Harry Potter release party nail art!!!

OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS, THERE IS A NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK COMING OUT TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!

Okay, it's the script to a play, not a true novel like the rest of them, but IT'S HARRY POTTER AND IT'S WRITTEN BY JK ROWLING SO IT'S CANON SO AHH I'VE BEEN PEEING MY PANTS LIKE ALL WEEK.

My favorite local bookstore is having a midnight release party for which I am SUPER pumped.  I haven't missed a Potter midnight release since the fifth book came out (book #4 had a morning-of release party, a bit more kid-friendly).  There's going to be a costume contest and, thanks to the inspiration of my friend Joanna, I'll be dressing as a wizard masquerading as a muggle.  Or, I guess, a no-maj since we're in America.  But anyway I have a super silly outfit planned, parts of which came from the thrift store, and I decided to do my nails to not-really-match.

You've seen all of these polishes on the blog before: they're the Houses and Horcruxes and We'll Take the Lot collections by Twisted Colors (who has tragically stopped selling polish).  I debated only using the Houses and Horcruxes collection since they're more recognizably Harry Potter themed, but decided to use all 8 of my Potter polishes because how could I leave the others out? <3

Since these have all been featured on the blog before, I won't go into detail about their names or their coverage.  Follow the links above for more details on each specific polish!

I actually kinda messed up the order on my left hand!  I meant to paint them on in the order of which House I most relate to: Ravenclaw (that's where I've been sorted on Pottermore), Hufflepuff (where I always kinda felt I'd end up when I was a kid), Gryffindor, Slytherin.  But I accidentally reached for The Sword before The Cup so there we go.

On my thumbs, I painted Deathly Hallows symbols over white with Fairy Dust because holo sparkles = magic.

This part of the manicure totally doesn't show up on camera, but I used a scented top coat by Dream Polish so that my nails could smell MAGICAL!  One Good Jump on my right pointer finger is chocolate scented, so that is also magical and just makes me smell delicious as I sit around.

It's super fitting that this midnight release is happening so close to my blogiversary, because I got to look back at my old photos and sort of see how far I've come.  I first swatched them all in my first year of blogging, and while the photos look fine, it's nice to have a redo with my new lighting setup and macro lens.  So I'm going to force extra photos down your throat, including some of the old ones.

This is, to this day, one of my favorite nail polish photos I've ever taken.  And it was only in my fifth-ever post!  I just love the depth of field on it, and the way I have my fingers positioned against the bottle.  This was long before I had a soft box for my lighting, so the glare is super harsh.  I don't even think I was wrapping a white pillow case around my LED lamp at this point! :D

Back in the day, my idea of a macro shot was to take a picture with the best focus possible and crop it tightly to one nail.  It technically worked, but it certainly doesn't capture the depth of a polish the way an actual macro lens does!

Oh yes, it's time for a storm of macros.  Here we go...

My macro lens isn't perfect - it is so very macro that I have to hold it about 1-2 cm away from my nail, and its depth of field is so narrow that I often struggle to get a good plane of focus on my very curvy nails.  Still, it clips on to my cell phone's camera and it only cost like $15 on Amazon, so it's pretty decent.  And it definitely has more of a true macro look than simply cropping a regular photo!

The silver glitters in The Locket are holographic, which you can especially see when you look at the ones in the bottle.  LOL I CALLED THEM "SHINY" IN MY ORIGINAL POST DID I NOT EVEN KNOW THE WORD "HOLO" YET?

 

That "perfectly stacked 90 degree angle" hand pose was so uncomfortable for me.  I almost feel like you can see the discomfort in the photos.  My current slanted hand pose is so much more relaxed and natural-looking for me.  Back then, I was trying to emulate some other bloggers' poses, but eventually I learned that I had to find what was comfortable for me, because when a hand pose feels better, it looks better.  And, doesn't my watermark look so much better wrapped around my middle finger's cuticle than crammed randomly between whichever two nails?

Well, that's enough reminiscing for now.  I may or may not do some more looking back and re-creations over the next week or two, who knows?  In the meantime, be sure to enter my blogiversary giveaway first thing on Monday!  And please, no calls on Sunday.  I'll be reading some new Harry Potter content all day <3

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!

October nail art challenge Day 13: Ghosts

Last year's Halloween challenge also had a day of ghosts, and to be totally honest I didn't do much different this year.  But that's okay because ghosts!

I did use some new polishes this year, thanks to the Monster Mash-themed Mani of the Month box that I got last month.  Heather's Hues Witches & Werewolves & Ghosts, Oh My! is the embodiment of Halloween: a black background with purple, green, and orange glitters.  And Proper Polish Dr. Franken-sparkle is another awesome Halloween glitter polish with its assortment of different shaped glitters.

You might recognize the third ghostly background as Twisted Colors P.S. I Enjoy Acid Pops.  I used that one as a background on my entire left hand last year.  It's the perfect toxic-green for Halloween!  I guess its green pigmentation is extra strong, because the green shows through and turned my ghosts on those nails greenish themselves.

I did spice things up a little bit this year by using some water decals from Naildrobe.  I love all of the Halloween decals I got this year!  Don't worry, you'll definitely be seeing the rest of the designs throughout the rest of this challenge. ;)

The white and black that I used for the hand-painted ghosts are Salon Perfect Sugar Cube and Nina Ultra Pro Black, respectively.  This design was pretty simple but a lot of fun - especially since I got to use such awesome background colors for my ghosties!

As always, here's the giveaway image.  The month may be almost half over, but it's never too late to join in the fun!  Have you been participating in this challenge?  Let me know in the comments!

Update 10/14!

HOLD THE PHONE.  Dr. Frankensparkle GLOWS IN THE DARK.  Whaaaat!

I noticed this when I went to bed last night, and there was an odd glowing coming from some of my nails.  You can even almost make out the outline of the ghosts on two of my nails, since the ghost decals are on a clear background!  So cool!!!

(The ghost nails in question are the two at the bottom left.)

I even woke up in the middle of the night for whatever reason and found my nails still glowing.  How is that even possible?!  Thanks, Proper Polish, for giving me a super fun surprise! :D

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