Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope your day is filled with joy! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, then I still hope that you have a fantastic day! I'm super tired right now! I had two Christmas Eve services at church, in which I sang in both of them. I'm so thankful to my best friend and my dad for filming my solos! I'm also pretty sure I sing again tomorrow (Christmas) morning as well. In between the services, I went to my best friend's house for dinner, which he made. Cheese and meat fondu. It was fantastic! I may have had a little too much wine, but I think that gave me confidence fo my singing, and hopefully hasn't impaired me from blogging. I was also wearing the highest heels I own, and my feet are now very sore. I did promise you that I'd show you my Christmas nails, even if they aren't too special, so here are many pictures for you! I tried to get my hands holding lots of Christmasy objects. I'll add a picture of the other polish bottle later.

So, on my tips is Nicole by OPI's "Christmas In My Stocking". It's a very glitter gold with some red glitter in it. Very Christmasy. Then Claire, who bought me the turquoise shatter a while ago, bought me OPI's "Fresh Frog Of Bel Air" green glitter polish from the Muppet Movie collection. I took a striper brush and added a few details to my thumbs and ring finger. She also bought my mum a red (can't recall the name) glitter polish, which I might use one day. Both this green and the red polishes are great as overlays.

So I hoep you like these colours, and that you have a very Merry Christmas indeed! In fact, as I was writing this blog, it chimed midnight, so it is now officially, the 25th!

Golden Skylines

I feel so bad that I haven't been posting regularly as of late. I haven't really come up with any funky designs, mostly because I don't want to draw attention to my one short nail. It's growing though. Eventually it will match the others. My Grandparents are here from Scotland to visit, so hopefully I can give my Grandma a manicure some time soon, and if she has time, I'd like to give my Mum some nice Christmas nails. I already know that for Christmas day, my nails will only have one colour on the tips, but I'm hoping it will still look great. Right now, I have Shatter nails, and I'll talk a little about my failed experiment.

So to start off, I painted my nails with a couple of coats of Quo by Orly's "Night Sky". I wanted to wear something purple, and blindingly sparkling, so this is what I chose. It's a lot darker on the nail than in the bottle, and many people thought I was wearing a black polish, but I didn't mind, because I do like dark polishes. I always have to make sure that when wearing a dark polish that I have a thick base coat on first. I get a lot of comments on how my natural nails aren't at all discoloured, and how I manage it because I wear polish daily, and I keep telling people that it's because I wear so many products (base, strengthener, thickener, etc.) on my nails before applying the colour, that the colour doesn't actually touch my natural nails. I do buff my nails before a manicure as well, so that should take off the layers of dirt and oil every time. There are ways to return a nice colour to your nails if they have been yellowing, but it's best to avoid that in the first place, rather than trying to correct it after.

Moving on... I'm in the glitter mood at the moment, and wanted to add some silver or gold to the design, so I put a layer of Nicole by OPI's "Gold Texture" over the top of the purple "Night Sky". For some reason it didn't work too well on that hand, but oh well. You can see my short nail in this picture, but it doesn't stand out as harshly as before because I'm not doing any elaborate designs right now. My Christmas tree this year is purple and silver themed, so I thought I'd do the same to my nails, but I was itching for a gold. The I thought... why not try both? I had seen others put two different shatter/crackle/texture polishes on their nails, but this only works if you have a layer of top coat between them. I thought I'd give it a go.

It didn't exactly work out as planned... I didn't really apply a thick coat of Nicole by OPI's "Silver Texture", but it still didn't look too great. Because it takes me so long to put all those different treatment coats on before my coloured polish, I decided not to take this off, but instead just apply a thick layer of "Night Sky", and another of "Gold Texture." So that adds up to a LOT of coats of polish! I've not attempted the silver again. I actually prefer how the gold polish cracked after this mistake than before it. I also think the gold and purple colours go very well together.

I think it's VERY Christmasy now. I would wear it this weekend, but I'm just itching to use the polish I had set aside especially for Christmas. I WILL blog about it, even if it won't be a long post, but I can't not show you this on my nails! I'm not telling you which polish I'm using, even though you can probably guess if you follow my blog, but I'm excited to see what it looks like on my nails, and not just in the bottle.

