10 Day Nail Art Challenge Day 6: Holiday Movie; The Santa Clause

I love The Santa Clause; a Christmas movie about doubt and belief, magic, generosity, good fun, family, falling off the roof, burnt turkey, ugly sweaters, snow globes and more? What's not to like!?

My little Santa suit nails are actually pretty easy to do, as evidenced by this video tutorial!

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge Days 4 and 5: Holiday Treat and Holiday Song!

This one is a two-fer!  Mostly because I'm behind on the challenge and need to catch up!

For my Holiday Treat manicure, I was going to do Russian Tea Cakes.  My mom made these buttery, walnutty, pale green balls of deliciousness for years, and so I thought a reminiscent manicure made a lot of sense.  I had layered all of these polishes, using shimmers, nutty little brown glitters, pale green sheers, and voila! The worlds most boring manicure.

I had to improvise; my manicure looked practically white, booooo-ring!  So I busted out my handy striping brush and got to candy-caneing my nails!

I like how the uneven strokes on my nails match the uneven stripes in the cane; let's call it "on purpose", shall we?


Next, holiday song.  My maternal grandfathter liked Jimmy Durante a lot, so every time I hear his version of Frosty the Snowman (you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2joERYGHEo)  I think of him, and of my family, which is an association I really enjoy.  So, with my trusty stamper and Kleancolor Metallic Navy over Pretty n' Polished Sno'mans Land, I have Frosty nails!

My pinky would not cooperate; I couldn't get it in a good position in any photos, so you'll have to imagine it looks decent and not all crumpled and blurry.

Artsy Wednesday: New Years Eve!

PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT!

I have two Hot Mess polishes, Concussion and Yankee Star, that both SCREAM New Years Eve; stars, iridescent glitter, packed with sparkle, a confetti mix of glitter shapes?  Yes please!

I popped a layer of Concussion and Yankee Star both over Julep's Morgan, a great grapey royal purple, and I'm ready for a night out on the town!

 EXTREEEEEME CLOSEUP!

As an aside, I'm pretty pleased that I'm getting closer to a lighting scheme that doesn't make me look dead.  Woo hoo, photographic proof I'm not a zombie!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

Lacquered Lunatic

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Gift Wrap

I don't actually own any gift wrap at the moment; I tend to use gift bags because they're so much faster.  So, I drew my inspiration from thin air and decided a nice gilted red would be a lovely giftwrap.

Using the Llarowe LeaLC stamping plate B and Kleancolor Metallic Gold, I stamped a whole bunch of gift-wrappey patterns onto Butter London's Knees Up.  Knees Up is SO gorgeous, and the Kleancolor metallics stamp like a dream!

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Snow/Snowflakes

Snow at dusk, is there anything better?

Julep's Viola made the perfect base for HITS Mari Moon Artsy, to create a dusky, multicolored sky look.

OPI Pirouette my Whistle, the real inspiration for this manicure, gave the perfect glittery depth to my snowscape, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Julep Emma for snow on the ground and the moon in the sky finished off this glittery winter wonderland.

Check out the other Day 2 entries!

Artsy Wednesday: Christmas

I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner; wasn't it July just recently?

This manicure isn't going to make any kind of sense without a backstory, so here it is: Bees.  My manicure is a tribute to a very large Secret Santa exchange that happens over the internet, wherein the Secret Santas and Santees regularly make jokes about sending and receiving bees (can you imagine receiving a box full of bees in the mail? Terrifying!).

I was lucky enough to get a Santa who sent me a fabulous gift, including 4 Julep polishes I didn't own (a feat in itself, since I own something like 30!), some fabulous nail art glitters, and a nice black polish (for bee striping, of course!)  I set out to make a bee-like manicure with the bee colored portions of their gift, and made a honeycomb/stripey design for my Christmas manicure.

I've participated in this Secret Santa exchange for 2 years now, and it's so much fun to send gifts to people across the country (or the world!), get thoughtful and fun gifts from a relative stranger, and basically add even more excitement to the holidays.  So, I have a bee manicure, because it wouldn't be Christmas with out bees!

Bzz!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Silver and Gold!

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Ev'ryone wishes for silver and gold

How do you measure its worth?

Just by the pleasure it gives here on Earth.

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Mean so much more when I see

Silver and gold decorations

On ev'ry Christmas tree.

I've had that song stuck in my head since I signed on for this nail art challenge.  I tried to do striping tape trees in gold, with Zoya's Luna as the background, for the silver element of the nail art.  I added little iridescent stars on top of each tree, to create a super shimmery, gorgeous manicure!  I'm in love with this one, and the tape trees are SO easy to do!

Photographing them, on the other hand, is NOT easy, especially when they're this glittery!  My lighting was shining off of it so brightly that I barely got any usable photos.  However, moving my hands around creates this gorgeously distracting glitter