Christmas Glitter Mani 2021

I fell behind with posting, but I really wanted to get this Christmas Mani up on the blog (even though there are a few older manis that I have yet to post! 😅), as it's becoming a bit of a tradition for me to do this same mani at Christmas-time:

I talked about the first two times that I did this manicure in this post from December 2018. I'm pretty sure that this is actually the fourth time I re-created this mani, as I distinctly remember wearing it during the holidays in 2019, however, it looks like I didn't take any pictures of it that year.

One change that I made from the original version, is that I am using a different gold base polish for my middle finger. In the first two versions I used Orly 'Luxe' as the base coat, which is a bit more of a true gold colour. This year (and I think last year too), I started using OPI 'Dazzling Dew Drop', which is a bit more of a brassy, yellow-toned gold. I think that this shade of gold works a little better with this bright, playful look. For both versions, I used Orly 'Halo' as the glitter topper over the gold polishes.

Once again, I love how it turned out! This manicure was so much fun to wear, as it instantly put me in a festive mood!  

Happy Holidays to all!

Red, Yellow, Green and Black Plaid Nails

Polishes Used

Revlon ‘Revlon Red’

Maybelline Color Show ‘Fierce N Tangy’

Revlon ‘Posh’

Bundle Monster ‘Straight Up Black’

Stamping Plate Used

ÜberChic Beauty 'Pretty in Plaid'

I'm really excited to share today's post, because I finally got a chance to do some nail art!!! Even better, I was able to use a couple Revlon polishes for this manicure, so it also continues the theme of the last 6 posts, where I've been rediscovering the polishes in my Revlon collection.

I used a 'buffalo check' plaid stamping image from the ÜberChic Beauty 'Pretty in Plaid' stamping plate. For the base colours, I used red, yellow, and green creme polishes, and I stamped the plaid image in black. Since I stamped the buffalo check image over a red, yellow, and green base, my nickname for this look is my 'Buffalo Soldier Check' manicure 😉.  Here are a few more shots of the manicure, and a nice shot of the base layer prior to stamping:

This manicure was so much fun to create! I really love the final look, and the striped base looked pretty cool as well!  I may have to create a mani with vertical stripes one day soon... Below, I have a collage with my bottle shots, as well as label shots showing the names and numbers of all of the polishes I used.

The polishes used were: Revlon 'Revlon Red', Maybelline Color Show 'Fierce n Tangy, Revlon 'Posh', and Bundle Monster 'Straight up Black', black stamping polish.

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!

Mani-Swap: Pink, Purple, and Glitter Combo

I recently did a mani-swap with an amazing friend of mine who is also a nail polish enthusiast. I designed a manicure for her to wear using polishes from her collection, and she designed one for me to wear using polishes from my collection. Here is the super-cute manicure she designed for me:

It's so exciting to be exposed to different styles and combinations like this! This mani is so bright and fun - I love it! Also, I've really started embracing my glitters again, now that I have the peel-off base coat, so it's great to be able to do another glitter mani! I also really like how she used all of the colours from 'Let the Beat Drop' as the base colours for the manicure. Here are the polishes from my collection that she chose for the manicure:

Polishes Used:

Maybelline Color Show 'Pink Shock'

China Glaze 'Let the Beat Drop'

Essie 'Jamaica Me Crazy'

Misa 'Bubblepop'

OPI 'Blush Hour'

Another great thing about this manicure is that all of these polishes were previously 'untrieds' in my collection. Now, 'Bubblepop' and 'Let the Beat Drop' are pretty new - I've only owned them for about a month or less - but the others I've had for at least a year or two! It feels really great to get these off the untried list!

Now, as for my first impressions with the polishes - I'm really in love with both of the glitters! The main glitter, 'Let the Beat Drop' is from the new Summer 2015 China Glaze 'Electric Nights' Collection. I instantly snapped up all 3 of the neon matte glitters the moment I laid eyes on them at one of the beauty supply stores that I pretty much live in! LOL!!! I used one of them, 'Point me to the Party' in a previous mani, and I can't wait to try something out with the other, 'Can I Get an Untz Untz' (a blue, green and purple neon matte glitter).The other glitter in this manicure, 'Blush Hour' was from OPI's 'Spotlight on Glitters' collection which I believe was released around March 2014. It's so beautiful! I can't wait to play around with this one some more!

'Jamaica Me Crazy' is such a sassy, funky purplish-pink, and the cheeky name just takes the cake! This has always been a sentimental favourite for me, but now that I've tried the colour and love it, it's just a plain old favourite! 'Bubblepop' is such a summery, shimmery, gorgeous shade of coral, and 'Pink Shock' is a really nice super-pigmented fuchsia jelly. If you couldn't tell, I really love all of these colors!

This was such a fun experience! I just want to send a big shout out to my friend. Thanks for designing this gorgeous manicure!

St. Patrick's Day Manicure

For today's manicure, I ended up taking a little break from the Crackle Polish Challenge in order to squeeze in something for St Patrick's Day.

Polishes Used:
Maybelline Color Show 'Walk in the Park'
Sally Hansen Color Foil 'Liquid Gold'
OPI 'Green-Wich Village'

Plate Used:
Moyou London Festive Collection - 21

Polishes Used

I really love how this manicure turned out! I can't believe how gorgeous the kelly green shade of the base polish ('Green-Wich Village') is, and I'm pleased with how the stamping turned out! Also, it was so much fun to be able to concentrate solely on what colours and images I wanted to use, and not having to worry about trying to work crackle texture into the design, as I've been doing for my last 17 manicures!

