Winter Holiday Challenge: New Year's Eve

Hello my lovelies! How fast does the time fly! I feel like just yesterday I was starting this challenge and now Christmas is over and we're so close to the end of the year. This is the final installment of the Winter Holiday Challenge. I'm so happy I finished this one and did every single one of the themes. And to think that I was almost going to give up before it even started! There were some bumps on the road, but in the end I managed to post each of the manicures in time. Yay! So today's theme is: New Year's Eve. 

Since this is a holiday where people usually dress up nicely and go to fancy parties, I had to include glitter in my design. Gold seemed also appropriate for the occasion. Most of the polishes I used come from Essence, except for the one I stamped with. The base is Essence Ticket To The Show from the Colour3 line. It was a Christmas gift from my sister, so I had to use it immediately. Here's a photo of Ticket To The Show by itself. 

Essence Ticket To The Show indoors, artificial light

Unfortunately, it did not photograph as pretty as it is in real life. The dark brown base is filled with tiny pink, green and gold shimmer. This shimmer doesn't stand out in the photo, but I assure you it looks better in real life. This was opaque in 2 easy coats and it dried to a nice shiny finish. The photo shows it without any top coat. 

I layered the other half of the Colour3 duo on the ring finger and thumb. It's called Front Row or Backstage? and is a very dense gold shimmer in a sheer brown base. You can't see it very well on the ring finger because I stamped over it with an image from plate CH9 from Cheeky and my trusty Golden Rose Nail Art 108 striper. The other nails have a glitter gradient which I did with Essence Make It Golden. I didn't use any sponges and just brushed the glitter on there, focusing more on the tip. 

Above you can see a better shot of the thumb, with Front Row or Backstage? peeking through. This is actually pretty opaque and does not show the base color, like other Colour3 layering ends do. Over it, I stamped an image from plate FUN2 with the same gold striper. Please forgive the awkward hand poses, but as I've told you before, my thumb is not very flexible and it's very hard to show it properly in pictures. 

Once again, I thank you for reading and looking at my pictures. Thank you for being by my side through this challenge. I really hope that you will visit me again to see my other challenges (Monday Blues, Where In The World or Polyvore Collage Day), as well as other swatches or nail art posts I will do in the future. Finally, don't forget to check out some amazing blogs below! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Santa and Elves

Hello again lovelies! Here's my second post for the day, namely today's nail art challenge. Since tomorrow is Christmas and I don't have any posts planned for the day, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas! I hope these holidays will be spent with your family and loved ones, and the best gift you will receive will be health and peace. Seriously, I love receiving presents, but the things I mentioned are very important, and you don't realize that until you lose them. But enough with the sentimental stuff! Let's get to something cheerful. Today's manicure is all about fun. 

Aren't these cute? I did them on Friday and I'm still wearing them, which is a record for me. They are starting to chip, but don't tell anyone. This nail art is not very original, but I really really like it. 

Now let's see what I used to make these. The green is Barry M Spring Green, and the red is Rimmel Stand to Attention. I also used white (Moyra 03) and black (China Glaze Liquid Leather). The belt buckles are a-england Excalibur (silver) and Golden Rose Nail Art 108 (gold). As tools I used a thin nail art brush, a striping brush and some dotting tools. A thick coat of Seche Vite and that's it. 

Thank you for stopping by and looking at my Santa and elf suits. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas! Here are the other ladies participating in the challenge. 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Reindeer and Sleigh

Hello loves! It's finally Friday and that means I'm finally on vacation! I can't wait to get some rest the following weeks. The only thing I wish for this holiday season is peace and quiet. The last couple of months have been crazy for me. I have some Christmas nail art for you today. The theme we had for this particular challenge was Reindeer and Sleigh. Here's what I came up with. 

I will be completely honest with you and tell you that my inspiration came from this picture I found online. I was randomly googling today's theme when I found it and thought it was perfect because it wasn't that hard to recreate. I don't have any reindeer stamping plates, so I knew I had to do something by hand. Speaking of reindeer, I have a Rudolph tutorial from last year. If you wanna check it out, click here. 

