You guys!!
I had so much fun doing #CollabNovember this month, it was a blast! For all of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I decided to do a whole month of collaborations on Instagram this November, just as I did last year! It was great and I got to know so many of the lovely ladies from Instagram better which was amazing too, there are some truly lovely people out there! :)
Side note: by collaborations I mean either BestieTwinNails (thinking up a design together with someone else and then both doing that exact same design on their nails) or a Mani Swap (each choses a design of the other and recreates it on their own nails).
I wanted to recap all the collabs I did in my Sunday Favorites blogpost today, so off we go!
ManiSwap collage with the lovely @owlsandnails
First up is this obnoxiously girly mani swap I did with my fellow German, the very sweet Svenja from owlsandnails - she is such a cutie and I've known her for nearly all my time on IG! In fact, she participated in my Collab November 2013 - that's how long I've know her (and even before that, actually)! She recreated my pink flower mani and I gave her micro bead anchor mani a go and I loved it! So much work placing those little buggers but I pulled through and loved the outcome! :)
Solo shot of my anchor nails from the mani swap
I had been eyeing this mani on Svenja's profile for ages, always wanting to recreate it. So our mani swap was the best opportunity to finally do it! For my pinkie and my pointer finger I used straight nailvinyls from Nailvinyls.com (@teismom on Instagram) and the silver studs are from bornprettystore. The colours are Essie Fiji and Find Me An Oasis, a combo I have been wanting to do for ages too! I love everything about this mani, from the nautical, to the colours, to the silver accents :) Great job for coming up with this mani Svenja!
Mani Swap with the amazingly talented @Judyrox
Next was another mani swap, this time with a girl who runs one of my favourite accounts on IG, Judit from @judyrox! She always has the BEST color combinations and does immaculate work, she is amazing at detailed nail art!! I was too scared too attempt one of her more intricate designs, so I chose the purple and nude abstract mani! She decided to recreate my pink star mani to dedicate to a friend who loves stars (how sweet is that?) and I am amazed at how gorgeous it came out! I used all nailvinyls to create my star mani, she did everything freehand!! That's how much Judit rocks! ;)
Solo shot of my abstract nails for our mani swap
Sadly I didn't have the exact shades that Judit used, but mine were pretty similar ;) I used OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-Holm (hands down my favourite purple ever!) and My Vampire is Buff. I would probably not have come up with this combination if I hadn't seen Judit do these, I loved the gold stud accents too! I personally don't think I did her original mani any justice, but I still like how mine came out :) I used striping tape from eBay and gold studs from bornprettystore to create this mani.
Bestie Twin Nails with @AlondraLovesPolish
The lovely Alondra from @AlondraLovesPolish on Instagram and I decided to do some nude and sparkly Twin Nails using LoadedLacquer No Shirt, a gorgeous nude jelly polish from The Jiggles collection. We decided to go with a mix and match mani and went for glitters, chevrons and polka dots - I absolutely love how pretty and sparkly our manis turned out! And also I hadn't done twin nails in forever, it was so much fun talking to Alondra and coming up with our design!! She is such a cutie and does the prettiest manis, you should definitely go and check out her Instagram account! :)
Solo shot of my mix and match twin nails
As I mentioned before, we chose LoadedLacquer No Shirt for the nude polish, it's a gorgeous jelly that is opaque in three coats. We paired it with one of my favourite gold glitters, ChinaGlaze I'm Not Lion and used mini chevron nailvinyls. The black I used is OPI Black Onyx. I think these colors work beautifully together and you can never go wrong with a little mix and match!
Mani Swap with the talented @NailsByJema
This was the mani swap that was planned the longest time ago, haha! I had asked Jema forever ago if she would do a mani swap with me and she said she would love to, then she suddenly broke a nail so we postponed it and then just never got around to it! But I was so happy when she agreed to participate in CollabNovember with me! :) Jema is so talented, she does some awesome nail art and has a really cool blog too, check it out here! I loved her recreation of my dotticure, it's one of my favourite manis of mine and she did an amazing job!! Of course I had to go for her leopard print design, you all know me and leopard prints! ;) But I say this, when I actually recreated three of her designs and wasn't satisfied with a single one of them!! (Funny enough, Jema did exactly the same :D) but in the end I went with this one, it was so pretty on her I really wanted to give it a go!
