Happy New Years My Lovely Ladies!

This is just a quick post for New Years. This is my manicure for tonight, it's also my first time doing glitter placement like this.

China Glaze Diva Bride is my base, for stamping I used Quo By Orly Magnetic Attraction and the plate is BM-H14 from the Bundle Monster Holiday Collection. The Glitter is from OPI I Snow You Love Me.

Cheers to a new year, and all the love, happiness and joy we can imagine!

Current Nail Care

I know we all wonder what others are using to promote stronger, longer and healthier nails and what works for others. Well I decided to show you all what's currently working for me.

This is a glass file I use for shaping and I picked this up at my grocery store as well.

These are the two cuticle creams I use right now. I use these morning and evening, as well as when I'm washing frequently. Lemony Flutter and Burt's Bees Cuticle Balm.

 These are my current lotions. I find with moisturizers you need to use what works for you and change it up frequently. The Macadamia oil one is from Sally, and the other is just a cheap glycerin based one from my grocery store. Glycerin has really made a difference in the dryness of my hands with the weather change here in Ontario.

I bought this nail hardener from Sally Hansen and it really has made a huge difference in the strength of my nails. Before they were always peeling and grew very little. Now I've grown off most of the old damage and am be to get some length.

Lastly is my current cuticle clean up brush. This one has been fab for getting the area around my cuticles to have that clean line. This was just a lip liner brush from the dollar store.

Cheers all,

Nicole By OPI My Cherry Amour Swatch

This was my first time swatching a texture polish. I'm not sure what I expected formula wise, but I didn't expect them to be so easy to work with.

This is two coats. There was no clumping or dragging or anything negative in my opinion. The colour of this is like a lovely raspberry colour to me. More raspberry than cherry as the name suggests.

Two bottle shots today, because these showed the texture so nicely!
Have a glittering good day!

China Glaze When Stars Collide and Cult Nails Blaze!

This is a simple one. I was jonesing for some sparkling/holo goodness, and this was what I came up with. China Glaze When Stars Collide with an accent finger in Cult Nails Blaze.

Most of these pictures were taken outside so I could show you the great holo fire that the sun brings on. Let me know below, what's your favorite all time holo?

Cheers all,

Christmas Trees and Freestyle!

I've been a bad blogger, and missed posting this first manicure, Christmas Trees. I have to be quick, due to all the holiday goodness going on around here, but if you want more info just ask below.

Below is Freestyle Christmas mani. I used this prompt as an excuse to do something untraditional in traditional colours. I'm thinking its not my fave, but its kinda pretty!

Cheers and Merry Christmas all! Check out the links below for all the other ladies hard work

Santa Nail Art

This is my Santa Manicure for the challenge, and it's also the third last in the list. We have Christmas Trees and Freestyle Christmas left, which I'm going to take as do what you want! Any requests ladies? 

Base colours for this were the Sally Girl Red Glitter pictured on thumb and pinkie as well as Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene for Santa and Sally Hansen White on for the ring finger and Sally Hansen Rapid red for the pointer and hat. Phew! 

For dotting I used the White on again as well as Rapid Red and Sally Hansen Silver Sweep on the glitter fingers. The cold pink nose was a mix of Rapid Red and White on and the eyes were China Glaze Liquid Leather. I decided to go all polish today since I got off easy on the last one with all acrylic!

These last two are sunlight. Hope you guys enjoyed these, I did and even did my Cinderella hand to match! Don't know if anyone noticed, but I had to cut them all off, three breaks...I blame winter!

Cheers all,

 

Snowman Nail Art

First of all, uck I know! Night time pictures are the worst, but I was wrapping presents all day and wanted to get these up for the challenge. The prompt is snowman today, so here is our little friend Frosty! The Base is Sally Hansen Greige Gardens, and the rest is acrylic today. After that matte coat! I wanted that crayon like finish you get with nail art matted.

This last is in sunlight in the backyard over the snow...well a bit of sun anyway. In my defence, this was taken at 4:00. It gets dark heck-a-early now in Ontario.

Cheers all,

Here is the Inlinkz for all the handsome snowmen!

Holly...again!

So these are my official Holly nails. I jumped the gun on the last set I did for Christmas colours, but that's what you get for not rereading the prompts. So I had to come up with something different. Why not purple right?

This gorgeous glitter is Laquerlicious Hug-a-Bull. This is three thin coats as this is a thicker polish that needs more massaging, but the beautiful glitter mix and payoff was worth a little more effort.

Sorry for some of these pics being slightly blurry, really difficult polish to photograph in sunlight and light box!

Hope you liked this smaller version of my Holly Manicure.
Here is the Inlinkz below for all the lovelies who worked on Holly Manicures!

Cheers all,

 

Christmas Clarice Nail art

You know Dasher and Danser and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, but do you recall there were girl reindeer after all! Clarice was my favourite reindeer!

This lovely Indie is a polish called We Can Pickle That by Black Cat Lacquer. This was two very easy coats. On the accent nail my base was Sally Hansen White On. Then I created a gradient with Pure Ice Heartbreaker and Orly Green with Envy. I used a beige I made myself for the fur, then China Glaze Ingrid for the eye and nose. The bow and mouth is Sally Hansen Rapid Red. I added bronze, black and white acrylic for detail and then topcoat for the whole thing!

That's it. She's not my fave freehand work ever, but still very cute! Maybe I'll redo her next year for comparison purposes.

Here is the Inlinkz below to see everyone elses hard work!

Cheers all,

Holiday Decorations

So this design is based on a fave decoration of mine as a child during the holiday season. It was a  mini candle holder with a spinning fan thingy on top. The heat from the candles caused the fan paddles to spin. The base was like a small Christmas wreath. If you've ever seen National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, the Griswald's have one in the movie.

I didn't know how to translate the fan part, so I focused on the candle portion. My base colour is Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene topped with Color Club Pear-Spective.  I have to tell you I adored this combo and want to use it again soon. It gave me a new perspective on how pretty nude can be.

I used black acrylic to go in and make a base outline, then I went over the leaf area with Nicole by OPI Daffy Dill and Orly Green With Envy on opposing sides for a 3D effect. I dotted on Sally Girl Christmas Red Glitter for the berries. The candle was white acrylic with the Sally Girl red, the flames Sally Hansen Lite and the red again.

 

These were festive, simple and I think kind of romantic.

Cheers all,

Ring the bells of the holiday season!

This post is for the bells theme in the holiday challenge.

I started with a base of two easy coats of Hare Medusa Luminosa. This polish is stunning! This photo is outside, although there wasn't much sun today. Pardon the post if this one feels different. My computer is still in the shop, so this was edited and authored all on my IPad.

After the polish I added some quick bell nail art using black acrylic and gold that I mixed myself from two gold polishes and a yellow. It turned out pretty, and I would wear it if it was a polish! Franken maybe...hmmmmm. After the art was dry I added my topcoat and pressed in a small red bow. Pretty simple today, but I enjoyed these.

This last is also in sunlight.

Cheers all,