Red Metallic Christmas Mani

Today I have an impromptu holiday-themed manicure to share.

I did this manicure very quickly. I didn't have time to remove my old polish and start from scratch, but I also didn't want to continue with my old manicure since it had started to show some wear and tear. I ended up painting right over my old manicure. As a result, you can see the bumpiness of the glitter I was wearing underneath the red metallic polish on my index and pinky fingers.

Unfortunately, I don't recall which polishes I used right now, because I was in such a rush that I didn't even think about taking a picture of the polishes. Basically I used three metallic polishes to create this look - a red, a green, and a gold.

On the middle finger, I made a Christmas Tree by using scotch tape to mask off the top corners of the nail, leaving an exposed triangle in the middle. Along the border of the exposed triangle, I used the edge of the tape cut by the metal teeth on the scotch tape holder. That edge was bordered with small triangles, similar to fabric cut with pinking shears.  I thought that this was perfect to represent the jagged boughs of the Christmas tree.  I then filled in the exposed area with a beautiful metallic green polish, and then dotted gold polish on top to represent ornaments and the star on the top of the tree.

My ring finger features an abstract design made using a dotting tool, and splotches of nail polish.

Overall, I really like the techniques that I used in this manicure, even though the execution was not perfect.  Sometimes that's just the way it goes - necessity is the mother of invention, so this is one of those times when I had to come up some ideas really quickly to cover up an old chipping mani with something presentable. They turned out to be pretty cool ideas that I hope to use again in the future!

Ice Crystal Mani using Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit' and China Glaze 'Snow Globe'

Today I have another 'Project Polish' manicure to share. This mani uses 2 of my 'Project Polish' polishes: Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit' and China Glaze 'Snow Globe'. I'm calling it the 'Ice Crystal' Mani:

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit'	Bundle Monster Winter Kingdom -
China Glaze 'Snow Globe'	Plate BM-XL485
Konad white stamping polish (not shown)

I really like how this manicure turned out. The overall effect is very Icy and Wintry. It was a nice change to do a seasonal manicure in December that is winter-themed as opposed to holiday themed. Below I have a few additional shots of the manicure that show a bit more of the details of the stamped images.

Ice Crystal Mani - Thumb Close-up

Ice Crystal Mani - Ring, Middle, and Index fingers

The more I use 'Rich in Spirit' the more I appreciate it's beauty and versatility. It really is just a cool toned silver, so it works in so many different applications - pretty much anywhere that I would typically use a silver polish. With that in mind, one of my most used polishes is Sally Hansen 'Silver Sweep', mainly because I use it a lot for stamping. Hmmm, this is now giving me the idea to experiment with using 'Rich in Spirit' as a stamping polish.  Stay tuned to see how that works out in a future post!

Reveal Mani with Multi-Coloured Shatter Base

Today I have what I like to call a 'Reveal Mani' to share. I use the term reveal mani, to describe a manicure where I start with a base decorated with an abstract print or pattern, and then stamp a negative space image over it to reveal the patterned base as abstract patterned shapes.

For this manicure, I started with a white base and then used 3 different shatter polishes in turquoise, gold, and blue, to create a multi-coloured abstract look. Then, to add a bit of sparkle, I added a holographic glitter polish to my ring finger. Below I have a picture of the base before the stamping.

I stamped over this base using black stamping polish and 2 different negative space images form Messy Mansion's Lily Anna Plate LA07. Overall, I really like how the circle and square pattern on my index and middle fingers turned out, but I had a little bit of trouble with the star image. Images with lots of negative space can be tricky to pick up since there's so much more area to fill with polish, which increases the chances of not picking all of it up cleanly. I wasn't in the mood to try multiple times to ensure perfect image transfers, so I just left well enough alone.  For the most part, the star images look pretty good, but they are not as clean and crisp as I would like.

Polishes Used

Polishes Used

China Glaze 'White on White'

OPI 'Turquoise Shatter'

Nicolie by OPI 'Gold Texture'

OPI 'Blue Shatter'

Maniology 'Straight Up Black' Stamping Polish

Urban Outfitters 'Afterhours'

Plate Used: Lily Anna Plate LA07

Below, I have a cool close-up shot of the Holographic glitter polish that I used, 'Afterhours'. The lighting and angles that I used for the manicure photos above didn't capture the beauty of the polish, so I wanted to share a photo that did.  

Close shot of 'Afterhours'

Glitter Mani using Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit'

Today I have a quick glitter mani to share using one of my 'Project Polish' polishes: Nicole by OPI's 'Rich in Spirit', and a glitter polish that I'm thinking of adding to the project: 

The glitter is called 'Paparazzi', and it's by Claire's Cosmetics, from their Splatter Effect Collection. I used the teal version of this polish called  'Flashing Lights' in my 'Blue and White Splatter Manicure'. 

Polishes Used: 'Paparazzi' and 'Rich in Spirit'

For a simple gliter mani, I kind of like the way the colours work together!

Christmas Glitter Mani

Today's manicure represents one of the few times that I've recreated a manicure in the last few years. I've actually been planning to recreate this mani for almost one year now. I'll get in to that later, but first, here is the picture:

Polishes Used
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 'Strawberry Shields'	China Glaze 'Pine-ing For Glitter'
Orly 'Halo'	Orly 'Luxe'
China Glaze 'This is Tree-mendous'	Maybelline Express Finish 'Red Comet'

I wore this look to my office holiday gathering last year, and received lots of compliments. At the time, I wasn't updating my blog and as a result, I didn't have all of my equipment ready to even take a picture that could be used for the blog at a later time. I hoped to get everything set up again so that I could post the mani, but of course, during the busy holiday season I didn't get a chance to do that. 

So, I decided that I would try to recreate the mani at a later time and post it then. Originally I was hoping for right after Christmas, but then I was busy with all of the Boxing Week sales. By the time things settled down, it was too late to do a Christmas manicure that season! I decided to put the polishes aside, and wait until next Christmas to recreate and post the mani. So finally, after a year of anticipation - I've completed my mission! LOL!  

Even though it is essentially a basic glitter mani, I really like how it turned out. It's fun and funky because of the colourful glitters, yet there's a classic charm to it as well due to the traditional Christmas colours.

As for the technical aspects of the mani, I used 3 coats of the dark green glitter 'Pine-ing For Glitter' on my pointer finger, one coat of orly 'Luxe' as a base and one coat of Orly 'Halo' on my middle finger, two coats of Maybelline 'Red Comet' as a base, and once coat of Sally Hansen -Strawberry Shields' on my thumb and ring fingers, and two coats of China Glaze 'This is Tree-mendous' on my pinky.  I used a peel off base coat to aid with removal, and a glossy quick-dry top coat on top to smooth and shine the glitters.

Now that I've completed the mani, I can finally put the polishes away... but now that I've blogged about this and have the details here, I'm inspired to maybe try to make this my Christmas tradition mani going forward!  We'll see how that works out, and how long the polishes last, but that definitely sounds like a fun tradition to start, especially after the quirky story of why I've worn the same manicure two Christmas seasons in a row!