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 7: Pattern

Today's nail art challenge was another pretty open-ended one.  There are tons of different patterns that one could apply to Halloween!  I opted to go for a witch sock-type pattern.

 

I love, love, love these chevron vinyls from KBShimmer.  They made this pattern so easy!  The purple I used is Sally Hansen CSM Trouble Maker, the green is Spoiled by Wet N' Wild Green To Be Heard, and the orange is the most absolutely perfect orange.  I've been searching high and low for a rusty orange creme for months, and all I've been able to find is either a metallic or far too bright/neon.  But FINALLY, OPI has come out with a lovely deep, rusty orange - It's A Piazza Cake, from their fall 2015 collection called Venice.  Finally, the black that I used is Nina Ultra Pro Black.

I've been making a point of watching Halloween-related things while doing these polish challenges.  While I did this design, I watched an episode of Psych called Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead - it's not strictly a Halloween-themed episode, but it's about a mummy, so that's close enough for me!

Here's the giveaway image for you.  Have you been participating in this challenge? or are you thinking about jumping in late?  Let me know in the comments!

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

Twisted Colors: Christmas polishes!

When I really like something, I have a hard time talking about it without sounding like a) I've been paid to advertise for it or b) I don't care about anything else.  So before I start this post, I wanted to say that I have not been paid to write this and that I do, in fact, really like other indie brands.

Twisted Colors is the very first indie brand that I tried.  I was immediately in love.  (See my first review of TC polishes here - one of my first posts!)  My first purchase was the Houses and Horcruxes collection, and then I waited (im)patiently for the We'll Take the Lot collection.  And, most recently, I purchased two of TC's Christmas polishes: All Spruced Up and Star of Wonder.

I was originally planning on buying Elf Vomit, as Denise had posted several pictures of it on her Facebook page and I was really digging it.  But I also really liked All Spruced up and Star of Wonder when I went to her shop, so I decided to go with those two instead.  Naturally I'd have loved to buy all three of them, especially with the Black Friday sale, but I'd just gotten some birthday money and wanted to spread it out.  After all, there were bunches of other Black Friday sales that I wanted to check out!

Then, to my surprise, Elf Vomit was in my package when it arrived!  Denise noticed how much I liked it on Facebook and was generous enough to throw it in when she saw that I didn't buy it.  It seriously brought a tear to my eye, I was so surprised and happy!

So without further ado, here are swatches of three of Twisted Colors' Christmas-themed polishes.

Star of Wonder

I was super surprised by Star of Wonder!  The photos on the website really don't to the holographic glitters justice.  This is much, much more reflective than it looks online - which is awesome!

Out of focus to show its true holographic beauty.

As usual with Twisted Colors, this is a glitter bomb.  Matte navy blue glitters, holographic navy blue glitters, and tiny holographic silver glitters all complement each other very nicely in a clear base.  It applies quite smoothly for a glitter bomb.  I had to do a little bit of dabbing, but for the most part this one spread nicely on the nail.

I have three coats over my bare nail, and two coats each on top of silver, navy blue, and white (Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver, Zoya Ryan, and China Glaze White on White).

All Spruced Up 

Holy crap, my nails are Christmas trees!!

All Spruced Up is super fun.  It's a little bit hard to work with, especially if you want a lot of the red circles and gold stars.  What I ended up doing was placing the bottle upside down for about 10 minutes before using it, then fishing the brush around for the larger glitters.  It was especially helpful to wipe most of the polish off of the brush, then catch a big red circle from inside the bottle neck.

 

I have three coats on my bare nail, then two coats each over green, silver, and white (Spoiled by Wet n' Wild Green to Be Heard, Hi Ho Silver, White on White).

Just... I just... wow!  Look at how packed with glitter that is, after only two coats!!  Super, super, super fun.

Elf Vomit 

Oh man.

