Winter Break Nail Art

I was super busy over the holidays!  Derek's parents came to visit us in mid-December, and we went to the Poconos for a week.  They were with us for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, as were Derek's brother and his girlfriend.  Six of us in one apartment sure was crowded, especially for a whole week!  Derek's parents stayed with us until halfway through the first week of January.  And then two days later, Derek and I headed out for Jamaica for his former roommate's wedding!  It. was. incredible.  We stayed at the Half Moon Resort in Montego Bay, and it was absolutely paradise.  A week after we got back, my best friend since 8th grade came to visit us for a few days!  So, basically, I was in vacation mode from mid-December to mid-January.  It was a lot of fun but honestly kind of exhausting - I'm really happy to be back on my regular schedule.

Despite all of the awesome things I did throughout the month, I still had time to do my nails several times, plus Maddie's and Allison's.  Rather than spread everything out over the course of several posts, I figured I would just dump the month's nail art into one post.  Get ready, there are a LOT of pictures ahead!

First up is my first Christmas-themed manicure, which I did in the first week of December (I think. it's been a while.)  I used Zoya's Naked system to clean up the color of my nails and brighten my white tips, then painted on stripes using Spoiled by Wet n'Wild Show Me the Money, OPI Wocka Wocka, and OPI My Voice is a Little Norse.

This look was inspired by Juli of Juli's Nails and Co.  Her original post can be found here.  I loved her design so much that I had to recreate it using Christmas colors!

Right before we left for the Poconos, I once again recreated my favorite winter wonderland scene.  Only this time, I used a different color for the background: Julep Margaret.  The white is Salon Perfect Sugar Cube, and the glitter flakes are once again Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel.  I also threw a coat of Nicole by OPI Confetti Fun on my middle finger, because more glitter = more fun!

Since we were in the Poconos for a whole week, I of course wanted to redo my nails.  We were planning on going to see the new Star Wars movie while we were there, so I did a sort of abstract representation of the Force: Dark Side/Light Side.  For this look, I used Gothic Gala Lacquers The Search For Spock, Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver, and China Glaze Fairy Dust.

I kept the Force look on for as long as possible, but sadly we didn't end up going to see the movie.  On Christmas Eve, I did both my nails and Maddie's for Christmas!

My middle finger nail was inspired by one of the Christmas ornaments that I made!  I used Sugar Cube as a background and topped it with Twisted Colors Elf Vomit and some Fairy Dust.  I also used Gothic Gala Make It So and It's Green, Sir. 

The overall idea for this look was vaguely inspired by an old mani made by 3girlsnails on Instagram.  I actually can't find a link to the original post because I can't find 3girlsnails anymore!  I've had a screenshot of her mani on my phone since last May, and this user must have changed her IG handle or something.  If anybody knows what she calls herself now (or if she has disappeared from the nail art community), please let me know! 

Maddie wanted a very similar look for Christmas, although she didn't want the glitter accent.  I used the same colors on her as I did for my own Christmas nails - after all, I only had a small assortment of polishes with me on vacation!  One difference I made for Maddie was that I used a thin layer of CDB Lacquer Spirited underneath the red and green to make the holographic features of the colors pop a little better.

Maddie and James have a pretty big group of friends who live quite close to us near DC, so we all went to party with them on New Year's Eve!  I wanted to have another chance to wear my gorgeous flapper dress that I won from Unique Vintage, so I asked Maddie to glam it up with me.  Only this time, I did my makeup and nails in a more modern fashion! 

I went for a glitzy gray-to-blue metallic gradient on my nails.  The blue is actually a thermal nail polish, but I think because of the gradient you couldn't really tell.  Either that, or because it's winter my nails were just constantly super cold ;)  I sponged CDB Lacquer Angelic Demon and He Sees All on top of Zoya Ryan.  The two CDB Lacquers are from the Apocalypse Averted collection, which I own in its entirety and will eventually get around to swatching!  And because I was feeling glitzy, I put two little star studs on my pointer and ring finger nails.

The main reason we didn't get around to seeing The Force Awakens is because Maddie had never seen the original movies, and she wanted to see them first.  We did manage to watch the three films over the course of the two weeks that we spent together, but unfortunately we didn't see Episode VI until their last day with us.  So after they left, Derek and I FINALLY got to go see the new one together!  (I solemnly swear to see the next two episodes on opening weekend.  Waiting three weeks to see this one was agony for me!) 

I of course wore my Han Solo dress from Hot Topic.  And I figured that if Han Solo was a girl (Hanna Solo?), she would totally paint her nails to match her favorite outfit.  So I did just that!

