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.

Challenge #4 Snowmen.

Argh, so I'm a little late getting this in as I've not been feeling so great. I even had to drag myself into work this morning with no nail varnish on at all :O So as I really didn't want to spend too long doing my nails as still feeling kinda bleugh I went with the snowmen stamping. They're not perfect as I didn't take time to correct them but they still look kind of cute. I used A-England Lady of Shallott for the base, and an old Rimmel silver for stamping. I layered over a sparkle from Nina Ultra Pro (I forget its exact name though it's the white holo one) to give it a bit of oomph and to cover up a little bit of creasing where I stamped too quickly. Today was my first go and using Sally Hanson's insta-dri and whilst I love that it has a very similar finish to Seche-Vite it wasn't quite as solid in as quick a time. Though I did try and work quickly so the fault could be mine! Anyways, here's my snowmen, and although I haven't commented much on the snowmen out there this time, they all look great! Puts my little stamps to shame :)

 

Will try and get some better pictures up too!

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12 Days of Christmas Challenge - Day 2

So I'm a little upset as I had written this whole blog post on my phone and it seems to have got stuck or deleted.. basically it will not post, so here it goes take two!

The main song that inspired my manicure for this challenge was 'When Santa got stuck up the chimney'. It is the song we are doing for our preschool concert so I thought it would be a fun thing to show the children as they love looking at my nail art! But then I figuired I may aswell throw in 'Rudolph the red nosed reindeer' and to top it all I 'Let it snow'.



It's a little (OK a lot!) rough but I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out! I think the background colour I used is a little dark as you can barely see Santas boots in normal light but the reindeer stamps are pretty cute and I will be using those again.


So the reindeer stamps are from Bundle Monster plate 214. I did stamp in a sleigh but it didn't show up too well so I ended up painting the whole thing in by hand with a small brush. Everything else was done by a small paintbrush or a dotting tool.




The background colour I used is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It. I love this colour it is so rich and deep! The black I used is of the same brand titled 'Black Out' and one of my favourite blacks as it goes on the nail so well. I used Red Konad Stamping Polish for the edge of Santas suit, for the sleigh I used Barry M's 'Red Glitter' Polish. The roof and chimney is in Sephora's 'Milk Chocolate Chunk' and the reindeer are Rimmel Lycra Wear 'Posh Trash'. For the snow I again used A England's 'Merlin' as I am addicted to that sparkle!

More polish making

So I've had a bit more time to get busy crafting polishes - I am up to twelve creations now!! Some of them still need improvements but I think they are coming along. I took my sample wheel into work and persuaded my colleagues to pick some to try so that will be exciting!

For my current manicure I decided to try a coral pink with the black glitter over the top. I don't like it as much as I liked the dusky pink but I'm still enjoying wearing it.

On a side note I finally wanderedthrough the other aisles at sally beauty and found their clearance section. I can't believe I have been missing sale nail polish all this time!

Homemade polish!

So I have finally had the time to go down into my nail polish 'studio' (aka to a table in the basement) and play around with some of the powders and glitters I have. It is even more fun that I was expecting! I'm also realising pretty fast some of the colours I am missing out on (like black! I have black glitter but no black powder how is it possible I missed it!) and am saving up for my next order of supplies!

I currently have five polishes made up that I am exploring to see if I'm happy with them, I think one of them is definitely a reject but the others I'm liking the look of so far! Today I am wearing a dusky pink colour with a black glitter top coat. I love the combination of them and it is so exciting to be wearing my own nail polish! <3

Orly Holiday Polishes - Smiley Faces

So I fell for the Orly Holiday Minis collection on my last trip to Sally Beauty. I used Torrid as a base which is so much more shiny and shimmery that it seemed through the bottle that I almost wanted to wear it on its own! I'd made my plan though so layered over a coat of Devil May Care and was pretty impressed with the glitter payoff in just one coat.

I should have left it alone but I couldn't resist stamping so added the smiley faces from BM plate 304 using Black Konad polish. I don't think they showed up so well over the glitter coat and regretted the stamping but after a day I got used to it and thought it looked okay.
I can't wait to try those faces over some yellow polish for a more traditional look though!

Halloween Nails

So I actually did a few halloween manicures over the October weeks and I have to say I am so impressed with the bundle monster halloween images. The children at my preschool were very enamoured with the stamps and we made up lots of stories about witches, spooky houses and pumpkins!

First, not necessarily halloweeny but I used Sally Girl 'You Glow Girl' as a base to get a spooky glow was my first attempt at striping tape. Upon the glow base (of which I used four coats to try and get a prominent effect) I arranged striping tape and painted over with Sally Hansen 'Black Out'. I removed the tape and - voila! It turned out really well I think for my first try and it was exciting to see those little glow in the dark lines whenever I walked around in the dark! The glow wasn't amazing though I did keep holding my hands under the light on my phone to get a few seconds of 'wow'!




Next I used China Glaze Orange Knockout which is sooo bright! I added a layer of Nina Ultra Pro Opal Elegance for a shine and stamped on various halloween images with Konad black polish.

The next time I used Nina Ultra Pro Evening Sun for a darker look. I added a layer of Nina Ultra Pro holographic top coat and really liked how they twinkled when they caught the light. I decided I wanted black tips and used striping tape and carefully painted them out with Sally Hansen black out. Although it was a lot more fiddly using striping tape rather than scotch tape I much preferred it, the line was crisper, there was no leakage and I think I did a pretty good job! I added more stamps with the same BM plates using Black Konad polish to finish them off and make them spooktacular! (See what I did there!)




Finally for halloween day I changed them again (!) and used Barry M Spring Green as I needed a green to match my costume (I was a green crayon!). I used the same stamps over it and it looked.. okay. I much preferred the orange but like I said I was the GREEN crayon!






Really enjoyed the whole halloween manicures and wish I'd had more time to be a bit more adventurous!

Purple hearts and a bit of shatter

During my trip to England the 'purple heart' was a big theme for me so my two main manicures were around this.



The first few days I didn't have much time for nail painting so left my fingers how they were and just changed up my thumb, with a silver base and some purple heart stamps. The purple I used (Barry M Vivid Purple) was rather pale for stamping but it was all I had and I was grateful you could see it!










I was much more in love with my second purple heart manicure.  I used a pink base and stamped a purple heart on each nail and surrounded it with black stars. The stamping took some time as didn't use the whole of an image and as you can see it's a little crooked but I was happy with it and every time I looked at my nails I smiled!

After my concerts my nails needed changing up so I used George Molten Metals Enchanted which I picked up when I was there. What a bargain! An awesome metal effect and I love the colour. I topped it with Rimmel Black Graffitti top coat and must say I was impressed. It's been a while since I've used any of my shatter coats but either this is much better than the ones I have or I have forgotten how much I like the effect!

Revlon Moon Candy

So I saw the new Revlon nail art Moon Candy polishes in Walmart and I had to try one! I went for the Moon Dust and I <3 it. The black painted on evenly and smoothly and totally covered my nails in one coat - definitely an equal to the best black polish I have. The top glitter coat although looks white in the bottle looks more green with hints of gold on the nail. It painted on very smoothly and each dip of the brush got plenty of glitter flakes out (you didn't have to dig them out!).  The pictures don't do it justice (I need to practice my nail photography skills!), was a bit pricey but definitely a good addition to my collection.

Ice Queen

I found Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails in Ice Queen in a bargain bin and layered it over Sephora Myrtille polish. I love how there's just enough glitter that you can appreciate it being there but not too much that that is all you can see.