Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

I have another holiday look to show you today. This was inspired by Joanne of Northern Nails' post, here.

Indoors, artificial light, no flash.
I used a base coat of Sinful Colors Nail Hardener, then three coats of Orly Star Spangled on all fingers but my ring finger, which got three coats of China Glaze Glittering Garland. I topped everything off with Seche Vite. Once it was good and dry, I applied the rhinestones and sealed it all with a few coats of NYC's In a New York Minute.

Outdoors, sunlight, no flash.

This was the most gorgeous in low, indoor lighting. The colors were extremely saturated,  glowy, and jewel-like but impossible for my camera to capture that way!

Enjoy the day! More soon!! ^_^

Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas Skittles!

Hello again!!

The base for this is one coat of Sinful Colors Nail Hardener and two to three coats of Zoya Elisa (I smudged a few and had to fix my boo-boos, so some got an extra, band-aid coat.). I love this red--it reminds me of Christmas ball ornaments. It's a nice rich red with red shimmer. Absolute best holiday polish! The gold flakies are one coat of Zoya Gilty.

On my left hand, I attempted a few nail art techniques from the tutorials created by Nailside. These were simple to do, I just need some practice with the freehand holly design! I LOVED the way the tree came out (I used this very helpful tutorial.); it's done with China Glaze Glittering Garland. I topped the tree off with a holo gold star glitter I fished out of a bottle of Wet n' Wild Hollywood Walk of Fame from their Fergie line. On my thumb, I started with a coat of Nyx Algae. Once that was dry, I used Zoya Elisa to create the edge of the leaf design (tutorial here). A white striper polish, and some dots with Zoya Elisa, and ta-da!

Indoors, artificial light, no flash.
 And now on to my elusive other hand! On my thumb, I stamped the holly leaves from BM-14, first with Glittering Garland, but it wasn't very opaque, so I stamped it again with Orly Luxe. I used the end of an un-bent bobby pin to dot on the holly berries with Orly Star Spangled. My ring finger is simply stamped with Orly Luxe and the bells from plate BM-14. Everything got finished off with a generous coat of fast dry topcoat, I used NYC In a New York Minute.
 
Indoors, artificial light, with flash.

 Hope you all have a wonderful holiday! More soon! ^_^


Monday, December 10, 2012

Well, that was unexpected...

Why hello there! Been awhile... my apologies for that. Life got in the way. On the day of my last post, my heart decided to go crazy and landed me in the hospital for a few days. Good news is: I'm really quite healthy, and there is no apparent cause for the rapid heartbeat. Medication regulates it, but I'm also seeing a cardiologist to see if we can get it to resolve completely and go back to normal. That, and with the holidays coming up, hasn't left me much time to paint my nails, which is a bummer because I had a month's worth of new and holiday polishes to swatch and a few fun holiday inspired mani's in the works. At any rate, I'll be back to post as often as I can in the next few weeks and am planning to resume our regularly scheduled program here by January 1st at the latest. Thanks for your patience!

More soon-ish!! ^_^