24th April, 2013
Today I’m sharing a girly post featuring some wonderful studs from KKCenterHK. The studs I’m showing you are large heart shaped studs. The ones I tried are white hearts but you can also find them in pink, and similar heart shaped studs in gold, silver, pink and red. These white heart studs are $5 for which you get around 50 pcs. Let’s take a look!
The studs are 6mm in size, so they’re quite large. They’re also pretty flat, so if you have curvy nail beds (like me!) make sure to slightly bend the studs. You can simply place them on a rounded surface like a pencil or use the handle of a nail art brush as a mould to bend the studs slightly, using your fingers. I hope that makes sense! 
This way the stud lays nice and flat on your nail without sticking out at the sides and catching onto stuff!
Here’s the manicure I created using the heart studs! I thought the white looked really pretty and delicate so I went with a very girly design. The base colour is 2 coats of American Apparel L’Esprit which is a lovely pale lavender shade. On my index finger I created a white half moon with 2mm pearls around it, on my ring finger I freehanded a lace design using my white It’s So Easy striper and on my pinkie I added a simple white polka dot.
Hope you like it! You can find the white heart studs at KKCenterHK for $5 per pack. Make sure to check out KKCenterHK for lots of awesome nail decorations and Asian cosmetics. Don’t forget to use my coupon code “veryemily” for a 10% discount on your order! Enjoy!
7th August, 2011
I had a post scheduled for yesterday but it has been delayed for a few days so today’s post will be something different in anticipation!
I did these nails a fair while ago and somewhat didn’t plan on sharing these. I didn’t love how my pictures turned out but I kind of like them now. Anyone recognize that feeling? Seems to happen to me quite often.
Anyway, these are so called tie-dye nails or acid wash, whatever you would like to call them. They were inspired by Annie Spandex‘s post.
- Paint your nails in a colour of your choice (preferably at least two coats) and let it dry until it is completely hard. I chose American Apparel Passport Blue.
- Paint a different colour over your nails and let it dry! I chose a white, Catrice Snow Motion.
- Then lastly -this is where the fun starts- grab a cotton bud and dip it in nail varnish remover and start rubbing it over your nails, the colour below will start to come through! Don’t rub too much or you will hit your actual nails.
- Et voilà! Tie-Dye nails!
You could try any colour combination you feel like, I chose to go for the classic blue-white associated with stonewashed jeans and tie-dye. Purple-white will also look beautiful!
The process is honestly one of the easiest nail art techniques ever so if you like how these look definitely try them out for yourself! If you do so please share the pictures I would love to see them! This goes for all of my posts by the way. I love seeing what you create!
10th June, 2011
So since so many brands are jumping on the hot wagon that is crackle I’m sure it’s starting to get boring to a lot of us. To me at least! That’s why I decided to come up with a few ways to make the crackle manicures fresh again. First up are a few different ways of applying crackle. For all of these I used the black crackle by Essence.
Base colour is a metallic silver, China Glaze Cheers To You.
- pressing down and patting instead of pulling
- sideways stroke
- regular upwards stroke
- horizontal stroke
- random strokes in all directions
French crackle, a fun twist to a regular French manicure but still classic. If you use a horizontal stroke, thinly layered, it looks very similar to a zebra print which is a fun effect. (I forgot to do so, so mine are with a regular upwards stroke)
A few different ways to incorporate crackle into a pattern design. I used American Apparel Army Jacket and Barry M Bright Purple. My middle finger was inspired by the tape crackles by Flouncyskirts.
And lastly, crackle over a pattern! For this one I topped crackle over a union jack which creates a sort of punk feel. Random colours or rainbows would also make for a nice effect.
It’s really all about preference! Which is yours?
If all of these still aren’t enough for your tastes you can always try new crackle colours! Apart from black you can try white or even these:
The new metallic crackles by China Glaze! These look so much fun. From left to right you see:
- Tarnished Gold: Warm, honeyed hue
- Cracked Medallion: Bold bronze
- Haute Metal: Pale pink
- Latticed Lilac: Soft lavender
- Platinum Pieces: Shimmering silver
- Oxidized Aqua: Deep aquamarine blue
p.s. If you are wondering what the curved edges in my pictures are, I shot them THROUGH my new lamp.
