12 Days of Christmas - Final Challenge!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope you are all having a marvellous christmas day! I am writing this ahead of time as I am planning to be a little busy but will spend a few minutes checking out your Santa nails!

 At first I really wanted to paint Santa's face on my nail - but this was a disaster! I then tried to free-hand paint on a hat but didn't like how it was turning out at all and stopped midway.

 (Although I LOVE the base polish - it's from the OPI James Bond mini collection - The World is Not Enough, and looks soo nice on the nail. But I felt a little dark to go under the red so switched it for my final attempt).




 So I decided to resort back to my old favourite - stamping! I used a Sephora silver as a base and red stamping polish with a Bundle Monster plate and used a dotting tool to dot on some Sally Hansen White Out for my fluff. I think it looks pretty neat but it's a shame I wasn't able to get closer to my original vision! Perhaps next year!






It has been so much fun completing this challenge and checking out everyones nails. Nice job everyone :)

Christmas Challenge - Tinsel

Happy Christmas Eve! Can you believe it's Christmas tomorrow? The time has gone by so quickly I can't believe it's already here!










So for my staff christmas party I wore this homemade glitter polish and I thought it reminded me of the red and green tinsel I used to have and would decorate EVERYTHING with it. With my move from England I have yet to locate the tinsel but decided to use it for todays challenge! The polish is SO sparkly it was hard to photograph.

At first I was going to just keep it as it was but decided to try adding some tree green around the tinsel to give it more of a tinsel shape and feel. Normally I would have painted the green on first I just really didn't want to go through the hassle of taking off the glitter polish (which incidently came off pretty easily) to just put it back on again.

Elves - Christmas Challenge

So this was a tough one for me! My first idea was to take an image of elves from the computer, print it off small and transfer it with rubbing alcohol. This did not work for me - even a little bit! I had the print out sitting on my nails for a good long while and nothing. I've no idea why, I've googled around and see comments about the whole transfer not working but not even a tiny bit of ink from that paper transferred to my nail! Perhaps it's just my printer and it would work with a magazine or something.. will have to try it out some time!

But onto plan B and this is what happened. Excuse the mess there are a few mistakes but as I wasn't keeping them on I was too lazy to clean them up! By coinicidence all the polishes used were Sally Hansen.

I can't believe it's almost the end! Only two more challenges left!

12 Days of Christmas - Wreath

So I wasn't sure I'd enjoy wearing this out so did it quickly before another manicure. I am actually reasonably pleased with the result and it may be something I will replicate later in the week.

I used an off white with a pinkish shimmer that I mixed myself as a base and with a dotting tool and Barry M's #284 dotted on a green circle onto each nail. I used Konad Special polish in red and a bundle monster stamping plate to stamp a ribbon on each wreath. I think it's cute - although totally simple!

Pretty & Polished - Jawbreaker

 

So after many months dreaming of this polish I finally have it! I was so excited when I opened the envelope that it was in that I took off my snowflake mani that impressively had no chips even after two days at work.. but I needed to try it!

And I am so happy with it. I had a moment of doubt when I saw the bottle as it didn't look quite as I was expecting but on the nail  - it is MARVELLOUS! I can't stop looking at it. Now I am even more tempted to buy more of the Pretty & Polished range!

12 Days of Christmas - Ornaments

Wohoo, so I am finally a little ahead on these challenges I am writing this post and queueing it up a whole 3 days early!

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in 'Ivy League' for the base and stamped on ornaments with Konad black and red special polish. I added a bit of Sephora 'I'm a Rich Girl' for the tips of the ornmanets.

They actually turned out nicer than I was expecting so this may be a look I replicate. Although I think I'd like smaller ornaments on some sort of tree branch.. There's just so many chrismassy ideas and so few days left!

12 Days of Christmas - Snowflakes

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

So on Saturday I went to Moncton and got a hold of OPI's On Her Majesty's Secret Service (amongst other things!) and couldn't wait to use it, so that is what I have for my base here.
I stamped using a bundle monster plate and an old Rimmel metal look silver polish. It is actually one of the best jobs I've done using the stamping plates as there is only one tiny mistake on my left hand and everything else seems super neat and marvellous :D

I topped with Gelous (for shine) and then Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (because I'm impatient).