I used Zoya Demetria and Ling, and Salon Perfect Oil Slick and Sugar Cube.

I was quite proud of the vests I painted on my thumbs. :3

Naturally, I did paint my nails to match my dress that I wore for the wedding in Jamaica, but I didn't take any pictures of the look.  It was a very simple mani - Zoya Zuza with an accent nail of China Glaze I Brake For Colour.  Since I've swatched both of those polishes on the blog already, I didn't really feel like taking photos of it for the blog.

Allison's nails were something new for me!  Her nails are usually very short, but she got some acrylic tips put on right before she came to visit us.  I've never painted acrylics before, nor such pointy stilettos!  There were a lot of exciting things I would have liked to do, but Allison prefers a more simple look, so we went with a black and silver French manicure using Oil Slick and Hi Ho Silver.

 I like interlacing fingers with someone when I do our nails together:

Ugh, please ignore the giant ugly cut on my knuckle.  There will be more details on my pink nails next week!

What do you think of all of this nail art?  Which look is your favorite?  What kinds of holiday designs did you wear during the holidays?

Christmas Crafting: Nail Polish Ornaments

Got any nail polishes that you love the look of but never wear and don't want to get rid of?  Do you own any Mentality nail polish that you don't feel safe wearing?  Or are you like me, and have a ton of polish and want to actually use some of it up?  Then I've got a craft that I think you'll enjoy!

 

I got this idea from Elizabeth of My World Sparkles Lacquers.  At first I was a little weary to dump out significant amounts of polish at a time, but then I was like "oh please, look at how many bottles of nail polish you have! Do iiiit."  So I bought a 12-pack of small glass ornaments from JoAnn Fabrics (I assume you can find these at most craft stores and pretty much anywhere with a good selection of ornaments) and decked them out!

Elizabeth used much bigger ornaments, so she set hers up on top of open mason jars while they dried.  Since the ornaments that I bought are so small (probably about 1.5" in diameter), I propped mine up on top of opened lotion bottles and their caps.

The process was simple, though a bit lengthy:

1. Pour polish into bulb

2. Swirl polish around, coating entire interior

3. Pour out immediate excess (back into polish bottle - no need to waste yet!)

4. Set ornament tilted downwards, so that no polish will drip out, and allow excess to gather

5. Pour out excess polish (at this point, it's probably thickened enough that you won't want to put it back into the bottle.  I laid out paper towels and newspaper.)

6. Set ornament upright

7. Repeat steps 4-5 if necessary

8. Set ornament upside down and allow to drip out. (Keep an eye on it, though - I let too much polish drip out of one of them and it ended up less opaque than I wanted it!)  Elizabeth put paper towels into her mason jars for this step, but I didn't really want to clean out all of my lotion bottles.  What I ended up doing was only dripping out one ornament at a time into an empty water bottle.

9. Add a second coat if necessary, and repeat steps 1-8 (but don't pour the excess back into the bottle in step 3 if you're using a different color!)

When layering different polishes in these, be sure to do it in the opposite order of painting your nails!  Apply glitters/toppers first, then the base color.

Since I was doing so many of these, I usually started the next ornament after step 3 of the previous one.  It was so much fun!  My dining room was filled with lots of odd scents between the opened lotion bottles and all of the nail polish!  Not exactly the smell I'm used to when decorating for Christmas. :)

Here's a video tutorial of my process:

 

I'm so excited to hang these on our tree this year!  Since we don't have a tree yet (it's in the mail!), I used a bobby pin and my regular light box to take photos of my lovely new ornaments.  Pretty crafty, eh?

Sinful Colors Twilight Twinkles and Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver

I actually bought Twilight Twinkles specifically for this craft!  I'd hoped that I would use most of it up, but there's still plenty left.  These small ornaments probably only use about 1/4-1/3 of a full-sized bottle of polish.  If you really want to use up a whole bottle of polish, either get bigger ornaments or do multiple ornaments in the same color!

Twisted Colors Elf Vomit and China Glaze White on White

I was hesitant to use Twisted Colors polishes in these ornaments, because sadly Twisted Colors has closed their shop, possibly forever.  But the three Christmas polishes that I got last year are just so perfect for these that I decided to sacrifice some future manis.

Jior Couture Son of a Nutcracker

Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel and Zoya Mosheen

I considered adding a white background to this one, but I rather like it clear!  Hopefully I can place it strategically in front of a light bulb on the tree so the light can sparkle through.

Ellagee Jeweled Egg Hunt

Okay, I'm going to need to swatch this one soon.  It's amAzing.  All that density is in only two coats!  I'm sure that on the nail, one coat would be almost completely opaque.