26th May, 2011
This is a green version of the spring manicure I posted a while ago. Just to show you any pastel colour would look great with this manicure! This is what I used:
- American Apparel Office
- China Glaze Snow
- China Glaze Spontaneous
- China Glaze Starboard
- White and silver glitter nail art pens
How I go about doing the flowers: I drip some white and purple on a piece of paper, make a circle with either one on my nail and take a drop of the other colour and swirl them together while they’re both still wet. You really don’t need to be perfect with it, just create a nearly perfect cirle with different shades of colour.
On an unrelated note, I recently made a tumblr to share my nail art with the tumblr-world. Also partially to stop other people from posting my designs on there, I wanted to beat them to it! It’s going really well and I’ve gathered a pretty decent amount of followers on a short time span. If you’re on tumblr feel welcome to follow me! You can find me at nailsbyveryemily.tumblr.com I’ll be posting my own designs but I will also be reblogging inspiring nail art images I come across. See you there!
15th May, 2011
If you follow me on Facebook (if you don’t you’re missing out!) you may have seen one of these already since I was asking you for more colour combinations. As promised I did an entire series of these dotted manicures! I had so much fun doing these and the best thing is, they’re really easy to do, not to mention fast! You just need a dotting tool or something similar like an old ballpoint pen or a bobby pin.
Base Colour: China Glaze Electric Pinapple. Dots: Barry M Spring Green, American Apparel Army Jacket, Catrice Sir Yes Sir, American Apparel Malibu Green.
Base Colour: Essence You Belong To Me. Dots: Models Own Peach Puff, Barry M Pure Turquoise, China Glaze Below Deck, American Apparel Passport Blue.
Base Colour: Catrice Up In The Air. Dots: H&M Spring Nails in White, Beige, Brown and Blue.
This colour combination with metallic colours was suggested by Amy! Thank you so much Amy for this brilliant suggestion. It looks so amazing in person, it was very hard to capture since metallics are so reflective.
Base Colour: American Apparel Passport Blue. Dots: China Glaze Cheers To You, China Glaze Midnight Kiss, Gemey Gris City, Essence Nothing Else Metals.
Base Colour: Barry M Berry Ice Cream. Dots: Barry M Mushroom, Barry M Dusky Mauve, Barry M Bright Purple, Catrice Plum Play With Me.
Base Colour: Models Own Peach Puff. Dots: American Apparel Army Jacket, American Apparel MacArthur Park, Barry M Bright Purple, China Glaze Below Deck.
Which is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below!
3rd May, 2011
These Monarch butterfly inspired nails were very popular a while ago and I never got round to doing them up until now. I know they’re far from original but I do think they’re very cute!
I’m really pleased with how they turned out though they take a while to do especially if you use a gradient as a base. Here’s what I used for this manicure:
- American Apparel Office
- Catrice I Sea You (for the gradient)
- Black and white nail art pen
- A sponge
- Dotting tool or toothpick
I created a gradient with AA Office as a base and sponged Catrice I Sea You over the top, waited for that to dry and then painted the black lines with a black nail art pen. I added dots at the top with a white and AA Office.
28th February, 2011
Sincere apologies for not posting anything for a week! I’ve really been lacking energy after being so ill but I’m doing a little better every day. I’m still coughing a lot but I hope that will disappear soon!
(image source: flickr bakerella)
This was a manicure inspired by candy hearts! Dries’ cousin Ella turned two this month and she had a birthday party so I came up with a cute manicure for the occasion. I think this is perfect for a baby shower or a kids party, or a really fun and easy manicure to do together with your children, cousins or even when you’re babysitting!
I used:
- American Apparel – Office
- China Glaze – Light As Air
- Catrice – Just Married
- A Discontinued Yellow over China Glaze – Snow
- Models Own – Blooboo
- Nail Art Hearts by Essence
17th February, 2011
I have a very fun and interesting trend for you today, fresh off the runway at New York Fashion Week! Nail polish rings a.k.a. finger bands, created by Nonie Creme (the founder of the brand Butter London) for the Vena Cava show at NYFW. I guess you could call these unique to say the least, I was very intrigued when I first saw them this week. It looks really fresh and innovative but I’m sure these won’t be to everyone’s liking.
Looks interesting doesn’t it? Not a huge fan of the colour combinations they used but it is a very original idea. With every new trend I’m often in the “not-sure-I-like-it” camp, I need to see how it looks on me before I declare my judgement. So naturally I had to try these!