The base color for this mani is Essie Cocktail Bling from last year's winter collection. Gosia reminded me of this polish and I must thank her for that. It's such an elegant color and it's a perfect canvas for nail art. I stamped the little stars from plate CH4 with Moyra 03. Then I used a tiny brush and China Glaze Liquid Leather to draw the reindeer and sleigh. The red from Santa is Rimmel Stand to Attention. 

I was lucky enough to catch some sunlight, since it was only noon when I did this mani. That's why you have the rare privilege of seeing some natural light photos. It normally gets dark at 3-4 pm this time of year, and most of the time the sun is absent the whole day, so natural light pictures are almost impossible for me. 

I really hope you enjoyed this and thanks for stopping by! Check out the other manicures for today's theme! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Christmas Decoration

Hello my lovelies! First off, I would like to remind you about the Beauty Blogazon Holiday Giveaway, where you can win 5 100$ gift cards. There are less than 2 days left, so if you haven't entered yet, please hurry! I would really love for one (or more) of my followers to win! Secondly, I have a huge thank you to say because the blog reached 100 000 pageviews this week. I didn't have time to celebrate in any way, but I'm still very grateful to you all for coming over and looking at my nails every once in a while. Thank you so much! 

Today's post is another one of the Winter Holiday challenges. This time we had to do Christmas Decorations. I really wanted to draw something by hand, but the lack of time made me resort to stamping again. To make it up to you, I used some tinsel props for my photos. Hope you like them! 

As you can see, I did something really simple. This design reminds me of some of my Christmas tree decorations, and I really wanted to use my new Cheeky set I got for my birthday. It's the summer 2012 set and it's mostly funky designs, but this one looked very festive and elegant at the same time. 

The base color for this manicure is OPI Don't Mess With OPI, which is actually a spring polish. The lighter green color shows better in photos though, so I chose it over the darker, more Christmassy greens. I stamped with Orly Rage, which by the way stamps great. I'm glad I now have a good gold for stamping, and it's one that's more subtle and elegant compared to the one I usually use. The plate I used is CH52 from Cheeky. 

To see another Christmas Decoration design I did last year, you can check out this post here. To see what the other ladies have come up with for today's challenge, click the links below! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Presents and Gift Wraps

Hello my lovelies! It's Friday! I haven't been feeling too well this week and school has been dreadful, so I'm very happy that it's finally the weekend. I have another one of the holiday themed manis for you today. Of course I did this last minute, but at least I'm scheduling the post the night before, not like the last time. I've been a really bad and unorganized blogger lately. Every time I think I'm free something comes up and messes with my schedule again. I was very excited for this manicure, but it didn't photograph well at all. Honestly, it looks much better in reality. I didn't have time to redo it however, so I'm stuck with it how it is. 

For this theme, I decided to only use polishes from last year's China Glaze holiday collection. I guess the contrast between the base and the other colors isn't that high and that's why it all looks dark in the photos. In reality it looks so pretty and Christmassy! 

The base color for this manicure is China Glaze Holly-Day, that I posted about here. I used Velvet Bow and a striping brush to paint the ribbons and then did some bows in the middle. I thought it would be very appropriate to use Velvet Bow to do the bows, obviously. Finally, I painted some Ring In The Red over the bows to make them stand out. I really love this holiday collection and I plan to use these polishes to do some more holiday manis this year. 

Ok, that's it for my presents. To see other, more creative and beautiful present manis check out the links below! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Festival of Lights

Hello lovelies! I'm back with another one of the Winter Holiday Challenge manis. It's already late when I'm posting this and I'm not feeling very well, so I won't be too chatty today. The theme for today is Festival of Lights and I must confess that I had some trouble figuring out what to do on my nails. In the end I went for something simple and elegant. I hope you will like my interpretation. 

The base color for this mani is Essence Jacob's Protection from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 limited edition collection. I didn't have time to post swatches and a review for this one, since I only got it this weekend. But I think it does deserve a post of its own and I will talk more about it then. Anyway, I was wearing this and I thought it would be the perfect base since it looks like a night sky. 