I am just ridiculously happy that Denise threw this in for me.  It's so, so, so festive!  Like Alas, Earwax from We'll Take The Lot, the glitters have a tendency to spread across the nail with the brush - so I had to do a bit of dabbing to get even glitter coverage.

I have three coats over my bare nail, then two coats each over red, silver, and green (Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips, Hi Ho Silver, Green To Be Heard).  It's worth noting that it looks much better over red in person.  For whatever reason, my camera over-saturates red REALLY badly, which is really frustrating. 

Awesome, isn't it?  The perfect polish to add to your Christmas manicure for some fun, easy, festive bling!

What are your favorite Christmas-themed polishes?  Do you think I should be Twisted Colors' Official Spokesperson? ;) Let me know in the comments!

Nails for Yiayia

Catherine Hatzilias was an amazingly gifted woman.  She had an incredible singing voice.  Her garden was truly an Eden, a sanctuary, a paradise.  She was a devoted wife, loving mother, and an incredibly passionate Yiayia (grandmother).  She was also an amazing artist, her favorite medium being paint on canvas - or anything she could get her paints on.  She kept painting even after rheumatoid arthritis severely crippled her hands.

My mother once showed Catherine my nail art, which I'd posted on Facebook.  "Wow!  Katie, they look professional!" (If only you could hear that in her voice.  Such a sweet, melodic voice she had.)  I should paint these things on paper or canvas, she said, so I can frame them.  But my only painting skill is with polish - on paper, everything I do looks gloppy.  "Why not paint with nail polish on paper? So?"  Dear sweet Yiayia, she'd have done it if you handed her some polishes and a piece of paper.

(I told my mom to tell Yiayia that I want to paint her nails some time.  "Oh, ya! That's what my hands need! One nail goes up, one nail goes down. You better paint something I can put on the wall instead.")

So, when I heard of the death of Catherine, my Yiayia, my namesake, one of my first thoughts was that I needed to paint my nails for her.  Specifically, I wanted to paint them to match one of my favorite paintings of hers.  I have no idea how old this painting is - I just know that it's been on the wall in her house for as long as I can remember, and that I have always loved it.  

 This photo really doesn't do it justice.

Some nail artists that I've seen could probably get that wispy, watercolor look of the background onto their nails.  I probably could if I had several hours or even a whole day to work on it, but I had to sort of rush this nail art so I could fly from Maryland to Michigan for the funeral.  So I went with a simpler look: the wallpaper-y stripes that I've often seen in vintage rose nail art designs.  Pink on my left hand, and blue on my right.

 

My flowers look more like Yiayia's later paintings, when she could really only paint using dots due to her severe arthritis.  I'm totally okay with that.

I didn't feel that any of my pinks were the right shade, so I mixed Zoya Wendy with Julep Bunny and a bit of China Glaze Innocence.  The lighter stripes have extra white in them.

 

I didn't notice until editing these photos that I dinged my middle finger here.  

Which is surprising, because I wore this design for a whole week!

My blues felt like a better match, so I simply used Zoya Robyn and mixed in a little bit of Bunny for the stripes.

 

I did three different colored flowers: white with a pink center (I really meant to make them more red), using a mix of China Glaze White on White and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips; blue (Robyn and Bunny) with a darker center (Robyn); and pink (Wendy and Bunny) with a darker center (Wendy).  The leaves are Spoiled by Wet N Wild Green To Be Heard, lightened up with Bunny.

 

And the glitter nails have a thin layer of Nicole By OPI Heavenly Angel with a coat of Zoya Sparkle Gloss on top.  I actually kind of wish I hadn't used Heavenly Angel, because it didn't look as delicate as I'd thought it would, but oh well.  It still looked nice.

 Blue nails and blue flowers.

My mom was really proud of my nails, so she snapped all of these shots with my nails in front of the painting on her phone.

Pink and pink.

Painting these nails for Yiayia was both cathartic and nostalgic.  It brought me back to all the times I used to sit and paint with her.  I just wish I'd gotten the chance to paint something beautiful on her nails, rheumatism and all.