Monday, December 24, 2012

Santa Claus the Night Before Christmas

It's the night before Christmas; Santa Claus is at the North Pole getting ready to deliver all the gifts all over the world!  Here he is before leaving for a busy night!

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Started with a base of OPI Bride's Bouquet, two coats then sponged a gradient using NYX Girls Dark Gray and FingerPaints Black Expressionism.

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Stamped using QA 19 (house), W220 (Santa), D01 (sleigh) and HD05 (reindeer); then hand painted in North Pole on pinky.

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Added some snow using XL B.

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Touched up the dots with a dotter.

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Added SV.

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For those who have followed my blog since last year, you may have already seen this, but for those who
have not, I thought I'd rerun Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas,



when all through the house



Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,



In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.



The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.



And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,



Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow


Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.



With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!



On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!



To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.


And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,



And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.
His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.


The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.




He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.


And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,



"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

From my family to yours, have a Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Challenge Mani

This weeks FB Adventures in Stamping Challenge was to do a mani featuring the colours from your Christmas tree.  My tree pretty much has most colours under the rainbow, but has strong gold and red decorative accents, which is also the majority of the colour scheme for the rest of the house decorations, so those were the colours I chose to do for the mani....here's what I came up with.

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Started with a base of two coats of Layla Softouch Effect 02.  I received this polish as a RAOK from KarenD at Frazzle and Aniploish.  After seeing the Layla's in one of her blog posts and then looking for them at Ulta during my last cross border shopping trip but they weren't available, KarenD was good enough to offer to pick them up with a few other pretties....THEN before I have even had a chance to pay, she messaged that they were on their way to me!   Thanks so much again, Karen!

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Added a few holiday decorations using red Konad special polish and Sally Hansen Jumpin' Jupiter using D07 (present on pinky), Sugar Bubbles special 01 (wreath on thumb), and fauxnad D (tree on middle, candy cane on ring and mistletoe on index).

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I was going to do a few accent dots but then I remembered a newly arrived polish from Candy Lacquer called Rudolph's Treats that is circular (!!!) glitters in green, gold and red in a clear base.  So I fished them out and added red on the tree for ornaments and others to accent the wreath and the other images.  Then I fished out more of the circular dots and used to accent throughout as well as used a star shaped rhinestone for the tree topper.

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Bottle pix of Candy Lacquer Rudolph's Treats.

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Added SV.

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Just before taking it off, I topped the mani with Essie Matte About You (which is the first pix) and this is the version I like the most.

Hope you had a fantastic weekend....thanks for looking!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Wrapping It Up

This is the second mani I did with the Sugar Bubbles special holiday plates....and another one of these funky frenches!

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I'm going to be honest; this is a mani that I had no intention of showing.  While I love the base, and the glitter added..... I failed so badly with the stamping on so many levels that this was a fail that could do without being posted! 

Started with a base of two coats of Contrary Hayride.  Love the shimmer in these Contrary polishes!  And the shimmer isn't hidden like so many other polishes that its gorgeous in the bottle but hidden on the nail.

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Bottle pix. 

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Added Orly Halo at tips for some glitter accent.

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I couldn't decide which gold stamping polish to use that would compliment the base best.....even though there are a bunch of gold chromes/metallics out there, there are different shades....I ultimately chose CND Gold Chrome which is my go to gold stamping polish most of the time, using Sugar Bubbles special 02 plate.

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But...and here's the fail part....I failed miserably on the lining up of the ribbons...the ribbons are crooked, the bows aren't centered and are all over the place and the gold didn't show up very well.  I was ticked at myself at this point....didn't even take many pix/didn't worry particularly too much about doing a great job on cleanup.

BUTTTTT, when I got outside, the mani looked totally different and then I loved it (well, less the stamping fails!).

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Contrary Polish is available here or mini size bottles or at Llarowe.  Sugar Bubbles here!

Hope you're having a great weekend...thanks for looking!







Friday, December 21, 2012

A Quick Christmas Mani

Back to doing a holiday mani....a quick one I came up with.

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Started with a base of two coats of Color Blast by Orly Raging Vine.  This is two coats; no topcoat.

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Added NYX Girls Emerald Forest for some glitter french tips....for some reason, I'm kinda into these funky french glitter type of mani's right now....

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Neither one of these has top coat on top.

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Stamped with Konad white stamping polish using SdP 83.

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Added a few red dots for the holly berries. 

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(Topped with SV, which is the first pix.)

Just before I took it off, I had a recently received bottle of Lush Lacquer Ho Ho Holidays sitting out and thought I'd layer a coat on just to see how it looked.


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Have a great weekend! 

Thanks for looking!


Thursday, December 20, 2012

Oopsie Daisies Glacier

After a couple weeks of non-stop Christmas/Holiday/Winter mani's, I felt like something different and needed a little change.  When I was trying to decide what polish/what stamp (which usually takes me longer to figure out than the actual time spent on doing my nails...can anyone relate?), I seen the bottle of Oopsie Daisies Glacier** sitting on my table which I hadn't worn yet; this is what I came up with.

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Started with a base of three coats of Oopsie Daisies Glacier.  Topped with SV.

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Another pix.  Glacier is unlike anything in my stash; while I was initially going to layer it over a creme, I decided to just do layers on its own.  Three coats had good coverage yet was interesting because it was still translucent.

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When it came time to do some stamping, the first images that came to mind were snowflakes...but I was wanting to stay away from Christmas/Holiday/Winter images as I had done so many mani's already with them and was feeling the need for something different.  So decided on MJ VI using Konad white special polish.

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Topped with SV.

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I really liked how this turned out; the popping glitter, combined with the stamping, made the mani look 3D which I thought was awesome!  The funny thing about this is that this polish would be an awesome base for some snowflakes...the glitter combined with stamping would be an awesome 3D effect!  Next time....! 

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Oopsie Daisies is available via Etsy here....there's also a new collection from Oopsie Daisies called Mount Olympus just launched that has a couple colours calling my name.....!

Thanks for looking!

**Polish was sent for review.  Please refer to my disclosure policy.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Stamping Over Red

This weeks FB Adventures in Stamping Challenge was stamping over red.  This is the mani I came up with!

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Started with a base of two coats of China Glaze Adventure Red-y.

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Added a little glitter at the tips using Orly Halo; this pix has no topcoat on the tips.  Halo is fast becoming one of my favourite polishes for adding some glitter interest at the tips; I'm seriously contemplating if I should be trying to track down a backup from Sally's I love it so much and its so versatile going with any colour!

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Stamped using fauxnad P12 with Konad white special polish.

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This is one of my favourite snowflake images; however, the smallest image doesn't stamp clearly; just kinda blobby.  So I isolated the large ones and used them somewhat like a french tip. 

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Lastly, topped with SV.

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Thanks for looking!