Wet n Wild Rockin' Rubies and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips

Youch, my phone really messed this one up.  It's nowhere near this neon red in person - and it's actually quite sparkly!  But cameras hate the color red, as I've learned quite well over the past year.

Twisted Colors All Spruced Up and Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard

I mean, how could I NOT use this one for an ornament?!  It's so perfect!

Wet n Wild Back Alley Deals and Sally Hansen CSM Blue My Mind

This is the one that I accidentally let too much polish drip out of.  Oops!  I still like it.

Wet n Wild Diamond in the Rough and Hi Ho Silver

The Wet n Wild polish is actually pretty black, but even two coats of it was super sheer in the ornament.  I chose to use a silver background because I figured black would be a bit too dark for a Christmas ornament!  (As in, literally too dark.  Not that I think black is too depressing or whatever.)

Twisted Colors Star of Wonder and Essie Style Cartel

Unghhh. So pretty!  It's much darker and more sparkly in person, but as always, dark colors + camera = bleh.

 

Jior Couture Means a Little Bit More and 

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish Please Have Snow and Mistletoe

I couldn't decide which of these glitters I'd prefer to use, so I mixed them!  I really like the glitter ornaments that I didn't add a background color to.  They look like snowglobes!

Wet n Wild 24 Carats

The little flakes don't show up so well in this shot, but this polish has some gorgeous red flakies in it!  It's super gorgeous and very Christmasy.

Have you ever done anything like this?  What are your favorite Christmas/holiday decorations?  Let me know in the comments!

Jior Couture: Part of the Merry Movie Collection (retiring soon!)

I'm super excited about this post, because for the first time since I started blogging, I received these polishes at a highly discounted price in exchange for swatches and a review!  So, to start off, let me promise you that I did not promise to say anything in particular; all of the words and opinions you'll read here are 100% my own and are influenced only by the polish itself, not the low price I paid for it.

These polishes are all from Jior Couture's Christmas 2014 collection, and each one is inspired by a different Christmas movie.  The colors are very versatile - they don't scream "Christmas on my nails" the way you might expect.  Which is awesome because, as much as I love a super-Christmasy polish, I like to feel like I can wear my polishes at any time of year and not feel out-of-season.

Believing Is Seeing

Believing Is Seeing is inspired by the movie "The Santa Clause," which I've actually never seen.  And even though this soft pink crelly is a Christmas polish, it really looks to me more like a spring polish!

A beautiful delicate pink crelly with several different colors and sizes of glitter, Believing Is Seeing really surprised me.  Pink is simply not my favorite polish color, and I've never seen a pink polish that made me go, "Ooh, I need that!" the way most blue polishes do.  So I wasn't really expecting to be terribly impressed by this polish, but wow, it is gorgeous!  I love the subtle, delicate shimmer in the base (which is much more visible in the flash photo).  And even though the glitters look pretty dense in the bottle, they come out pretty sparse onto the nail.  I suppose that could be a negative thing for some, but I liked the delicate effect of fewer glitters.  More "Oh, what a pretty polish, and look, it has some glitter in it!" and less "Ooh, what a dense glitterbomb!"

As far as application goes, Believing Is Seeing is really great.  It's very smooth, and the glitters don't cling to the brush or wipe off the nail.  It is very sheer, though, so if you don't want to see the line of the whites of your nail, I highly recommend using a base of white or a similar shade of pink.  Otherwise, you might need to build up to 4 or 5 coats; I stopped at 2 on my first two fingers, and went up to 3 coats on my ring and pinky fingers.  Three coats is opaque enough that from a distance you can't really see the whites of my nails, but up close and in the photos it's still sort of visible.

I recently got a macro lens for my phone's camera!  I haven't quite mastered the macro nail shot the way 

The Mercurial Magpie has, but in-the-bottle shots are pretty easy, so feast your eyes!

Son of a Nutcracker

Son of a Nutcracker is inspired by the movie Elf.  It's a really fun glitter polish in a pinkish-red jelly base.

 

I was actually really surprised at the opacity of this polish - two coats was pretty opaque!  I built up to three coats on my pointer and middle fingers, but left it at two on my ring and pinky fingers.

Application was pretty nice, but in order to get a nice distribution of glitter I did have to dab a little bit.  And I was slightly disappointed at how hard it was to grab those big white hex glitters - there are so many in the bottle, yet I could barely get them onto my nail.  But all the rest of the glitters went from the brush to my nails quite easily.

