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!

Happy Halloween!

I've seen a lot of great mummy manicures, and I've seen the fantastic spun sugar manicures (XOXOAlexisLeigh does a fantastic one here!), but I haven't seen anyone try to combine the two. (That doesn't mean no one has, just that I haven't seen it done in the many many blogs I follow).

So here it is. I did My First Ruffian (without actually referring to pictures I've seen before, so maybe it's more like a framed mani. My next ruffian won't have the underwear showing on the sides) and kept my left ring finger un-ruffianed for the art.

So on the bottom, we have Sinful Colors' Black on Black, then two coats of Sally Hansen CSM's Commander in Chic. On my ring finger, I put on two coats of the black, and then mixed 3 drops of Commander in Chic with 5 drops of White On to make a lighter, more bandage-y color. I taped my finger to avoid some mess, and taped off an area for the mummy's eyes, and mixed and stirred and mixed the combo color, for a long time. It was probably 5 minutes or so, before it got gummy enough to become stringy.

I followed the spun sugar manicure directions and it really, actually...worked! Amazing! Success isn't my normal outcome with these experiments.

I dotted on eyeballs and pupils, and I let the whole thing dry for about an hour, and then put on a topcoat of SV, which ended up ruining some of the definition of the strands, but I'm overall happy with my effort.

Happy Halloween!

Inspired Leopard Print!

I was totally inspired last night by another blogger's awesome leopard print mani, here, so I had to try it myself.

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen's CSM Commander in Chic, dabbed on bright pink spots -- Circus by Andrea's Choice's Ringmaster, and poorly outlined them with Sinful Color's Black On Black, adding some extra marks and dots. I should have been less assiduous in outlining the spots -- it would have looked better with a little less.

I really like the colors together, and I keep staring at it. Early reviews from my husband sitting 3 feet away are that it just looks like splotches, but I think it looks pretty leopard-y. I like it, at any rate.

I'm going to do some serious cuticle work later tonight, though. I didn't think they looked so bad until I saw this picture!