12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 10 - Favorite Ornament

Today is Day 10 of Nicole's Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Favorite Ornament

I prefer the winter wonderland/frosty colors for Christmas....there is quite a lot of red and green elsewhere and I like to be different.

At home I have a white Christmas Tree and decorate with blues, turquoises, white and silver.   Because of my schedule I knew I would not have time to do a super difficult mani, so I chose to do snowflakes....which are all over my tree (you can see part of one in the pic)

I was always so intimidated by sponge gradients until I made myself do them....now I love them despite the clean up job.  

I sponged with a mix of Frostbite, Pacific Blue and White On.  Stamped silver snowflakes with a mix of plates and did a light coat of Northern Lights on top.  I think it came out pretty good.  What do you think?

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 9 - Christmas Wreath

 Monday was Day 9 - Christmas Wreath

Sorry for posting these so late, but it has been a busy few days...you know with it being Christmas and all.  

For this mani I decided to have some fun with my Cheeky Rhinestones and a little stamping.  My ring finger served as the accent nail with the "Christmas Wreath" made entirely of green rhinestones and a hand painted bow.  In person this mani was much more sparkly.  Both the OPI and China Glaze base colors are beautiful glass fleck polishes...sad it wouldn't capture on camera....to much awesome I guess.

I failed to take a picture of my nail plate and stamping polish I used.  I used plate BM14(2010 set) and Revlon's 24k.

One more post and I'll be caught up.  Stay tuned!

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 8 - Christmas Tree

Ive been late in posting my Christmas Nail Art Challenge mani.

Friday was Day 8 - Christmas Tree 

Here is my Christmas Tree....a bit simple but I like it.  

Here are the colors I used as well as the addition of a silver star from my Cheeky rhinestone set I ordered here. 

Once again head on over to Nicole's blog to see her challenge mani's and the other participants of this challenge.  

I'll be back with Day 9 and 10 in a few.

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 7 - Ugly Christmas Sweater

Today's challenge (by Nicole) is ugly Christmas Sweater. 

A few weeks ago I saw Chelsea's (from The Nail Network) Christmas sweater nails and since then I knew I wanted to try my hand at them for today's challenge.  This is a very stamp heavy manicure and it was definitely a challenge. 

Pop on over to Chelsea's blog to see hers....which are definitely better executed.

I love this design....just wish I had been smart enough to think of it myself. 

It most certainly would have come out better if I had been using "special" white polish.  Instead I used Sally Hansen Whirlwind White...until it got way to gloppy (really old) so I switched to White On.  Both are good alternatives to the Konad special polish...just in case you were wondering.I used a mix of Bundle Monster and Konad brand plates for this mani.  I didn't write them all down but I'm sure you can figure it out if you have them.

I also wanted to quick show you the base and top coat I used.  I randomly bought the Sally Hansen Acrylic Gel treatment, that I use for a base coat, and I love it!!  It makes my nails strong and keeps them from breaking...my nails are finally long at the same time.  I have also switched to Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.  For me it dries almost as fast as Seche Vite, it doesn't blur stamps, and doesn't have the ridiculous shrinkage and chipping.  It makes my polish last for days and yields a super high shine.  If you are looking for a new base and top coat combo you might give these a try.

Color Club True Fashion 2012 - Editorial

Today I would like to show you a mani I did in between the Christmas Nail Art Challange.

Color Club's Editorial from the Fall 2012 True Fashion Collection

Gah....just look at that gorgeous duo-chrome.  This polish is yet another addition to the large family of Channel Peridot dupes....and there is nothing wrong with that now is there?

This one is a bit greener than most I have seen.  Many of the Peridot dupes are kind of murky mustard/yellow which makes me look like I have a liver disfunction.

Editorial is a green/gold chrome base that shifts from bronze to green and turquoise blue.  I have seen many Peridot dupes that don't have this much of a dramatic shift.  Editorial definately translates from the bottle to the nail. 

The chrome effect of this polish really surprised me.  I could see my reflection in them....no joke.

Application was great.  This is 2 coats plus a top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri).  This polish does have a slight issue with showing brush strokes...as most chrome effects do, but its not hard to make it look smooth.

Needless to say I'm in love with this color.  If you are looking to buy a Peridot dupe this is the one to buy!!  I have Editorial's sister "Port-folio" to show you next week.  Stay tuned.

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 5 - Snowman

Today's challenge is Snowman....and I'll be honest I didnt try very hard.

It has been a long and stressful week so I didn't go all out on this one.

I did, however, get a chance to use my I Love Nail Polish "Up to Snow Good" which made be happy.  Snow...Snowman...same thing right?

I used 2 coats of Color Clubs "Metamorphosis", 1 sheer coat of China Glaze "White Cap," and 2 coats of I Love Nail Polish "Up to Snow Good."  Wow, that is a lot of layering even for me, but look at the close up....there is so much wonderful going on here

Here are all the colors I used in this mani

I fully intend on doing an entire post of my I Love Nail Polishes...because they are awesome and deserve their own thunder.  Until then please stop by Nicole's blog to check out her Snowman nail art for today along with all the others participating in the Christmas Nail Art Challange.

 

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge Day 4: Christmas Lights

Today is Day 4 of Nicole's Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Christmas lights.