I know the lighting in this picture sucks, but I really wanted you to see the amount of glitter on my nails currently, and how the gold isn't just a plain gold, but plays nicely with the purple. I think, despite the bad lighting, this picture is quite artsy. I'm definitely feeling Christmas in this one! I really hope you like these colours together, and my explanation about my silver mistake, and I'm so sorry for not saying much recently. I'll try and be more regular from now on. I missed blogging.

Shhh, quietness!

I am very very sorry I haven't been posting recently! I had a really cool nail art design on my nails which were white tips with a "cut here" symbol (dotted line and scissors) separating the white tips from the rest of my nail, and I took pictures, but I don't know where they went! So I'm sorry, no pictures of that design.

I then painted my nails again, but although I loved the colour of my tips, I thought they might be a bit too boring to blog about. However, for my next design, which I hope to come up with soon, I'll definitely blog about and provide lots of pretty pictures for you! Sorry again. Just letting you know that I'm still here =)

Christmas Light Up

Yesterday was the first Advent service at my church. I was singing in the choir, and no one notices your nails in a crowd, right? The girl (who has an amazing voice) who was supposed to be singing a solo lost her voice, so I took her part instead. I'm standing alone holding music in front of the crowd, rather than being in it. Being me, the biggest thought in my head was my nails. Of course, no one could see my nails from that far away, but I still got nice comments on them after the service. You all new I had a nail art obsession already. Anyway, I wanted pretty nails, but I am in the 'fun' nail art mood so this is what I came up with (by the way, the service went great!).

The design was already getting old and chipping and smudged by the time I took these pictures, but you get the idea. Christmas lights! I know it's still November, but it was for an Advent service, and my next nail design is not Christmas or winter related. I was going to outline the lights with black, but decided against it, and I actually prefer them without the white highlights as well. A little really does go a long way.

^That picture sucks. Anyway... to create this design, I first painted the tips of my nails with MigiNailArt's "Pearl Gloss White" after a base coat, then when that dried, I took Rio's "Black" and painted black lines for the cord. On my other hand, the black lines are still randomly placed, but more across the base of the pearl polish, and I like it that way better. I then took Rio's "Red" and "Yellow" and Nail Jazz's "Fire Red" and created the tiny lights. I added more "Pearl Gloss White" for highlights, but as I said before, I prefer without, so you don't have to add them in if you don't want to. Finish with a top coat and voila!

Peacock

Enough procrastinating, time to blog. This is so simple. French manicure. No extra bits (other than the colour). I really liked this on my nails, but I felt the urge to add some art to it. However, the polish I used it so sparkly that if I'm honest, it doesn't need anything else to the design. I wasn't aiming for a Christmas look this week even though this colour is from my Quo by Orly Holiday Collection, but I received a few comments by people saying it was Christmasy. The polish I used from the collection is Turquoise Moonlight. My Dad said it reminded him of peacocks, so that's where the title came from. I wish my camera would behave so I could show you what the colours are truly like. It's a very green turquoise and super glittery. My camera insisted on making it look blue. So here are a few pictures for you. No tutorial today, because all I did was painted several coats of colour on my tips in between a base and top coat. I hope you like this colour!

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

I know it's really early for Christmas designs, but I will be posting non-holiday designs over the next month as well. I really wanted to wear another polish from my Quo by Orly collection, so I chose Rock Star. Although it has a definite gold duo-chrome in the bottle, it doesn't so much on the nails, and my camera, unfortunately, removes it completely. It is very red but does have a slight dark pink tint to it, so as soon as it hit my nails, my mind went to Christmas. Although before I show you the picture of my final design, I have bad... very bad news.

Remember I snapped my nail between my drum sticks? That was pretty bad and pretty painful. Well, it broke again. I don't think any of my nails have been this short since before I began growing them out, so that's almost a year. When it broke for the THIRD time, the polish pealed off in one clean coat. I didn't replace the polish and just went to bed. Now I know for next time that whenever I break a nail, I MUST replace the polish ASAP! I woke up this morning to an ugly little stub and my skin was red and sore. I didn't realize I bite my short "naked nails" in my sleep until today. I was pretty horrified when I woke up and it reminded me of that dream I had a few nights ago (and mentioned in my previous post). Anyway, I just need to calm down and grow it back out again. The damage is done, but nail grow back with care.

