Quick and Easy Gmen!

I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to do a New Year's mani yet; I'm hoping to get one on my nails maybe this afternoon and post later but time will tell. I've been dealing with a lot of work related emergencies, my husband had a death in the family and had an out of town wake to go to, haven't been feeling too well, so just no time and/or energy to do nails.  But there are other priorities over doing nails, not to mention working enables me to pay for all the plates and polishes so can't really do much about it for now! There's always next year!

This is a mani I did Christmas night to wear on Boxing Day.  Super quick and easy!

Started with a base of two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  No pix as have shown many times before.  Stamped using red Konad special polish using HD-E and HD-F (the small gmen are isolated from the full nail image on HD-F and the large are a single image from HD-E).



Added dots using green and yellow Konad special polish.  Then added some glitter from Lynderella Do You See What I See?  I was looking for green glitter in a clear base, which I thought this, but it looks like there is faint glitter bleed.  (I also went to Lynderella blog and the description says that it is in a clear base so obviously glitter bleeding has occurred).  The tinge looks pretty obvious in these pix but in real life, it wasn't so obvious, plus gave a little holiday colour!  Just wasn't what I had in mind when I envisioned the nails though. No cleanup as I knew I was adding more glitter.)



Added more glitter using Revlon Graffiti 678.  I honestly did some cleanup but not the best obviously from these pix!



Added topcoat to finish. (That isn't a blue glitter on the ring finger, just a reflection!)



This didn't turn out too badly even though the bleeding glitter tinged the base a little.  It was very festive I thought and super duper easy and quick which was what I was looking for that night!

Have a fun and safe New Year's if you are venturing out and about tonight to celebrate!  All the best to you in 2014!

Thanks for looking!

Candy Cane Stripes

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas!  I've spent the last few days either travelling to see family or working, including dealing with homes that still are without hydro from the ice storm a week ago.  Many homes in Toronto and other parts of the GTA that have been without power for 7 days. It certainly has been a trying week; I truly hope that power is restored to most by tomorrow as reported in the media.  

This is a very quick mani I did Christmas Eve and what I had on my nails on Christmas Day.



Started with a base of three coats of Glitter Gal Light as a Feather; topped with SV.





Stamped using BM-423 using red and green Konad special polish. Unfortunately, my squishy stamper wouldn't work with this plate and I had to use the Konad stamper.  The squishy stamper works better on my curvy tips and sides so I was really hoping to use it, not to mention I seem to place tricky designs like this better (straighter) when I can place my nail into the stamper versus roll the stamper like you have to with Konad.  But no choice but to use Konad when the squishy stamper wouldn't work!



Even though my nails aren't terribly long, the image didn't fit onto my thumb that well (or I did a really bad placement job, which could be the case too!)



To fill the gap, I used a french tip design from Sugar Bubbles Special 001 at the tip of my thumb using same Konad green.  I also added a holly from Chez Xmas 001.  Using a fine tipped brush, I filled in a little to the tips and other areas where the stamping was missed.



Topped with SV to finish.



Thanks for looking!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!  All the best to you and yours!

I have a few holiday themed mani's to post and hope to get them up over the next few days.  Our area had a pretty serious ice storm that came through last weekend which resulted in power outages.  Even when power was restored, there was no internet.  We got hydro around 11 pm Sunday night and then it was back to work (but still no internet!) along with last minute holiday preparations.  One thing after another, I just wasn't able to get a post up.  This is a mani I was wearing a few days ago and hopefully I'll have time to share more soon!



Not your typical holiday themed mani, but I like how it turned out!  Started with a base of two coats of Pahlish Mad Man with a Box, no topcoat.  This could have easily been a one coater and if I wasn't taking pix to show on the blog, would have left with one coat at the coverage was good.



Added a coat of topcoat; used Sally Hansen quick dry.  Look at allll those colours in the pix below!  Wowzers!



Stamped using assortment of images from plates HD-F (index and thumb), Handy N3 (pinky and ring), Chez Xmas 001 (ring) and Sugar Bubbles special 01 using white Konad special polish.



Added a little red glitter at the bottom of Santa on the middle finger using China Glaze Ring in the Red.  Then added a bunch of filler using multiple stampings of images from Chez Xmas 001.



Fished some glitter from KBShimmer Kringle All The Way and added in a few spots to accent.





Added coat of HKGirl topcoat to finish.



Just before I took it off, I added a coat of OPI matte topcoat.





Happy Holidays from my family to yours!  I hope you have a joyous holiday.....and safe travels if you are out and about during the holiday season!

Thanks for looking!

Christmas Overload and Giveway is Up!

How about a little Christmas overload!  This mani is a smattering of a few things associated with Christmas!  

Started with a base of one coat of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, topped with two coats of Contrary Polish Hallelujah, topped with SV.