Then I found this stamp on the CH5 plate, that looked exactly like Christmas lights. Plus it has stars in it, which I love. And stars look like little lights in the sky after all. So I stamped it with Golden Rose Nail Art 108, slapped on a coat of Seche Vite and I was done. Here's how it looks in direct light. 

So what do you think of my interpretation of this theme? I really hope I wasn't too far off. To see what the other ladies have come up with, click on the links below. 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Gingerbread Man and Candy Canes

Hello lovelies! It's finally Friday and I can't tell you how happy I am about this. I will be going away this weekend, so again I will have to apologize in advance for my absence. Today I have another one of the winter holiday challenges to show you. I will be posting these every Wednesday and Friday this month, so check back on these days if you wanna see them. The theme for today is Gingerbread Man and Candy Canes. I went with something more complicated this time and it took me quite some time to do. Unfortunately, the photos didn't come out that good. The nails look much better in reality, but I still hope you will like them. 

I've had this design in my head for over a week, but of course I did it in the last minute. I had the idea of doing the gingerbread man's head on the ring finger and his body on the thumb. The only problem is, my fingers aren't very bendy, so bringing my thumb and ring finger together is quite hard. It makes my hand look like a claw, but I can assure you that this is the best I could do. 

I started with a base of Orly Au Champagne and covered all nails except for the ring finger and the thumb with Seche Vite. This is mandatory because you have to be sure that your polish is dry, so you can use tape. I painted the gingerbread man using various polishes and a thin nail art brush. I'm pretty rusty at free hand nail art and I was very tired, so I admit it could have looked a lot better. Then I started masking thick stripes on the other nails with striping tape. Since the striping tape is so thin, I had to do multiple pieces for each thick stripe. Then I painted over them with China Glaze Ring In The Red and took off the tape. 

I have to tell you that doing the striping on all fingers took a lot of time. And I do mean a lot. This type of manicure definitely needs patience and time. On my left (dominant) hand I only did the candy canes on all fingers. Here's a glimpse of my left hand. 

I do like the end result a lot. The manicure looks great on my fingers because of the fun colors and pattern, Plus there's glitter involved! And I think the stripes actually elongate my fingers. To see what the other ladies participating in the challenge have come up with today, check the links below! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Snowflakes and Snowfall

Hello lovely followers! I hope you are all doing well today. I have kind of a busy week because of school and I'm also recovering from a cold. Today I'm starting a new winter challenge and I'm very excited about it. Truth is, I really wanted to do a winter/holiday themed challenge this year, but I was so busy that I almost gave up. I still don't have any of the other manis ready, so I hope I can manage to keep up. Nevertheless, I'm still very happy to be posting the first nail art today. The Facebook group Crumpet's Nail Tarts is famous for the great challenges they create. I usually look at the pictures the ladies post in there and I'm floored by so much talent. I was sad that I didn't have time to do the Halloween one, so this challenge was mandatory. Here are the themes. 

These are all so fun! I really hope I can do them all! The first theme is so appropriate because today we saw the first snowflakes in my town too. It's supposed to snow more later and there are some places in the country where it's already snowing heavily. Here's my mani to go with the occasion. 

I did some very simple nail art for this one and here's why. I was very close to giving up on this challenge because I didn't have the time and energy to do these nails. But then I decided to stamp over a base I already had on. I did some multiple stamping and it all looked great. But then, as I top coated it, one of the polishes completely melted. This has never happened to me before. I've had nail art smudged by top coat, but this one literally melted and the image became all blurry. The polish I used was one from Kleancolor and the top coat was Seche Vite. After this happened, I was really frustrated and had no will to start from scratch. Then I decided to do something simple and pretty instead. 

I used Revlon Blue Lagoon as a base because I think the little silver flecks look exactly like snow. You can imagine this as a sky full of tiny little snowflakes. I posted about this polish before over here, so I won't go into detail. Then I just stamped the snowflake from fauxnad m59 with a-england Excalibur and that's it. Simple and pretty. I hope you won't mind. 

Thank you for stopping by! Here are the other ladies participating in this challenge.