Solo shot of my leopard mani
I didn't have a blue as light as Jemas, so I used OPI Can't Find My Czechbook which I think is a great alternative. For the silver I used Essie No Place Like Chrome, the black is OPI Black Onyx and the pinkie was done using OPI It's Frosty Outside. I think I got the studs off eBay or Amazon.
Mani Swap with @heypolish
My next mani swap was with @heypolish on Instagram, I love the colors of our little collage! :) I recreated her simple rose mani which I adored and she did my banana nails! I think she did an awesome job!! I didn't have a nude polish quite as dark as hers but I think the colors still go really well together! :)
Solo shot of my rose nails
I went for her rose nails not only because I really liked them, but also because it gave me a reason to use the colour red for nail art which I hardly ever do! For some reason I just don't tend to reach for it, maybe because I never really find a red that matches my skin tone well enough and I therefore just don't like wearing it. But I really loved this mani!! I used China Glaze With Love (that I only bought because it came in a duo pack with Fairy Dust, the polish I actually wanted and couldn't find separately) which has become my favourite red in my collection! For the accent nails I used OPI My Vampire Is Buff as a base and China Glaze With Love, Liquid Leather and Shore Enuff for the roses.
Bestietwinnails with my girl @melcisme
Surprise! Another collab with my girl Melissa aka @melcisme on Instagram! ;) We've done quite a few twin nails and mani swaps in the past so of course she had to be part of CollabNovember! :) She is seriously talented and originally came up with this awesome tape design which I adore, so I was so excited to do these for our twin nails! We chose a frosty, wintery color scheme and I love how they turned out! You need to check out Melissa on Instagram, not only is she gorgeous and super sweet but her nails are pretty awesome too, haha ;)
Solo pic of my X-design
For the colors we chose OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (muted white, which I just recently bought on eBay, it took me ages to find it!), OPI This Gown Needs A Crown (silver) and (yet another) one of my favourites by China Glaze At Vase Value. The colors together totally remind me of Frozen :) Or just of winter in general ;) For the X design I used a hell lot of striping tape and a stud I got off eBay (I think). Love these so much!! If you want to know exactly how the design was created, Melissa has a picture on her Instagram page that shows how the tape need to be placed!
Bestietwinnails with @tabesnails
I did Bestie Twin Nails with @tabesnails on Instagram, we had an interesting time choosing what kind of design we wanted to do in the first place but as you can see, we got there eventually ;) We went for a really colorful mix of leopard print and chevrons which I both love, especially the combination of the two! I also really like the colors we chose, I never would have thought peach and purple were such a great match!
Solo pic of my colourful leopard & chevron mani
For the colors in this mani I used Essie Van D'Go for the peach and China Glaze Lotus Begin for the purple. The black is also China Glaze in Liquid Leather. I really like that this mani is so colourful, yay for bright colours in winter! Together with the black I really love the outcome, even if my chevron could have been a little neater ;) I used nailvinyls from nailvinyls.com to create them and just a dotting tool for the leopard print.
Mani Swap with the sweet @nail_newbee
The last collab for CollabNovember is with the very sweet Louice who is @Nail_Newbee on Instagram. She actually lives not too far away from me over in Denmark! Well, compared to most of the girls I have gotten to know over Instagram who live all over the world ;)
Louice and I did a mani swap and I just had to go for her elegant nude nails with a glittery accent! She recreated my splatter mani and did an awesome job! I even got progress updates with pictures from her while she was doing them which was hilarious, as it was her first time doing splatter nails! ;) She is such a lovely girl and has gorgeous nails! So head over to her Instagram and check her out! :)
Solo pic of my simple and elegant nude mani
I loved the elegance and simplicity of Louice's mani so much, it's right up my alley! I used OPI My Vampire is Buff, a classic nude, and paired it with OPI Black Onyx over which I put one coat of Orly Halo. The gold stud on my middle nail is from a nailwheel full of studs I got off eBay.
I hope you enjoyed CollabNovember with me and I would love to do it again next year! I really enjoy meeting new girls on IG and getting to know them better. The nail art community is such a lovely, happy and supportive place and I feel very blessed being a part of it!
Thank you to all the amazing ladies who decided to join me for CollabNovember this year, it was a pleasure creating beautiful nail art with you and having lovely conversations!
Lots of Love,
Glittr
