!

Hi again :) New Japanese manicure coming up - again my sister worked as a model for me and she chose this design from the Nail Up! magazine:


Nice one, isn't it? So with no further introduction - the pictures (click to enlarge):

Here's the list of polishes I used:

• Essence White Hype (matte white)
• P2 030 virgin (jelly white, for evening out the other white polish)
• Essence circus circus 02 don't feed the tiger (duo polish with gold and black/gold glitter)
• Essence Multi Dimension 76 cool and the gang (electric blue)
• Essence Legends of the Sky 05 Take my Red away (red)
• P2 232 Shockful (green)

As always, white was a problem. White polish and me, we will never be friends. Did you notice that the rhinestones on the thumb look like a turtoise? You can never unsee it... ^^



Have a great weekend!

Hi to all nail art lovers! Did you have a nice Valentine's day? Even if you are single: I hope at least nothing bad happened ;)

I'm not too much of the lovey-dovey type. But it's quite cold and winter returned with all its freezing might so I wanted something that felt like spring. And since Valentine's day came up it was the ideal excuse occasion for this nail design:


Hooray, shinies!
Choosing this design I assumed that it wouldn't take too long in the making. It's basically one colour on each nail, topped with a few rhinestones, right...


... Right. It took me almost two hours. ^^; I'm still very slow when it comes to applying rhinestones it seems. I haven't found the right method yet to speed up the application process. I hope I'll get to it during my Japanese nail art challenge.


Here's what I used:

• hot pink: Nivea Calcium Power 43 Cherry Glacé (not sure if it's red or pink - seems to be right in between)
• soft pink: Essence Sweet as Candy (this was 4 coats or so and still the smile line is visible)
• soft yellow: P2 Dream Lover (also 4 coats)
• rhinestones from bornpretty
• I don't know where I got the large rhinestones on my thumb and ringfinger - they just were in my art supplies
• base coat and top coat as usual

I have a request for nail polish producers: Would you mind making pastel polishes that are opaque in two coats? I'm not even asking for one-coaters, just a standard two-coater would be absolutely awesome.


Many thanks in advance.

Yours sincerely, Naekubi

Part 5 of the nail art experience! In most nail design pictures you only see the left hand. For right handers it is easier to draw on your left hand, of course. For me actually, too. But with practice you can get to draw with both hands fairly well.


In my case I have a little advantage on my side: When I was a kid I used to draw and do things with both hands, I was quite undecided whether to become a right hander or a left hander. So my mum told me to always use the right hand - more convenient. (Don't worry, I am fine - no stuttering, no mental damage whatsoever).There are certain things I still do like a lefty: Eating, combing and brushing my teeth. It feels totally weird to do those things with the right hand...

So for those who ever wondered how my right hand looks in a close-up, here you go:

The design is simple. I didn't have gold sequins, so I used a glitter polish instead.

Now on to the list of polishes I used:

• red: Rival de Loop 20 (it's been 8 years since I bought it, but it is still available at Rossmann)
• pink: H&M Duo Nail Polish Dusty Nails
• nude: P2 perfectly (discontinued)
• gold glitter: Essence Make it Golden
• gold lines: China Glaze Midnight Kiss

I noticed that I don't have many nude polishes in my stash, so there is a colour I could stock up a little bit without feeling too guilty. (Even though my stash is quite full as is.)

Please excuse the partially bad lighting on my pictures. Winter is just not a good time for shooting photos if you don't have studio lights.

See you again soon!