Ouch! Anyway, let's cover that nasty site with a picture of this Rock Star design.

I took pictures of this design in progress, so I'll tell you how I created this (easy) design, then show you the WIP pictures. After a base coat, I covered my nails with a couple of coats of Quo by Orly "Rock Star" and let that ry. Then taking a foundation sponge, I painted a little bit of Nicole by OPI "Positive Energy" and sponged that onto a piece of scrap paper, then dabbed it onto the very tips of my nails. I wanted this to look like a very rough sponging to give the 'snow on the window' effect. Once that dried. I painted on holly leaves with Rio's "Green" and MigiNailArt's "Kelly Green". If you have a glitter, shimmer, or metallic green, use that! I then covered this design with a top coat.

I hope you like this super simple design! Thanks for reading! Sorry about my careless nail breaking/biting. We'll help it grow together. I'll take extra care with my nail treatment program, and you keep reading to support me! =D

Never Forget

Well today is the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year (and in an hour it will also be the 11th second of the 11th minute of the 11th hour).

As it's Remembrance Day, I've done a poppy design on my nails for the occasion. I had a dream last night that I lost this design because I started biting my nails again, but I woke up (to the smell of freshly baked bread) to find that my nails were still long (except my shorter index nail), thank goodness! I'm really proud of this design, and I wish I had a better picture of my thumbnail, because that's the best one, I think. I was so excited to use my new Holiday set, and this made for a great opportunity. Of course, I'm still excited to use the rest!

So for this design, I covered my nails with a few coats of Quo by Orly "Cold Stone" and let that dry (scroll down for a picture). I then drew two poppies on each nail with Quo by Orly "Red Hot". For this I used a tiny nail brush. I then added two green leaves with Rio "Green". As that dried, I took Nail Jazz "Pearl Gloss White" and dabbed tiny white dots in the centre of the poppies, then went over them with back dots using Art Deco "Black". I then added a lighter green line with MigiNailArt "Kelly Green" and on some leaves, I added a few veins to the leaves too. I then took Nubar's "Neon Pumpkin" and drew two orange lines on each poppy petal running from the centre out.Make sure this design fully dries before adding a top coat! I did for my thumb, but I was so busy yesterday that I barely had time to let my nails dry and covered them with a top coat before they had fully dried so there is a little smudging, but I don't think it's easy to tell.

I'm proud of this design, and I've heard compliments about my base colour choice (Cold Stone) as a contrast to the poppies already. Here are a few more pictures of this design that I took. I always post one picture per design on my facebook fan page, but I can't decide which one of these will be the lucky one.

 Thumb nail ^

 Cold Stone camera flash ^

 Cold Stone, no camera flash ^

 Poppies in the sun, no camera flash ^

 Poppies in the shade, no camera flash ^

 Poppies with a camera flash ^

 Poppies and Cold Stone bottle ^

Poppies and Red Hot bottle ^

Holiday Haul!

Yesterday I purchased quite a few polishes and emptied my Birthday gift card. It was worth it! I also bought more remover and a thickener because I had run out. I'm so excited to use these polishes for my future nail art designs, and although I don't tend to wear single colours, I'm actually tempted to go around with a few of these polishes alone! So let's get started on my personal review of them. If you already saw my review pictures (and actually read the description) of them, what I'm about to say is a repete (Copy Pasta!).

I really like this set, and the price was pretty good too. $36. My camera doesn't do the polishes justice, sadly. Most of these colours are very unique and I haven't seen in single bottles on the shelves before. The polishes are 4.4mL each. Although they do all have individual names, they aren't printed anywhere on the bottles themselves, maybe because they are so small, so I will need to find a way of labeling them. Overall, I love this set! I usually don't wear single colours on my nails because I like to show off and advertise my nail art, but most of these colours I am very tempted to wear alone (Like I stated before).

