This is for you, Birgit! *smooch*

A week ago I was a bad bad nail polish addict and enabled my friend Birgit a bit to get Sephora by OPI’s 212-Sephora.
I am so sorry hun but I am sure you won’t regret this purchase. ♥

When I saw the first swatches of 212 I immediately fell in love. A dark olive nail polish with holo glitter AND opal flakes? Want! But then I hesitated because it was quite pricey on ebay in contrast to what I normally at a max spend on a nail polish. After a few weeks of thinking about it I finally caved and I am glad I did.

When I bought CND’s Crimson Sparkle one of the first nail polishes I thought of layering it over was China Glaze’s Midnight Ride. Midnight Ride is my favorite nail polish. Love this dark, dark purple!

Crimson Sparkle is the only CND Colour Effects nail polish I have yet but now after seeing how stunning these look over dark nail polishes I need to get my paws on more of them. Especially the Sparkle Effects!

Sigh.. how much I adore Milani’s Black Magic halloween collection. They are my favorite base nail polishes for layered Konads.

When I thought about which Valentines Day inspired konadicure I could do I thought hmm.. how about a vampy Valentines Day manicure? It was a no-brainer that Milani’s Whimsical with its pink glitter would be the perfect base color for Vampy Valentine.

I wanted the rose pattern from the m65 image plate to be very subtle so I picked Zoya’s Drew for the first layer of stamping. The hearts from Konad’s m3 image plate needed to stand out more so I picked China Glaze’s Admire for the second layer of stamping.
Pink heart shaped rhinestones from a rhinestone set by Essence (the German brand will be available at Ulta in the US soon) on my ring finger and thumb completed the look.

I am a little late to the Zoya Ultra Glitter party but I thought quite some time if I should purchase them or not. But then I finally caved and ordered them and I am glad I did. Because.. well.. GLITTER!

The Zoya Ultra Glitter collection for Winter 09 included three nail polishes full of glitter in sheer base colors.

Sadly Christmas is almost over but today I was in the mood to try a New Year’s Eve inspired manicure.

Because I also wanted to include a gradient I thought that this manicure could be great for my first tutorial. Unfortunately I can’t show you the step where and how I apply the nail polish with the sponge on my nail because I would need a third hand to take these pictures but I will describe how I made the gradient as good as possible.

Let’s get started!