Santa Decals

As I said earlier, I actually did this manicure Monday, but didn't have time to post. But here's a super bonus Christmas picture of my younger daughter at church on Monday night:

And the manicure:

It's two coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me, with little Cina decals I got from Sally a few weeks ago and meant to use before now.

I also came up with a brilliant idea to deal with the OPI minis I have collected, but that will be another post.

I hope you had a lovely holiday! I hope to find another challenge group because I really enjoyed the stretching and creativity I got to both see and experience for myself.

Tinsel (plus, I'm melting!)

I finished both the 11th and 12th challenge on time, but didn't post since I was kinda booked with church and family and presents and children.

My tinsel mani was really cute when I finished it. A few hours later, my thumb paint seemed to buckle. Weird.

The base is a couple of coats of Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar, which is a really nice deep shimmery red. Then I put on a coat of Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat. It didn't feel smooth enough, so I put a couple of coats of SV on top. I assume that's why it buckled on my thumb.

As always, pics aren't great. I liked the sparkleflashmess though, so I left it in.

Elf-like!

I ended up spending 7 hours doing various church-related things today, so I'm too tired to be terribly clever. Tomorrow morning I'll do the last two manicures, and I'll be done with the challenge. I'm going to miss having the inspiration and fellowship of my challengers. I hope I can join another challenge group soon!

I google imaged a lot of Christmas elf pictures, and the main cohesive theme I saw was their stripey green and white tights, so I did a base of NOPI Lights Kim-era Action, and striped Kleancolor Green Grass. I have craft scissors that are zig-zagged and so I masked off my tips and painted them red with OPI The Spy Who Loved Me (which I love, and should get a full-size of soon, because it's such an interesting red). The zig-zags don't show well - my craft scissors have a wider zig than I really envisioned, and real pinking shears might have worked better. I used my NYC Matte Me Crazy topcoat, and I really liked the effect.

Still, I had multiple compliments from total strangers, although not one could guess I was aiming for an elf theme. Ah, well.

Go see what my other challengers did!

Half Wreath Moonicure!

So the big lesson I have learned from this manicure is that it's dumb to remove it after taking pictures but before checking that the pictures are any good. It's a good lesson.

I used Finger Paints Sketch n Etch as a base, and covered it with Nailtini Millionaire, which I got in my ipsy haul last month. It looked kind of fuzzy and festive, like I think a wreath should look. I used my hole reinforcers (you know why they cut them in half in tutorials? It's not because they're cheap -- hole reinforcers cost about a half a penny apiece -- it's because they bend up if you use the whole thing. Now you know!) to make a moonicure, and painted over the whole thing in Sinful Colors' Black on Black. Which is still my favorite black, even if it's cheap. It covered glitter smoothly in one coat. Dang. After I pulled off the reinforcers, I freehanded some bows in Orly Monroe's Red. The whole result was cute as a button.

So I snapped a few pictures (light box will likely come after Christmas, if I ever have money ever again) and they looked okay on my phone, so I removed the polish. I wanted to get a head start on the weekend manicures -- I have six church services to attend or perform in between Sunday and Monday, plus wrapping gifts, plus making food, plus not going insane, so being a few days ahead seemed like a good idea.

Yay for lessons! Sorry the pictures stink. I'll figure it out someday, I swear.

In the meantime, go see what everyone else did! I bet they have better photos!

Abstractly Ornamental

My original plan (is it just me, or do most of my posts seem to start this way? Maybe it's just me) was to do one beautiful ornament on each nail and detail it and ... maybe that will work next year. My original manicure was a mess and I wanted to actually show a success for the first time in a few attempts, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

I started with a couple of coats of white (I'm almost out! Time to try a new white!) and overlaid many, many (like....5 or 6 or 8 or 12....but probably 5) coats of OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air to have a glittery tree backdrop. I dotted on big dots of OPI Into the Night, Orly On the List and Monroe's Red, and Sally Girl Dumped. It looks like ornaments on a tree to me, and that's what counts, right? Right? :)

Also, when I was at Sally, I bought "acetone nail polish remover" instead of straight acetone, and while it smells pretty good, it doesn't work as well for cleaning up around my cuticles. I think I have to go back to acetone, at least for clean-up.

My fellow challengers did beautiful things! Go look!

Messy snowflakes!

Once again, my vision and the reality of my manicure had, let's call it, creative differences. Still, it turned out okay:

Strangely, I got a lot of compliments from total strangers, even though you have to squint to see the snowflakes underneath my mess of topcoat.

The base is Revlon Royal, and I used my dotting tool in Sally Hansen White On and NOPI Lights Kim-era Action to make snowflakes. I wanted more sparkle, so I decided to break out my new bottle of Color Club Covered In Diamonds, and it was jell-o thick and really clumpy. I put some thinner in after the manicure, so I'll try it again later. And use a very light hand.

Once again, I'm certain the others following the challenge had far prettier results. Go check them out!

Gifts

I'm having a hard time writing today. I planned to attempt to put bows on, but I ran out of steam.

I also managed to delete the notes I took on what colors are where. They include Orly Dazzle, Naughty Or Nice, and Shining Star, OPI Goldeneye and Live and Let Die, and China Glaze Ruby Pumps.

Hopefully the other challengers have more scintillating conversation:

A Christmas Story, and how fitting!

I have always loved A Christmas Story. The whole thing makes me giggle and snork and slap my leg laughing, every year. Maybe it helps put things into perspective -- you know that no matter how many things go awry in your holiday plans, no one stuck his tongue to a pole, or gave you a pink bunny suit, and your dinner is safe from marauding dogs.