From left to right:
Very Vixen, Mystic Night, Garnet, and Precious.

Very Vixen is a lovely wine purple. It's quite dark, and although glossy, it looks like a creme polish.

Mystic Night is also a purple, and has a very shimmery finish to it. It looks lighter and more wine-like in the bottle than Very Vixen, but on paper (my tester), it's a rich, bold purple.

Garnet suggests red to me, as a garnet is a red gem, but this polish is quite orange. I do love it, though! It's very shimmery, almost a glitter, and does have a pinkish-red gleam to it. It reminds me of a lightly orange lip gloss.

Precious is another dark purple, and looks very dark and VERY mildly brown at first, but tilting it into even the smallest light and it's very bright purple and quite glittery. Although it's definitely purple, the glitter seems almost pink, causing the base to appear almost black. One of my favourites!

From left to right:
Sapphire Sparkle, Cold Stone, Rock Show, and Rock Star.

Sapphire Sparkle is true to its name, and a sparkled royal blue. it's very rich in colour and the sparkles match the base tone perfectly so it's a good, solid colour, without being a creme. I do like the sparkles in this polish and it really makes it stand out!

Cold Stone is one of the more interesting polishes in this set. At first glance it is a very glittery silver, but the glitter in it is rainbow or multi-coloured. It reminds me of something a rockstar on stage would wear if they were going for a silver or glitter theme. it's definitely not your average silver glitter! I imagine this is what a silver granite would look like with its many colours.

Rock Show makes me double and triple take at the bottle and my swatches every time! In the bottle it looks quite purple, but on the nail it is more of a pink or lavender. It is mildly (or in some lights, very) glittery, but the glitter is gold! This combination makes it look almost red in the bottle. Like I said, i'm doing double takes!

Rock Star is interesting. It's a dark pink with lighter pink glitters. Although fabulous, it's not as outgoing as many of the other polishes. It looks great on the nail, but it also looks fantastic in the bottle!

From left to right... or up to down:
Rock Star and Night Sky

Rock Star is interesting. It's a dark pink with lighter pink glitters. Although fabulous, it's not as outgoing as many of the other polishes. It looks great on the nail, but it also looks fantastic in the bottle!

Night Sky is very different on the nail than it is in the bottle, but it's not a disappointment. In the bottle, it looks black with excessive, but not-too-bright purple glitter (not at all blue light my camera flash made it). However, on the nail, it has a bluish-grey tone, but in the light is has a bright purple, almost pink glitter. I'm impressed with this one.

From left to right:
Turquoise Moonlight, Celestial Star, First Class, and Filthy Rich.

Turquoise Moonlight is very pretty! If you read my blog, you'll know that green is my least favourite colour, but I do light some turquoises. This is one of them! It is definitely more green than blue (much like Revel's "Green With Envy"), yet I think it's amazing! On the paper, the glitter seems almost gold in some lights. It reminds me of mermaids. Like Sapphire Sparkle, the heavy glitter in this polish matches the base colour very well. it is a strong glitter, but because the glitter and the base colour match, it's not too overpowering.

Celestial Star has an interesting effect. It is very dark blue with a light amount of bright, royal blue glitter. However, in the "corner of my eye" or the "corner of the bottle", the glitter is very purple, but whenever I try to focus on the purple, it's more blue than I thought, and what was blue glitter, is now purple. Sort of like when you have something in the corner of your vision and you can never quite focus on it. On the paper, it is quite a dull blu, but in the right light the royal blue and purple glitter (mixed, this time) really show themselves.

First Class and Filthy Rich aren't similar, but the way they trick the eye is. First Class, to me, looked gold at first, but now I look at it again, it's definitely not. It's quite pearly pink and metallic with light glitter. On the paper it is the same, but maybe slightly more bronze.

Filthy Rich looked silver when I first saw it, and although I now see that First Class is definitely not gold, I still think that Filthy Rich looks mildy silvery at times. Giving it a second look, however, it is a pearly gold and mildly glittery. Both First Class and Filthy Rich's glitter matches the base colour, just like Sapphire Sparkle and Turquoise Moonlight. I think the name "Filthy Rich" suits this colour well, as it's both a silver and a gold.

