Euro 2012 Russia

This one’s a simple design: red nails with the flag colors as an accent nail.

When I first saw Russia’s home jersey, I thought the diagonal strip was just white and blue. Only after closer inspection then I realized that it was tricolored.

The accent nail gave me a bit of trouble because I painted the blue as the base color. The red was too jelly-like; resulting in a maroon like shade. The white section became too thick as it needed three coats to become opaque.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• Essie First Dance (2 coats)
• Michelle M31 (2 coats) – ring finger
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats) – ring finger
• Essie First Dance (3 coats) – ring finger
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Ireland

A green holographic tape mani – a combination of the different things I love! The picture above is too blue though, those in direct sunlight below are more color accurate.

Ireland's home kit is the one and only that has no white, red, or blue. I love the grass green color, it's so rarely seen in jerseys. The huge sponsor in the middle does ruin it though.

Surprisingly, I found that I have very little rich greens in my collection. In fact, these are my only two! They complement each other rather well in the shade but I love how it changes in the sun when the holo takes all the attention in the last picture.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• OPI Jade Is The New Black (2 coats)
• Nubar Reclaim – middle & ring fingers(1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Sweden

This marks the eight country in the tournament – I’m halfway there! Four more days, eight more countries to go!

Sweden’s home jersey is a lovely bright yellow – a color I don’t have. Hence, the pastel yellow substitute. I actually do love the simple design; I just wish I had the same yellow!

I wanted a thin line down each nail but my striping brush wasn’t thin enough. So I decided to use a strand of hair. Yes, you read correctly. A strand of hair – my hair. I got the idea from Copy That, Copy Cat and it worked great! I don’t find it gross since it’s my own hair after all.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz (2 coats)
• OPI Road House Blues (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Italy

I love the idea of subtle stamping. And what better way than using the same color for both the base and the stamp – except one is matte and the other glossy?

The Italian home kit has a subtle design that can barely be seen when worn. While Italy is still in the running for this competition, I don’t see them beating Germany in the semis tomorrow. Wow! Italy stunned Germany! They march on to the finals!

I don’t have a similar stamping image so I improvised with another from the Red Angel plates. I practiced the stamping on paper before doing my nails; it turned out to be easier than I thought.
And sorry for the white specks, they came from my matte top coat. Does anyone know what causes them?

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Michelle M31 (2 coats)
• China Glaze Matte Magic Top Coat (1 coat)
• Michelle M31 (RA-111)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Poland

Another red-white combination. It’s the easiest design in my opinion, so I decided to freehand the lines. The lines could be straighter and the red polish less thick – I guess I need more practice with the striper brush.

Poland is one of the two co-hosts this year. Their home jersey is rather simple and leaves me uninspired.

I really hope you guys haven’t been bored looking at the same polishes in the last few posts. As I mentioned earlier, I only have one white polish. I do love the shimmer and the fast drying time, it’s great! I’ll do a proper post on it in the future!

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Croatia

Checkered patterns! This is another one of my first attempts and I think I’m starting to get better at these tape manicures!

This is Croatia’s home jersey. I actually don’t like the red-white and blue-white color schemes on clothes. It looks a tablecloth or picnic mat!

I do love looking at them on nails though! I know it’s possible to do more squares but I like the symmetry of just four squares.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Denmark

This is my first time trying a ruffian manicure. I think I did a decent job as the lines are pretty clean. The bald spots were more of an application error than a problem with the polish itself.

Denmark is the other team that didn’t survive the group of death (together with The Netherlands). I think the matte/shiny stripes on the home jersey look rather cool. I don’t have matte/shiny stripes (a good idea to try in the future) but I have the non-matte version of my manicure.

These pictures were taken before the matte top coat was applied. The white polish used dries into a satin finish which is clearly different from the shiny finish of the red polish. The different finishes are definitely more obvious in real life!

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (2 coats)
• China Glaze Matte Magic Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Netherlands

I’m quite sad that the Netherlands are out of the running already. They have a good range of talented players but it just didn’t translate into a good team.

Also known as Oranje, it’s no surprise that the home jersey is the same eye-catching shade. Did you know the top red band of the current flag was originally orange?

I have very little experience with freehand drawing so I used tape to create the crisp lines. I know my color choices are not the same as the jersey shows orange (red-toned) accents on an orange (yellow-toned) base. Since I only had one orange cream, I used red as an accent instead.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• OPI A Roll In The Hague (2 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Portugal

Are you a football fan? If you’re not, I hope you’re bear with me during this period of Euro madness!

This is Portugal’s away jersey. It’s definitely one the more weird unique jerseys in this year’s competition. Since I’ve brought up this country, no, I’m not a Cristiano Ronaldo fan. I prefer Lionel Messi ;)

I used striping tape and scotch tape to create the lines. I know the lines are not perfect but I’m rather happy with the results. I would say that it’s an improvement over my previous tape mani here.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• OPI Jade Is The New Black (1 coat) – index & middle fingers
• Essie First Dance (1 coat) – ring & little fingers
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Greece

Euro fever! Who are you supporting in this year’s Euro?

I was inspired by the Euro 2012 jerseys and wanted to do manicure designs based on them. I thought it would be a good introduction to nail art for me. The designs seem simple enough to try out ;)
So why the Euro jerseys? I’m actually a huge huge football fan. I’ve been watching European football since I was young and thought it would be rather fun to combine my two passions!

This design was inspired by the Greece home jersey. I only have one white polish, which has silver shimmer. I find it preferable to a plain cream here, as it creates an extra dimension to the otherwise plain design.

This is my first attempt at dotting so I hope it’s not too messy! I used toothpick instead of a dotting tool as I wanted the dots to be tiny. But it looks like I wasn’t too successful, heh.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Michelle M31 (Dots) – ring finger
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.