Bottle pix of Contrary Polish.  This picture, you can see both the very fine glitter as well as the golden shimmer.  While I did a coat of white as a base, I *think* that full coverage could be achieved using this in three coats. It is simply beautiful!

Added assortment of images; MoYou Festive Collection-03 (thumb and pinky), HD-E (index), HD-F (middle) and Chez Xmas-001 (ring).  Polishes used for stamping are Sally Hansen Jumpin' Jade (green), Kiko 323 (brown) and Konad special polish (red).  I did some minor filling in on a few areas that didn't stamp as well as I wanted (but see now I still missed a few areas lol!)

Added random dots and glitter to accent.  The added glitter is from KBShimmer Kringle All The Way; the polish dots are from the same stamping polishes.  I wanted to add a star to the top of the trees but when I picked one from a bottle of polish, it was too large to fit on top of the trees. Then I remembered that I had received a Sally Hansen Nail art pen as part of a promotional package** so decided to use it for some hand drawn stars. My freehand skills are still to be desired but I still like how the stars turned out!  The pen was easy to use; I'll be doing a review of it and others in future posts!

Added a few more random dots to accent.

Topped with SV to finish.

I loved how this turned out (well, minus the ouchies I'm sporting again!)

I also have some exciting giveaway news!  I mentioned a couple posts ago about a giveaway and here's the details!  There is one prize only....one lucky person takes all!   The prize consists of the following:

Seven MJ plates have been supplied by My Online Shop (MJ XI, MJ XVII, MK XV and MJ Special Edition plates as well as XXV, XXIII and XXIV test plates which are slightly different that the ones that the shop sells even if you have these already!!).  Also, three MoYou plates; Festive Collection - 04 (the elusive sweater mani plate that keeps going out of stock!), Pro Collection-06 and Time Traveller Back to the 70'x 01.  The three polishes shown are also included; KBShimmer Snow Flaking Way, KBShimmer Urban Camo and I Love Nail Polish Babes in Toyland.  

In addition to the above, there's still more more!  There's a brand new Canadian indie polish maker, Candy Nail Polish, who has also offered your choice of three full size polishes from the the Candy Nail Polish Holiday Collection.  Please make sure to check out the Candy Nail Polish link for a better look at the polishes as you'll need to list your three choices from the Holiday Collection only to answer one of the raffleopter options.  

Please feel free to click on the pix to look at better or visit the websites to view!

 

Please go here for better look at My Online Shop plates (except test plates).

Please go here for better look at MoYou plates.

Please go here for better look at CandyNailPolish.

I'm going to do things a little different this time and attempt a raffleopter (if anyone notices as error, please comment below as me and raffleopter don't seem to get along too well...but I do think I figured it out!!).  The contest will run from today's post until the time runs out on the raffleopter on or about Monday, January 6, 2014. Once a winner has been chosen and verified, they will have 48 hours from the time of the email notice to contact me; if no response is received, another winner will be chosen.  Open internationally; please refer to giveaway policy for further details!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much to My Online Shop, Candy Nail Polish and MoYou UK*** for their generous sponsorship in the giveaway!  It is gratefully appreciated (and will certainly be appreciated by the one lucky winner!) Other items have been provided by moi!

Good Luck!!!

**item received for review; please refer to disclosure policy for information.

***The MoYou plates are plates that either I bought or had been sent a second plate in error. In the instance that I did receive the second plate by error, I had contacted MoYou to let them know that I had received an extra plate and had asked if they wanted to have it returned or if it was OK to use for a giveaway; they had indicated it was OK to include for a giveaway! 

Christmas Eve Excitment

It's the last week for the Nail Polish Canada contest; this weeks theme is Holiday Memories.  While there are a whole lot of memories about the holidays that are dear to me, the most anticipated, as a kid and for my kids, is Santa coming on Christmas Eve.  I remember the excited feeling well when I was a child; and my kids were no different, being so excited on Christmas Eve with the anticipation that Santa was coming!  Well, if they have been good, that is!  They always put out milk and cookies for Santa (and a carrot for Rudolph!) then off to bed, fighting sleep so they could hear him coming down the chimney...of course, they are always sleeping when he arrives!  Here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Duri Taming of the Shrew and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then topped with SV.

Added assortment of images; Big Sdp P (thumb), Chez Xmas 001 (index), Bunny HD-F (middle), FUN 6 (ring) and Fauxnad K (pinky) using black and white Konad special polishes.

Added a few accent images from Chez Xmas 001 using white and red Konad polishes.

Topped with SV to finish.

Here's a look at Bunny Nails HD-F.

Here's the entries for the Nail Polish Canada; please vote for your favourite if you are so inclined!

Hope you had a great weekend; thanks for looking!