From left to right:
Red Hot, Wine & Dine, Old Hollywood, and Love Game.

Red Hot is a bright red creme. There isn't much to say about this colour, because it is your average bright red, but I needed a new one anyway. This IS a creme, so it's neither shimmery, nor glittery.

Wine & Dine is, as advertised, a wine colour. it's slightly darker than Red Hot and slightly more shimmery too. On paper, it really is a wine colour, but a lot more red than purple, and lighter than wine.

Old Hollywood is yet another shade darker than Wine & Dine, and two (or whatever) shades darker than Red Hot. It's closer to a wine colour than Wine & Dine, and I can't quite tell if it's a creme of a shimmer. I'm going to say a very very very lightly shimmered creme. It has more pink in it than Wine & Dine, but it's a dark pink and very subtle.

Love Game looks amazing in the bottle! It's hard to describe, but I'll give it a go. It's pink. It's a reddish-pink creme with a lovely purple shimmer. Like Old Hollywood, it's extremely lightly shimmered, but less subtle. On the paper, it's a LOT lighter than in the bottle, so I'm guessing several coats are required if you were to wear this, but it is still a lighter shade out of the bottle. The purple (or lavender) shimmers are more noticeable on the paper, but still subtle.

From left to right (up to down):
Love Game and True Love

Love Game looks amazing in the bottle! It's hard to describe, but I'll give it a go. It's pink. It's a reddish-pink creme with a lovely purple shimmer. Like Old Hollywood, it's extremely lightly shimmered, but less subtle. On the paper, it's a LOT lighter than in the bottle, so I'm guessing several coats are required if you were to wear this, but it is still a lighter shade out of the bottle. The purple (or lavender) shimmers are more noticeable on the paper, but still subtle.

True Love is a bright baby pink creme. No glitter and no shimmer. It's as creme as Red Hot. Again, there isn't much to say about this colour, and you will probably find it on the shelves, unlike the rest of this collection. I like this polish, but I'll probably use it more for nail art purposes. I don't have as strong an urge to wear this polish alone as I do with the other polishes. It's still pretty though. On the paper it's pretty much the same as in the bottle, but although it looks a LOT lighter than Love Game in the bottle, it's one shade darker than Love Game on the paper.

Nicole by OPI "GlitterIn My Stocking."

I really like this polish and it's very Christmasy! It is mainly a gold glitter, but it does contain red glitter as well, and it's not subtle about it! This polish is a glitter explosion! When applying to your nails, I'm guessing you'll need several coats if you're wearing it as a base, but if you are using it as an overlay, one coat is fine, but it's very strong! I think the gold in this polish is the same gold as the gold in Nicole by OPI "Gold Glitter" (There was a lot of "Gold" in that sentence). I'm excited to use this polish in a future nail design!

Glitter for Winter!

We all love winter so much, we shall glitter for it! That doesn't make sense, and I'm not even a huge fan of winter anyway. Sorry to all you winter lovers out there, but I like my heat! Sometimes I wonder why I moved to such a chilly country, but then I remember the pretty mountains and the really nice people here. Talking about emigrating here, yesterday my family and I celebrated 9 years living here. Time really does fly! 

For this design, I only have one picture to show you because I could only capture one decent picture of my nails. My left index nail is still shorter than the rest after breaking it a week or two ago, but it's growing quite fast, which I'm super happy about! Because it has only been November for a short while, I'm not quite ready to jump into the seriously Christmas designs yet, but it has been snowing here so I thought winter designs fit quite nicely. This design is very wintery, but because I used a Del Sol colour-changing product, the design goes from blue to green in the sun light (or any UV light).

Busy design, but from a distance looks pretty good. I've had several comments from strangers on this design after only having it on my nails for a day! And my Mum likes it =) After a base coat, I applied many coats of Del Sol's "Electrik", then once that dried I covered it with Nicole by OPI's "Silver Texture". Then I took Nail Jazz "Pearl Gloss White" and drew a large snowflake on my ring finger nails and my thumb nails. On all of my nails, I added dots as well to represent snow. I covered this with a top coat.