There's an incredibly subtle shimmer in the base of this polish - so subtle that it definitely doesn't show up in my camera even in macro mode, but if you look really closely in person, it's there!  I think subtle shimmers are one of my favorite features in nail polish.

Means A Little Bit More

Means A Little Bit More is inspired by the movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  (The cartoon or the live-action version?  I'm not sure, but either way this polish nails it!)  Of these three polishes, it's definitely the most Christmas-y, but I still think it would look nice in a mani any time of year!

Its green jelly base is very sheer.  If you want complete opacity, you'd probably need at least 5 coats of this one - or just use a base color.  I have three coats over naked nails here and, although my nails are tragically short after a ghastly break, you can still juuust make out a little bit of the whites of my nails at the tips.  The break that I suffered led me to cut my nails down so short that there's barely any whites left - and on my middle finger, one side broke so far down that I wasn't able to cut it into an even shape.  It was heartbreaking :(

Anyway, the polish!  I absolutely loved this one.  Application was super, super smooth - the glitters landed where I wanted them to and stayed in place, and it was nice and easy to get a good distribution of every size and color of glitter!  Pink, blue, red, silver, they're all there looking super festive and pretty.  I really like the sizes of these glitters - I think smaller glitters apply easier and look a bit better on my nails.  That's not to say that I completely dislike larger glitters - you all know that I love a good crazy glitterbomb! - but sometimes it's refreshing to use a, for lack of better word, simpler glitter polish.

 

So, that's it for this post.  These polishes are all available for purchase at jiorcouture.com, and they're on sale because they're going to be retiring this week!  If you're interested, hurry over to the shop!  There are three other great-looking polishes in this collection.

What are your favorite Christmas polishes?  Do you ever miss pairing traditional Christmas colors together throughout the spring and summer?  Let me know in the comments!

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish: Christmas polishes

Have you ever felt that sometimes, the best gifts are ones that you've picked out?  Plenty of times the surprise of something unexpected is awesome, but there are also times when you want three specific nail polishes and really nothing else.

That's how my Christmas went this year.  I even went so far as to order the polishes myself, because I wanted to choose the gift wrapping that Creative Cuticles Nail Polish was offering around Christmas.  (For the record, Derek was super happy with this.  He insists that he's bad at choosing out gifts and reminded me of the one time he did, how badly wrapped it was.  So I took the guesswork and the manual labor out for him!)

The names of these polishes may be out of season, but I think the colors are just dandy for any time of year!

One quick note before I get to the swatches: I recently got a new phone, and discovered that the camera in it is pretty much as good as my bulky old camera.  All of the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  I want your advice!  Do you think the picture quality here is any better or worse than my previous photos?  Do you like them better with or without flash?  Please let me know in the comments!

Who Wants Eggnog?

Let me just say how hard it was to not drink this nail polish.  That's how much this looks like eggnog!  It's so convincing that I even swore I could smell eggnog for a few seconds.

Who Wants Eggnog is a cream-colored creme polish leaning slightly towards crelly, with some brassy beige-toned glitters representing flakes of nutmeg.  Two coats yields solid coverage, and I actually stayed with two this time!  I felt that three coats would have too much glitter to look as perfectly like eggnog - or at least the way I drink it.  If you like tons of nutmeg in your nog, then three coats might look better to you! :)

Application was perfectly wonderful.  The formula is really easy to work with, not too thick or thin, and the glitters apply easily.  I had to dab just a tiny bit because I was being picky about the placement of the glitters, but they won't wipe completely off the nail if you swipe it on.

  

Please Have Snow and Mistletoe

Please Have Snow and Mistletoe is a super fun glitter topper.  It's festive, but I don't think it's super Christmasy; I'd totally wear this any time I'm celebrating, no matter the occasion or time of year!

From pointer to pinkie, I have one to four coats over bare nails.  I think I would like this best using two coats over a fun creme or metallic polish, but it does still look great loaded onto bare nails!  The base is ever-so-slightly green tinted, but you can't really see it until you build up to three or more coats.  (My nails are embarrassingly yellowed at the tips.  Please excuse this atrocity and don't confuse my discoloration for an odd base color in the polish!)

Application of Snow and Mistletoe was pretty standard for a glitter topper: a bit of dabbing was required, but since the glitters are all relatively the same size, it wasn't too frustrating.  I generally have to do a lot more dabbing when there are glitters of many sizes, especially for the bigger glitters.

Macro at three coats.

Ugly Christmas Jumper

This one caught my eye because it's inspired by Molly Weasley's Christmas sweaters that she always knits in the Harry Potter series.  How could I not want this polish?

