Digital Dozen Does Traditions; Day 1

It's Digit-al Dozen week!  This month, our theme is traditions.  While they don't have to be centered around the holidays, because its so close to Christmas, all mine will be (I think, because I haven't finished all five yet; but that's the plan anyway lol).  For Day 1, I did a mani based on leaving a letter along with milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, and carrots for the reindeer.  I did this as a child, as did my children. Some years, we even left Santa an onion because 'Santa' hates onions lol.  Here's what I came up with!  

Started with a base of Pure Ice Shore Bet, two coats, no top coat.

Added coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC.

I wanted a little bit of background interest for the stamper decals i had made but not enough to overpower the images; went with an image from Messy Mansion MM40 using MoYou Falcon.  Top coated before applying stamper decals (no pix, as this post has enough lol).

I made five stamper decals for using images from Mundo de Unas MdU Christmas 3 (centre and ring), FUN 20 (index), Cheeky Home Sweet Home Jumbo 7 (pinky) and Big SdP P (no pix here because I messed up my first decal so had to make a second but continued along with the mani in interest of time).  For stamping polishes, used Girly Bits Emerald and FunkyFingers Dark Knight.  Filled in the stamping using assortment of acrylics.

Mundo de Unas MdU Christmas 3

Added assortment of dots on the Christmas tree for interest.

My two favourite nails!

Added words from BundleMonster BM-S217 and snowflakes for filler.  I used the clear jelly stamper for the work placement but unfortunately,  the 'AS' at the end of Christmas didn't stamp well, so tried to remove it, then restamped just those two letters.  

BundleMonster BM-S217

It was late by the time I finishedand my second thumb stamper decal wasn't dry enough to apply.  So in the morning, added the stamper decal on the thumb. 

Thought that this decals would look better matte; added coat of OPI matte to finish.

I love how this turned out but it was a lot of work looking through plates, then planning all the nails, doing the decals, filling them, waiting for them to dry,  etc etc.  It would be nice to do something this creative every day but simply not enough time!  

Here's the other ladies Day 1 mani's!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Childhood; Day 4

It was no surprise to me when I got to thinking about childhood for this weeks Digit-al Dozen theme, that a lot of my memories involved my grandparents.  I was fortunate that I lived just a few doors away from both sets of my grandparents up until I was a teen; one lived 4 houses to the right, the other 5 houses to the left, so was at their houses fairly often.  I spent a lot of time at both grandparents houses but moreso with my Grandpa and Nannie (versus Grandpa and Grandma; we were taught to call them different names so everyone knew which grandparents we were talking about lol). I would help them do things around their house; weeding their vegetable garden and other yard work.  I also many nights sleeping over even though our house was just a few doors away.  Most days after school, I would head to their house first right off the bus and sit with my Grandpa who had just arrived home from work around the same time.  We'd watch Hogan's Heroes and All in the Family, having some little snack while Nannie was making dinner. When it was ready, I'd head home.  It was my Nannie that taught me to bake; I can remember standing on a chair at the kitchen counter just doing the stirring while she added the ingredients when I was very little.  As I got older, I made the items by myself while she supervised while sitting at the kitchen table.  We'd play cards while the baking was in the oven.  I learned a lot of valuable baking tips; how to double a recipe, or half it, read the instructions from a cookbook, etc.  Not only did I learn how to bake, but also to cook and can; I can remember helping to make homemade pickles, beets, applesauce, canning fruit plus jams of all sorts. I still love to bake after all these years and usually bake at least one thing a week now.  So today's mani features baking with my Nannie, one of my fondest childhood memories.

For bases, polishes used starting with thumb and going clockwise are OPI My Vampire is Buff with a thin coat of Cirque French Roast, Lynnderella Ruby Red Ruby (3 coats), Pahlish Bespoke The Wish of a Golden Fish, Barry M Blue Plum Gelly with a coat of Streetwear FX Flash, and OPI My Vampire is Buff. 

I wanted to make pies on all fingers (they are pecan, cherry, pumpkin and blueberry if its not obvious!) but all I could think of for the fifth pie was lemon meringue and thought however would I do that, so decided to add a cupcake.  The pie crusts are using an image from MoYou Back to the 50's-03 mixing Mundo de Unas 43 and 57 together. The cupcake is Dash 20 using red Konad special polish and Barry M Blue Plum jelly. Added nuts for the pecan pie on the thumb with Mundo de Unas 22 using Cheeky Home Sweet Home Jumbo Plate 7.  For the pumpkin pie, I swirled the polish around when it got gummy, to mimic how the filling settles into the crust.

MoYou Back to the 50's-03

For the pumpkin pie nail on the middle, I matted the polish using OPI matte, added a few darker swirls using Cirque French Roast then added the pie crust by hand painting using Mundo de Unas 43.  Top coated the ring, index and pinky with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.  I was kinda ticked that my nails were too small for the full effect of the pie crust to show on the index and middle finger but not much you can do about that.

Here's the other ladies Day 4 childhood nails!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Brands; Day 5

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, for some reason I did three red and white brand mani's; this is the last one.  I guess red and white is popular in advertising; or my eye gravitates towards those brand's logo's (which I guess means their advertising is working!) I also noticed that for the other four brand mani's, the middle finger was white in them; this wasn't intentional just how the colours ended up so today, I made sure to have a different colour other than white on the middle finger! Here's what I came up with for Day 5's mani!

Started with a base of two coats of Duri Taming of the Shrew (red) and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (white).



Stamped using assortment of images; MoYou Rebel Collection-03 (indes and ring), Cheeky Jumbo 07 Home Sweet Home (pinky and thumb), CICI & SISI 06 (bowl on middle) and Cheeky CH42 (spoon on middle).  Stamping polishes used were black, red and white Konad and Mundo de Unas green (didn't jot down the number in notes but will update later).



The Campbell's soup can didn't stamp the best so I filled in a little with a brush and red Konad special polish. Also, the bowl was really a cup on the image plate so I tried to remove a little bit more of the handle so touched up there as well.



CICI & SISI 6






I didn't even notice until I was uploading these pix that this plate has a tomato on it too.  I may have used it instead!





Added a few random dots on index and ring finger as filler.  Also added Mmm using CH42 for small m's and unnoted plate for M; will have to update!  Topped those fingers with SV in this pix but left the red dots to dry a little longer.



Topped with SV to finish.




I'm actually more of a Campbell's Mushroom Soup lover myself (or my own homemade Cauliflower-Cheddar or Potato-Cheddar soup), but there is no stamping plate image of this so Tomato Soup will have to do.  Now if only there were grilled cheese and cracker stamps for next time lol!

Here's the other ladies Day 5 mani's...and that's a wrap til next month!

An InLinkz Link-up

Have a great weekend...and thanks for looking!