Although I'm not quite ready to jump into Christmas just yet, I have actually purchased a Christmas-themed polish, as well as a Holiday polish set, which I shall be reviewing in my next post! Thanks for reading!

Sparkly Black gradient tips

The most uninventive title ever, but it's almost 10pm and I have a headache. My bed is calling me! Anyway, I quickly did this design last night because I needed something on my nails. When I can see them and all their natural details, I want to pick or bite them to correct them somehow, which is not good, as I grew up being a nail biter and I'd like not not start up again. It's been about half a year since I bit or picked at my nails, and I'm really proud of myself.

However, the bad news is, the nail that I broke before that I spend ages regrowing has broken again. Not as short this time, but still pretty short and it feels weird to look at and touch. I first snapped it as I was getting into my car, but I used nail glue to hold it together. A couple of das later I caught it between my drum sticks mid-song and it snapped off completely, so I have no choice but to regrow it. However, my thumb nail that ripped and was barely hanging on has now almost fully grown out thanks to extensive nail glue applying and careful handling. I have filed my nails shorter than usual (but still long) to help the broken one catch up faster.

I did do a similar design for my Midnight Tips, and I posted a picture of the black gradient I had on to start that design, but I added sparkles to this. Using Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear "Black Out", I sponged it onto my tips to get a gradient effect, then I covered my whole nail with a couple of thick layers of Sally Hansen's "Diamonds". I've wanted to try out the glitter overlay since I bought the polish (of course, or why buy it) and I'm so glad that it turned out as I had hoped and better!

Looking at the black and sparkles on this design, I'm now Christmas inspired. I'm also practicing in my church choir for the upcoming Christmas service, and it's cold today so I threw on a thick sweater decorated with snowflakes. Christmas, here I come! I'm not a great fan of winter though. It was snowing a few days ago and I didn't want to get out of bed. I don't want to admit it's almost winter, as it's only the beginning of November, but Christmas is exciting, and the weather is forcing me to give in to the season. This means that there will be Christmas and winter nail designs coming soon, although there will be a variety still =)

Bloody nails

I am SO sorry for not posting for a while! My camera had issues, I was working on my Hallowe'en costume (wolf), I went 2 weeks without coloured polish, and a million more excuses. I know it's late now, but I do have another Hallowe'en design. I was going to show you a lot more, but I ran out of time. This one is very simple, but very effective.

To create this design, I painted my nails black using Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear "Black Out", then took MigiNailArt's "Fire Red" and created blood drops on my nails. I purposefully changed the direction of the blood flow on a few nails. Make sure you have a good base coat whenever you apply black or dark polish, and cover it with a top coat to secure it.

Sorry this is short and I've been absent, but I will post another design tonight to make up for it =) I also have a surprise for you all that I will show you hopefully soon. It's the Birthday present that I mentioned a few weeks ago!

Neon Hallowe'en Webs

I had plans to put this design on my nails and post this days ago, and have a new Hallowe'en design by now, but I have had the flu this past week, and although no longer bedridden and asleep, I still have a fever and all the other unpleasant symptoms that come with it. However, I am feeling a lot better that I did and finally got around to painting my nails. My biggest problem is that my muscles still aren't working quite right, so squeezing my nail pen was tricky, but you could use a striper brush for this design as well. It's probably better than using a pen, but it's all down to personal preference.

This design is easy-peasy when your muscles are working correctly. After a base coat I painted my nails black with Sally Hansen's "Black Out" and let it dry. Then I took Migi Nail Art's "Neon Orange" and drew lines from the corner of my nails out, then drew curved lines between them. Some I had to move and manipulate on the nail with a toothpick once the polish dried to a tacky state because I'm finding drawing lines difficult at the moment, but I think it turned out nicely. On my thumb I added a cute little spider but drawing a thin line down from the web, a circle, and little limes for legs (I couldn't only fit 6 and make it look good, but I doubt people will be staring at my nail close enough to notice). Finally I covered my design with Gosh "Matt Effect Top Coat" and I love the turn out! Have fun with this design! I took a few pictures on with and without a camera flash and my spider.