Ugly Christmas Jumper is pretty festive, but again, I don't think it's 100% Christmasy!  The base is slightly tinted yellow, but you can't really tell until you build up to three or more coats.  (This time, I have one to four coats from my pinky to pointer.)  Again, my nails are super yellow starting about halfway up, so the polish looks way more yellow than it actually is.  Does anybody know how to prevent yellowing nails from constant polish use? :(

Application on this one was a little bit tricky.  Since most of the glitters are so big, I had to do a lot of dabbing.  And, while there are plenty of the red hearts in the bottle, I just could not get them onto the brush, let alone onto my nails!  It took me a few minutes just to fish out the one that I got on my pointer finger.  Like Snow and Mistletoe, I would personally like this best with two coats over a creme or metallic.

Macro at three coats.

Which one of these is your favorite?  And do you think the new camera quality stands up to my old one?  Please let me know in the comments!

P.S. I just have to say how much I adore CCNP's label.  Penguins are my favorite animal and these little guys are so precious!!

ALL the Christmas Nail Arts!!!

I spent a lot of time this month NOT painting my nails.  But there were TONS of Christmas-themed nail art designs that I wanted to try out, so I decided to do ALL of them on my nails at once! :D

I used ALL the colors for this, and rather than describe them in order of appearance, I'll just list them all at the bottom of this post (which is going to be pretty photo-heavy).

Here's my left hand:

And my left thumb, because I was too proud of it to only show it at the horrible angle above:

 

I took inspiration from a few different sources for this nail art.  The Christmas tree and Santa coat are from this awesome nail art compliation off of FabArtDIY.com.  The Santa corset was inspired by Instagram user arita888.

On my right hand:

Okay, this did not go as I had planned.  The Santa hat (also inspired by the FabArtDIY list) turned out awesome, but my cable knit sweaters... Not so much.  I got the idea from this image, and found this YouTube tutorial on how to do it with gel polish.  What I actually used was 3D fabric paint on top of one coat of normal polish, then one coat of polish on top of that.  I think the technique was good, but the execution was ah... less than good.  It ended up looking far less delicate and much more messy than I'd been hoping.

And then, since I used my glue basecoat, my pointer finger design ended up falling off very quickly.  So I redid it with a different pattern:

This one turned out messy too, because I'm not so great at stamping.  It was perfect in my head: red, green, and silver snowflakes stamped over white and then matte-d for wrapping paper, and then a very sparkly purple ribbon.  The overall design was inspired by Instagram user anas_manis.

By the way - do you recognize the pattern on my left ring finger?  Like, REALLY recognize it?  I did that same design on my nails last Christmas!  Here's the original, complete with my super-short, pre-Biotin nails:

I loved this design so much that I decided to redo it this year.  It's a simple enough design that there isn't too much obvious skill improvement between the years, but it's always nice to have a visual reminder of how much nicer my nails are now. :)

Aaaand I absolutely adore my tiny little Christmas tree, so I decided to show off my nails in front of it. :D

 

This nail art took me a whomping three and a half hours and 18 nail polishes.  WOW.  But it was tons of fun, and I watched such Christmas classics as The Muppets Christmas Carol and American Horror Story while doing this! ;) 

Sigh.  My right thumb, middle, AND ring finger nail designs all fell off too, so I had to redo them!  I liked the Santa hat so much that I kept that design, but I decided against redoing the sweater designs and instead chose two more Christmasy patterns: a Santa face and a penguin!

 

 The Santa face turned out pretty nicely, though his eyes smeared a little when I put on my top coat.  And sorry about my messy cuticles - I was too excited to take these last two pictures to bother waiting until my cuticles were clean!

This penguin...  Poor little guy.  His right eye was a little bit lopsided, so I tried to even it out by making it a little bigger.  But instead, my hand slipped and now he's a mutant penguin with two and a half eyes.  I can't stop laughing every time I look at him. :) :(

Which design is your favorite?  Is there another Christmas/winter design that you love doing?  Let me know in the comments!  And Merry Christmas Eve :D 

As promised, here's a list of everything that I used for this:
Zoya Trixie
China Glaze Innocence
China Glaze White on White
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips
Sally Hansen White striper
Twisted Colors All Spruced Up
Zoya Nyssa
Zoya Ziv
OPI How Great Is Your Dane
OPI An Affair In Red Square
Essie Bikini So Teeny
Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel
Heather's Hues Santa Baby
Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard
Julep Bunny
Zoya Haven

Zoya Posh

Nina Ultra Pro Black

Finger Paints Master Muse
Cheeky Beauty Jumbo Plate 10
Scribbles 3D Fabric Paint in White
ULTA Sweet&Shimmer studs