I really hope that I can get one more St Patrick's Day mani in before the 17th, because I have a couple other green polishes in mind that I think would be perfect!

St Patrick's Day Mani - Additional Shots

Gold and White Klimt Inspired Mani - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 14

This is my 3rd last manicure from my Moyou London Artist Collection Design Series. It has been a lot of fun to do, but honestly, I'm glad that it is almost over! It will be great to not have any sort of obligation to do a particular manicure, and to just be free to create based on how I'm feeling. On the other hand, it has been a welcome change having a bit structure, and I've enjoyed giving myself the opportunity to use plates that I otherwise might have delayed using.

Today's manicure is very toned down and simplified compared to the majority of my other 'Artist Collection' manicures. I just needed a bit of a change from the multi-coloured, decaled, skittles manicures that I have been doing lately! Here is the finished mani:

Polishes Used:
Deborah Lippmann 'Sugar Daddy'
Maybelline Color Show 'Gilded Rose'
Konad Special Polish in White


Polishes Used - 'Sugar Daddy', 'Gilded Rose', and Konad White Special Polish

I used 'Sugar Daddy' as the base colour for all of my nails. Using the Gustav Klimt inspired Moyou London Artist Collection 14 plate, I stamped 8 different images in white over the rose/gold duochrome base. I left my ring fingers solid, but embellished the tips with a touch of 'Gilded Rose', a rose gold glitter.

This is my first time using a Deborah Lippmann polish. I've owned 'Sugar Daddy' for a few months now, but I never got around to using it. I'm quite pleased with the consistency and the coverage - for this manicure, I'm only wearing one coat! I also love how cute the bottle is!

I also really love how well 'Sugar Daddy', and 'Gilded Rose' go together. 'Gilded Rose' is practically the glitter version of 'Sugar Daddy'!  Because of this, using it on the tip of my accent finger kept the look monotone, but gave a bit of texture. I just adore the effect.

In the pictures above, the images of my thumbs are upside down, and partially obscured by the flash of my camera, here's a better look at them:

All in all, I really love this manicure. The best part about it is that it was relatively quick and easy to do! Stay tuned for the final two instalments of the design series!

Birth of Venus Mani - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 05

Today's manicure was inspired from Sandro Botticelli's classic painting 'Nascita di Venere' or 'The Birth of Venus'.  This is the 3rd instalment of my design series using my Moyou London Artist Plates. Today's plate was Moyou London's Artist Plate 05, which is also inspired from the painting. I pulled colors and motifs from the original painting, and incorporated 5 images from different parts of the Moyou Plate. Here is the finished manicure:

Birth of Venus Mani

The pinky represents the tree canopy in the upper right quadrant of the painting, while the ring finger represents the robe that the handmaid is waiting to cover Venus with. The clamshell on the middle finger represents Venus' mode of transportation in the painting, and fittingly, it is stamped over wave images. The index finger represents the blowing winds and falling flowers to the left of Venus, and of course we have Venus' face on the thumb.

Here are the plates and polishes I used:
Plates:
Moyou artist collection plate 05, Moyou London Kitty Collection Plate 02 (flower image on index finger), Moyou London Sailor Collection Plate 01 (Clamshell image on middle finger).

Polishes:
Not including base and top coat, I used 12 different polishes to achieve this look. Here they are listed  by the finger on which the polish is one of the base or main colours:
Pinky: Maybelline New York Color Show 'Walk in the Park', and Essie 'Sew Psyched'
Ring Finger: Sally Hansen Color Foil 'Rose Copper', DRK Nails 'Metallic Brown' Stamping Polish
Middle finger: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'Breezy Blue', Revlon 'Urban', and Rimmel 'Black Satin'
Index Finger: Essie 'Rock the Boat', and NYC 'French Tip White'
Thumb: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 'Almost Almond', OPI 'Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?', and NFU Oh Jelly Syrup Series NFU JS16.

Birth of Venus Mani

This manicure was very time-consuming. I used a lot of different materials and techniques to achieve the look, and I also had a lot of failed attempts and revisions of my original plan.

One of the techniques that I used was the decal method. This was done on the middle finger, where I made a stamped decal of a clamshell.This is the first time I've incorporated this technique into a manicure. All in all, it worked well, except for on my left hand where I had a slight problem when placing the decal over my freshly top-coated nail (which also had a stamped background image underneath). I ended up having to lift and reposition the decal, which caused the background to get a little smudged on that finger. Next time, I'm going to wait until the polish is completely dry before I place the decal.

I also want to point out that I really like the combination of 'Sew Psyched' with 'Walk in the Park' on my pinky.  I would love to do another manicure featuring these two colours - they look so good together!

From the Vault: Blue and White Porcelain Mani

I have dozens of pictures of manicures I did over the past 7 months or so that I've been nail stamping. Every once in a while, I hope to put some of my favorites up.  Here's a manicure that I did a few months back. 

Blue and White Porcelain Mani

My base colour is NYC 'French White Tip', and it is stamped with Maybelline Color Show 'Midnight Blue'.  The image I used was from Moyou London Pro Collection - 07. 

The annoying thing about posting old manis is that you can't go back and fix things in the shot - you're stuck with whatever photos you've taken.  This picture shows the mani well, but I would have preferred a solid background. Oh well, I guess it's not that big of a deal.  The other problem I'm having with some of my older mani pics is I can't always remember exactly which polishes I've used!

As a result, I realize that I won't be able to put all of my old photos up - but that's probably for the best. As with anything in life, there's a huge learning curve with nail stamping... let's just say that there are quite a few manicures that I did that are probably best left unpublished!  ; )