Blood splatter nail art

Happy Halloween! I chose this super fun-to-do mani for my final Halloween themed nail art. There are lots of tutorials on how to do this kind of splatter nail art, basically you just put a straw (the kind you drink through) in your polish, point at your nail and blow through it! It's so much fun and the result is stunning.

It's hard for me to do nail art like this, when I can't determine in advance how exactly it will look, it gives me stress :-p It turned out pretty awesome though, and I think I'll do this again with other colors.

Above is my left hand, the pictures below are from my right hand. As you can see, each nail is completely different. When the splatters didn't position exactly as I wanted and I couldn't get another splatter going in the right place, I painted a tiny bit on with the left over polish on the straw. You can't see the difference but it filled up the white spots a bit. 

My base color was Essie Blanc, which I want do be doing a review on soon. For the splatters, I used a Hema color, because it's a very thin polish that splatters easily. You don't want a thick polish because it won't splatter. Also, cleanup around the cuticles is a bitch so you might want to tape them off or cover them in vaseline for easy cleanup.

Halloween nail art - with rats!

Counting down to Halloween, this is my second-to-last Halloween themed mani. It's inspired by someone's nail art, I just don't remember whose. I read a lot of blogs! And whenever I see something I'd like to try, I save the image or make a screenshot. I never use those images on my blog, I only show you my own pictures. When it's an exact remake, I try to credit the original nail artist.

This mani is almost exactly like the one I saw, except for the thumbs! There was no thumb included in the picture so I drew a rat on my thumb nails. Most people find rats pretty scary so I thought they would fit nicely. I'm very proud of the way they turned out!

Ofcourse I sent the last picture to the woman from whom I adopted most of my rats. When I mentioned that I didn't understand how I could paint my right thumb better even though I was using my left hand (and I'm right-handed, usually), she explained to me that 'rat people are just a bit odd'. Oh, so that's what I am!

Spiderweb nail art revisited

I thought my spider web nail art from a few days ago deserved a remake, but better. I found an awesome duochrome in my collection, I've had this for over 10 years and I didn't even know it was a duochrome! It's a beautiful copper polish, it has some gold shimmer to it and when you look at it at the right angle, it gets a kind of deep pink glow.

Anyway, I painted new spider webs. White this time, and I made the lines as thin as possible. That didn't work out exactly as I had planned but I like this mani a lot! Also, I went for the spider-holding again, a different one this time.

Is it trying to eat my hand?

And a real spider just because they're pretty:

Autumn in the Netherlands

It was AMAZING weather last weekend, and I took a beautiful with my dad. He got up that monday morning, looked at the weather report and thought: "Why spend a whole day behind a desk when I can be outside with my daughter?" And so he played hooky :-p We took a walk through the woods, this beautiful nature is not far from where we live.

Doesn't this look like a painting?

Bèèèèèè sheep are cute :D

It's like taking a world trip in an hour, the way different landscapes are just around the corner. 

My dad found a piece of wood and thought it looked like a goose. He put it in his back pocket but forgot about it when he sat down in the car :-p He gave it to me, saying how he only just realized what a dirty piece of wood it actually was. So, we rolled down the window and gave it flying lessons. 

Beautiful picture, I'm very proud of this one!

Thanks for watching!

Spider web nail art

It's almost Halloween! It's not really celebrated in the Netherlands, but we decorated the living room yesterday and I'm in the mood for some scary stuff. I made spider web nail art! Spiders don't really scare me, when I find one I don't kill it, I catch it and release it outside the house. But everybody knows the feeling of spiderwebs getting caught in your arm hairs. Even after you wash it out, you still feel it tickling!

I'm holding a giant fake spider. Thought it would be fun to be holding a themed item :-p

Goodbye Merlin...

I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends, my baby Merlin. He was only one year and 9 months old, he spent his whole life with me and two of his brothers. I love my rats like they are my children and losing one of them was painful. Just really painful.

It went so fast, he was fine the weekend before but on Tuesday I noticed he was a bit more sleepy than the others. Rats have their moods now and then so I let him be while the others ran around the room. On Wednesday, he wasn't okay so I made an appointment with the vet on Thursday.

My own vet couldn't determine the cause of his illness so he referred me to another vet, a so-called animal hospital. Here, the rat specialist took his temperature, extracted some blood and kept him hospitalized for a few hours to feed him and keep him warm. My baby wasn't doing well and it hurt me to leave him behind.

Around dinner time, I got the call with the results of the blood test. Merlin had severe kidney failure and there was nothing to be done, except care for him. Feed him, keep him hydrated and make sure he was warm enough. The vet offered to keep him but I wanted him home, with his brothers. If he had only a few days left, he wouldn't spend it alone in some hospital.

I took him home, but I saw that he wasn't in good shape. He was even worse than that morning. Maybe it was all the stress of the examinations and the hospital, but I couldn't have known that. I took care of him, made sure he ate, drank and stayed warm but he was so sick... I didn't sleep all night, I kept my mom up, I had a head ache and I was nauseous. The next day I couldn't eat. I slept a bit between 6 and 8 am and right away when I woke up, I called the vet for an appointment to let my Merlin go peacefully.

It still brings tears to my eyes writing you this. That's why I couldn't tell you until now, I would have started crying again and it's been enough. We buried him on Sunday and my boyfriend couldn't keep his eyes dry either. Merlin's life was too short for such a beautiful little friend. So here's a celebration of the time I did have with him:

Merlin was so special to me! He listened to his name, he was the only one of his brothers (I called them the triplets) that stopped when I shout his name whenever he sank his teeth into my furniture. He had his own corners of the room that he liked to sleep in. He reminded me of my albino rat Zorro, who died almost a year ago, but Merlin was a himalayan. He was white with a brown spot on his nose, brown ears and a brown ring around his tail. He used to lick my fingers like he hadn't seen food in ages, grabbing my finger with two strong paws. He was the cuddliest rat in the cage, he wanted to be held with two hands and be petted by another. Since I only have two hands, my face was fine too. 

Merlin loved attention. He was the first at the cage door whenever he heard my voice. He looked so big when I introduced the triplets to Tarzan and Tchaikovsky in July, and just as he had copied Zorro when he was baby, he had his own copycats now. Merlin jumped on the bed, Tarzan followed. Merlin chewed away at my furniture, so did Tchai. He taught the little guys so much. 

He lived a happy life and I miss him so much. He will always be remembered and he can never be replaced.