I decided to go with actual old skool Christmas Light bulbs.

For these nails I painted each a base color and then did a vertical sponge gradient with a matching shimmer color to add some depth.  Next I gave it the bulb shape with a couple swipes of black and gave it a little white highlight to make it look 3Dish. 

To make it look more bulb-y I added a cap/socket.

Overall I am pretty please how they came out!

Below are the colors I used for today's challenge.

Don't forget to stop by Nicole's blog and check out the others participating in this challenge.

Thanks for stopin' by!!

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challange - Day 3 Christmas Movie

As I said last week I am following along with Nicole's 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge. 

Today is "Christmas Movie"

As soon as I saw the challenge for today I knew I would do

"A Charlie Brown Christmas."

This is the first time in a long time that I have done detail work on my nails and you can tell.  It's a bit sloppy, but it will do....I need better brushes that's for sure.

Snoopy could look a little better....hey at least he is somewhat recognizable! 

A little fact you probably don't know....I'm a lefty.  That means that my left hand got nothing more than some snowflakes falling on the  snow.  Looking back I probably shouldn't have defined the ground/skyline with black....it would have looked better just snowflakes on a gradient background.  O well.  It still looks neat.

Gradient Base:  OPI-Swimsuit...Nailed It, Savina-Sparkling Waters, Sally Hansen-White On and Snow Globe

Snow: China Glaze-White Cap

Snoopy: Sally Hansen-White On, Expres-so Yellow and Rapid Red, Pure Ice-Black Out, Revlon-Posh

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree: China Glaze-Mahogany Magic and Cha Cha Cha, Sally Hansen-Rapid Red, Revlon-Posh, Pure Ice-Black Out

Snoopy House:  Sally Hansen-Rapid Red and White On

Extra Trees:  Revlon-Posh, China Glaze-Cha Cha Cha and Mahogany Magic,

Sally Hansen-White On

This one was pretty fun. I definitely need more practice doing this kind of detail work. 

Until next time head over to Nicole's blog to check out her design as well as the other participants.



12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challange - Day 2

 The wonderful Nicole over at Dipped in Lacquer put together this awesome Christmas Nail Art Challenge for this holiday season. 

I missed out on Day 1 (Red & Green) but decided to jump on the wagon for the rest of it. 

Hop on over to Nicole's blog to check out her mani's as well as the list of other bloggers participating in the challenge.  I'm not technically participating....I don't have enough street cred for that yet, but cant hurt to play along...right?

I used Sally Hansen "Blue Blast" (Insta-Dri), "Snow Globe" (Complete Salon Manicure-2012 Fall Collection), and stamped with "Whirlwind White" (Insta-Dri)

I used BM-323 (2012 plates) for the full snowflake design.  There is also 2 individual snowflake designs on BM-319 I believe if you want to add extras or do an accent nail.

Btw....check out how awesome Sally Hansen's "Snow Globe" is.  Its a mix of tiny iridescent glitters mixed with large iridescent glitters that flash every time you move your hands.  I had no application trouble with this one - really easy to get the large hex glitters on without doing the dabbing technique.  Have you seen the rest of the new Fall 2012 Complete Salon Manicure line?  So pretty!  Finally....am I right?  Seems like forever since they added any new colors.

Ill be back soon with new swatches.  Its been a bit cray cray at my house the past couple of weeks.  We are in the middle of a remodel....does a number on your hands.  On top of that the cold weather is reaking havoc on my hands/cuticles....im currently at war with them.

Boop-oop-a-dupe

My apologies in advance on how slap-dash this post is.

I stumbled across a polish a couple weeks ago on the Llarowe website and my jaw about hit the floor.  Its a Clarins 230 / Fantasy Fire (aka Unicorn pee) dupe.

Say What??!!??

Nail Pattern Boldness makes a polish called "Boop-oop-a-dupe" that has almost the same flash and fire that we have all be lusting after in Clarins 230 and Fantasy Fire.

In the bottle it doesn't look like anything other than a pink shimmer....it lies!

Since the swatch pics on the Llarowe site had it over Revlon Royal I decided to do the same just for my own comparison sake. 

Here is 2 coats of Royal by itself.  There is a slight VNL (visible nail line) but I was in a hurry and I figured with what was about to happen it wouldn't really matter.  Ready?

Bam! (please excuse dry cuticles - I ran out of my reg remover and had to use straight acetone and was without cream or oil...yikes!!)

Yea sorry for the crappy cell pics, but it was a crazy busy day and a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.  These pics really dont show the full range of this polish.  It has a dramatic shift from pinks, purples, blues, greens and golds.  I could not stop looking at my nails all day. 

I used one coat of Seche Vite (even though I hate the shrinkage factor and the chip the next day factor...grr) to speed of the dry time.  Only drawback of this mani....Revlon Royal's crazy

staining.  I had never worn Royal before so I had no idea.  It's like a blue pen exploded on my hands....inky blue everywhere the second a nano drop of remover touched it.  Has this happened to anyone else? I love the color but I'm hesitant to wear it again.

Anywho, I would strongly recommend Boop-oop-a-dupe to anyone that cannot get their hands on Clarins 230 or Fantasy Fire.

One day I'll get around to doing a proper swatch of this polish.