Advent Calendar Challenge Day 10: Lights

So for this mani I did some Christmas lights on my nails. Someone asked me how I made my Christmas lights and it was pretty simple. I took a piece of painter's tape and folded it in half. Then I cut a "parenthesis shaped" notch out of the tape, sort of like I was making paper snowflakes. So when it is folded, the notch should look like this: (  But when you open it up, there should be a hole in your tape that looks like
this: () You just want to make sure that the hole is a good size for your nails (not too big or small). Then I placed the tape at different angles on my nails and dabbed on sparkly colors for the lights.

Blue: Hits Gato-mia with Jordana Blue Bash dabbed on top
Red: Zoya Kimmy with Dollish I Wanna Do Bad Things to You dabbed on top
Green: Zoya Ivanka with Orly Here Comes Trouble dabbed on top
Orange: China Glaze Riveting with L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Flamboyant dabbed on top
Pink (on my thumb, but not pictured): Hits Cirandinha with Orly Bubbly Bombshell dabbed on top

For the base of the mani, I used China Glaze Fast Track with China Glaze Fois Gras dabbed on top with a makeup sponge to create a marbled look. I actually forgot to post pictures of that by itself, but it was really pretty. I used a silver striper for the metal base of the lights and a white striper for the cord and accents on the lights. 

I'm a little behind on the challenge, but I am still doing my manis. I had to take a few days off to do some non-Christmas manis so I will post those soon for you to give you (and me) a little break). Thanks for looking everyone!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 9: Pine

I'm very excited to show you this mani! I decided to channel my inner Bob Ross and give you some happy little trees...on a much smaller canvas. Gosh...this mani had many steps/layers. It wasn't overly difficult...just had a lot going on.

Here is a step by step of what I did:

1) Paint base with sky blue creme (I use OPI What's With the Cattitude)
2) Use a mix of a mid toned grey and white and a piece of make-up sponge to sponge on "the mountains" at the tips of your nails (this isn't exact...just something to create interest in the background)
3) Use white sponged on with a make up sponge randomly at the nail bed to create clouds.
4) Using a dark green creme (I used China Glaze Jolly Holly) and a thin paint brush with a flat top, use a back and forth dabbing motion to create a "piney look". Your strokes should look like this-->  / \ . Once you create the basic tree shape, you can fill in with more brush strokes. It doesn't have to be perfect. It is supposed to look natural.
5) You can make your trees as tall or short, or as slim or wide as you want. Put one or two trees on each nail. Make it look varied and not all perfectly centered. The idea is for it to look like a forest.
6) Come back in with a striper brush or fine detail brush and add some random strokes of black to give the trees some depth. If you wanted to, you could use white to highlight it as well to look like snow. Or of course, you could use a dotting tool to add ornaments for a Christmas tree!
7) Topcoat it and you are done!

I do think Bob Ross would approve of this mani. ;) I hope you enjoy my little ventures into nail art. They are never too difficult...so you should give it a try! Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 8: Starry Night

For this mani, I decided to have a little fun with stamping and glitter. The base I used was an Essie Starry Starry Night franken that I made using Essie Silver Boullions + Wet N Wild Nocturnal with a few drops of black. I discovered that I need to tweak it a bit and add some more blue because it ended up looking a little more greyed out than I had hoped for. Then I did some random star stamps using China Glaze Millenium and some star image plates (they were all from Bundle Monster, but I don't remember which sets). Then I used 1 coat of NYX Girls Dreamy Glitter on top for a few more stars. You have to fish for them a little, but they aren't hard to get out of the polish.

Here is the Starry Starry Night franken by itself. As I said...it really needs a little more blue added. 

Maybe it ended up looking a little more cosmic themed than Christmas themed, but I still liked it. Thanks for looking everyone!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 7: Ornaments

For today's challenge, I decided to do some nail art. This turned out a little abstract looking perhaps...but I think I like the end result.

I started off with a base of China Glaze Glittering Garland. This polish is gorgeous in its own right and I will show you some swatches of it at the end of this post. I wanted to give my nails some "pine texture" so I used a black, green, and gold striper to add the texture. Then I used a dotting tool and dotted on some ornaments.   I used the blue (Gato-mia), pink (Cirandinha), and purple (Pega-pega) polishes from the Hits GRAACC collection (they are all glass-flecked). Next I used the gold striper to add toppers to my ornaments and a white striper for reflective accents on the ornaments.

Here is China Glaze Glittering Garland on its own. It was from the 2011 holiday collection. It is a gorgeous deep pine green with a lighter green shimmery glass fleck. 

I love getting to the nail art portion of these challenges! I think it is lots of fun! Thanks for looking everyone!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 6: White

For this mani, I chose a polish that I have been wanting to wear for a while now: Smitten Polish Winter is Coming. This polish was given to me as a gift during a swap around Halloween and I have held off on wearing it until this challenge. I did two coats over white. It reminds me of Certs mints. Also, when I was at work Friday, I realized that it looks like brand name Lortab. LOL! Only a pharmacist would realize something like that...I hope! The formula was easy to work with and you could get it opaque on its own if you wanted to, I just chose to layer it over white. This polish is actually part of a duo inspired by the show/book Game of Thrones and I have a post about the other polish in this set, Fire and Blood, here (though I think that polish is discontinued now).

Smitten Polish is available at creator Noelie's Etsy shop here as well as from Llarowe. For information and updates on shop openings and her polishes, follow Noelie's Blog here. 

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 5: Blue

I didn't expect to love my blue mani as much as I did...but I ended up wearing it for two days because I didn't want to take it off. I really didn't want to take it off even then, but I figured I must get back to work on the challenge! :)

I recently picked up the Sephora by OPI It's Real 18K gold flake topcoat (it's on sale for $15 right now at Sephora). I thought it would look really fabulous over a contrasting color like a cobalt blue, so I layered 2 coats over Barry M Cobalt. This mani was so simple, but so stunning to me! I seriously love the fine gold flake look of this gold flake polish, maybe even more than the chunkier look of OPI The Man With the Golden Gun (though I still want that one). It also looked perfect after 2 days of wear. Still shiny and chip free like I had just put it on.

What are your feelings on all of these gold flake topcoats popping up by different brands? Do you like the look of them? Is the price tag keeping you away? Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 4: Silver

For my silver mani, I went with something really simple (and palette cleansing for me): a silver holo. I used 2 coats of Jade Psychodelica over Color Club Worth the Risque (because I was lazy and wanted a quick opaque silver base). And of COURSE I never managed to get any good pictures in the sun so these will have to suffice. And then to my greatest surprise...my husband told me he liked this polish. He never likes ANYTHING much less comments on it. Except maybe a plain red creme.

Jade Psychodelica is thin and could also be used for a holo topcoat for other polishes if anyone is looking for one of those.





 I've got to post a few to catch up with the challenge! I've still been keeping up with my manis every day though...just no time to post them! Thanks for looking everyone!