This is how I wore them out on a shopping spree on Tuesday. I did a gradient manicure with China Glaze Hey Sailor and American Apparel Office, then I painted the finger band with Hey Sailor. As China Glaze is a Big 3 Free brand I knew it wouldn’t be harmful to my skin so I could happily smear it on there! It didn’t last very long however, I think it lasted only about six hours on me before it started to peel off, when I arrived back home after a very fun but exhausting day of shopping only half of it was left so I just scrubbed it off with some soap. These are definitely fun and unique but such a pity they don’t last you a full day!
What are your opinions on the finger bands? Love them or hate them?
6th February, 2011
For those of you who don’t like mint green, look away now! For those of you who adore mint green just like I do, stay with me and drool all over these images!
Here’s my humble collection of mint greens, I only have about 7 (or 5 if you only count the true mint greens) but I’m not going to stop buying them any time soon. They are simply amazing and I’ll never get bored of them! Mint green always does it for me, every single time.
- Catrice – I Sea You!
- MUA – shade 5
- New Look – Urban
- American Apparel – Office
- Catrice – Sold Out For Ever
- Barry M – Mint Green
- American Apparel – Malibu Green
Swatches in the same order as above.
My favourite is definitely Office by American Apparel, it has the colour of chocolate chip mint ice cream (which tastes disgusting but looks great). The two on the outside, I Sea You! and Malibu Green are more teal rather than actual mint green but still deserved a place in this line-up I think.
Still on my mint green wishlist are; China Glaze Re-Freshmint, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Models Own Jade Rock, Illamasqua Milf, Mac Peppermint Patti, Revlon Minted.… Yeah… Keep dreaming Emily! 
23rd January, 2011
Yesterday I went shopping in Antwerp and FINALLY bought a few American Apparel nail lacquers, I’ve been eyeing these up ever since I started blogging about nails which was over a year ago! Since then they have released two more exciting collections of colours and I picked up several of the new ones as well as some of the first selection of creme colours they released.
Here are the colours I picked up. From left to right: Passport Blue, Peacock, Malibu Green, Office, Army Jacket and MacArthur Park. They have a gorgeous range of colours but unfortunately their prices have gone up significantly and they now cost 9EUR a bottle or 7EUR if you buy three. They definitely cost more than what I’d usually pay for nail polish but the bottles are a whopping 15ml which is not too shabby and their colour range is great and right up my street.
I felt like they each had a different consistency, some were more runny than others, some were almost on the gloopy side. In the store it looked like the polishes had been sitting there for a while, and some looked a bit patchy, as if they hadn’t been shaken properly. I did not experience any difficulty with them however, some were a bit harder to work with but nothing I couldn’t handle. They were all very pigmented and opaque, which is something I find very important as I don’t care much for sheer polishes.
Passport Blue: This is a dark blue, almost black in artificial light. I have a weakness for these kind of -almost- black colours. This one was only one coat I believe, really opaque and such high pigment! It glided on very easily.
Peacock: This one does what it says on the tin, it’s definitely a peacock kind of teal. I really like this colour, I don’t own anything like it, it’s the same case with all the others I bought. American Apparel definitely carries some special colours in their range. I’m not wearing top coat in any of the pictures but they’re still very shiny as you can see, definitely a plus too.
Malibu Green: This one had a more runny consistency than the others but was completely opaque in two coats. It’s a real fun colour, definitely keeping this one for summer. It’s slightly brighter in person.
Office: Oh don’t get me started! This is THE mint green of mint greens, it’s my new #1! It’s definitely the hardest polish of the bunch to work with though, it’s less opaque than the others and it needed 3 coats but it’s so worth it! It’s absolutely gorgeous.
Army Jacket: Now this is what I call khaki green! I don’t have a polish like this in my collection so I’m very excited to own Army Jacket. It’s slightly darker in person I believe.
MacArthur Park: Here you can see for yourself what I mentioned above, no that’s not my camera or picture playing tricks on you, those orange patches are actually in my bottle! It looks like it hasn’t been shaken properly. I’m no chemist so I have no idea what this is or means but it was pretty odd, several bottles in their stand looked a bit patchy like this. Didn’t pay much attention to it and the application seemed fine so there you go. This is definitely another unique colour, I don’t quite know how to describe it, AmAp describes it as a Mossy Yellow but I’d go for Sandy Green.
Also, as you can see the nails have gone back to round, in the end I felt like the square ones weren’t “very emily” so out came the clippers. After I did the swatches and took pictures my fingernail on my index finger broke, I have no idea how or when it happened but now I have a stompy fingernail. It looks so sad! 
Older Entries