In honor of this movie, my manicure is based on A Christmas Story. And it had about as many disasters as the movie.

I had a BRILLIANT IDEA. Truly revolutionary. I was going to turn the nail-blogging community on its HEAD. I had built it up as the most awesome thing EVER. In my head. I was going to decoupage. ON MY NAILS!

Guess what? The reason why no one decoupages paper onto their nails is because it doesn't really work. Even with the PVA base. It sticks up at the edges, the paper doesn't conform to the shape of the nail, and... it's annoying as all heck.

I figured this out about ten minutes after finishing the last coat and realizing that the Seche Vite on top was never going to dry, that the paper was never going to lay flat, and I snapped some pictures without bothering to clean up, the sooner to get it off.

Maybe I was doomed by picking that movie. I had some wrapping paper and thought I could go with the theme. The base is Sinful Colors' Sugar Sugar, the black is Black on Black, and the white in the broken glasses on my index finger is White On by Sally Hansen.

Ah, being humbled by my own lack of skill. It's good for the soul.

In the meantime, I'm certain the other challengers had far more success. Go check them out!

Frosty the poorly proportioned snowdude...

For this challenge, I looked for some snowman ideas, and I saw, and really liked, this one:

While I didn't have the exact same colors on hand, I think my version isn't bad...but I made his head too small to be able to fit on decent sized features, and there's no way a scarf will work since his mouth sorta covers his neck-al area.

The turquoise base is Sally Girl Dumped and the nose is Amped. The snowman and ground are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, the black is Sinful Colors Black on Black, the silver is Elle Dancing Queen, and the shimmery white is NOPI Lights, Kim-era, Action.

I got dotting tools (straight from scenic Guangzhou!) and used a bunch of them. Unfortunately, the biggest one fell out of the tool within 10 or so dots. I'm going to try to epoxy it back together. I'm pretty sure the epoxy will cost more than the entire set of tools did, including shipping. I know, I shoulda ordered from bornprettystore or ... not China, but we've been poor lately. Maybe Santa will bring me some cash. And I won't feel obligated to spend it on "bills" or "living indoors".

I can't wait to see what my fellow challengers did! Check it out here!

Candy Cane Lane

Because I believe in torturing myself, I keep finding more reasons to water marble. Since the chances of me figuring out the striping tape or making a shape that looked more like a candy cane than a sick worm were, let's just say, limited, I figured the water marble was my best shot at recognizable candy cane-itude. And then I realized that my shirt today is sorta candy-cane-esque, though it totally doesn't match reds.

The base is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On. I used Finger Paints Sketch n Etch and China Glaze Ruby Pumps, with more white between the dots. I'm getting better at this, but the only finger that really looks candy cane-y is the middle. By the way, double dipping leads to interesting, but not really pretty results, as is evidenced by my index finger. I also figured out how to get two fingers out of each marble, which feels less wasteful.

I did tape the heck out of my fingers, but oh, there was still a ton of clean-up. Here's my right hand, after tape removal, before acetone.

Go see what awesome candy canes my fellow challengers came up with!

Santa Claus is Comin' To Town

This one may be a ways towards the abominable side of the spectrum. I had a grand idea, and...well, it was executed. I'm so not good at straight lines.

For the 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge, the song I couldn't get out of my head was the Fred Astaire version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

You're very welcome.

So I started with a base of Finger Paints Cerulean Seascape with a couple of coats of Darling Diva Ringer (it's a lot like Fantasy Fire! Lovely!) that I'd been wearing for a couple of days. It looked suitably wintry-night-ish. On my thumb, I overlaid a few coats of Sally Hansen CSM Runway Red-y and made a belt out of Sinful Colors Black on Black and the weird Style Essentials Gold. On my index, ring, and pinkie, I made houses out of Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, L'oreal Park Ave Luncheon, and Sinful Colors' Savage, respectively. I added roofs in the gold, and dotted on windows and doors in black. My middle finger is supposedly Santa's beard -- it's a coat of Commander in Chic with White On saran-wrapped on top.

Does it look like a town? Like a beard? I think I have Santa's belly under control (though if it were black, it might look more like a pilgrim hat than a belted torso!)

It's a learning experience, and I'm having a ton of fun trying new things. I sometimes wish the actual results had any connection to what I'm picturing in my head, though!

Go see what the awesome things my fellow challengers did!

O Tannenbaum!

I joined a really neat 12 Manicures of Christmas challenge, and here is my attempt at the first challenge: Christmas Trees.

I started with a couple of coats of Sally Girl Epic, and added a top coat of Different Dimensions Inner Goddess to give all of my nails that blue snow-globe look. Next, I painted a brown tree trunk about 3/4 up my accent nail and let that dry, and threw on a triangle shape of tape.

Next, using the spun sugar technique, I added random strands of Kleancolor Jazz Olive, Mystic Grass, and TLC, and then put on Finger Paints Sketch N Etch for the dominant top color. I fished a star out of my Kawaii Nail Lacquer Sparkler for the top of the tree.

The overall effect seemed pretty organic to me, though it was impossible to photograph well. Here is the second-best photo I got of it:

I love the holo flakies in Inner Goddess, but it was a pain to remove -- I really needed the foil method or a PVA basecoat. I'll remember that in the future! All-in-all, it worked out okay. Go check out other challenge members' attempts!