My new years nails- magnetic snakeskin

Happy New Year!!!  Here are my new years eve nails for the N.A.I.L. linkup! I went with a mix-match snake skin manicure.  I used two different magnetic polishes in this design and I also hid ‘2014’ in there as well. 🙂

GREEN NAILS- My green nails were painted with Sinfully Magnetic Snakeskin nail polish in a green shade called Force Field.  I applied one coat and let it dry.  Then I applied the second coat and then immediately held the included magnet over top.  The magnet reacted with the polish and created such an amazing criss-cross snakeskin effect (see my other post about Force Field here). This is probably my absolute favorite magnetic polish & magnet of all time!  I also applied some pearl-toned studs to these nails for a feminine sexy touch.

BLACK NAILS- These nails were painted with China Glaze Liquid Leather.  Then I stamped MoYou Pro 05 snakeskin design over half of these nails using a silver magnetic Orly polish called Paint on Electron.  I’m so glad that the silver stamped so well!  The puny Orly magnet that came with the polish really sucks…so I’m happy to find another use for Paint on Electron which didn’t even require a magnet.  *Another thing to note about stamping with magnetic polish- it didn’t smudge at all when I applied topcoat!

Oh and about the hidden ‘2014’-  I placed my studs strategically to represent the year 2014– I put 20 studs on my right hand and 14 studs on my left.  🙂  I also patterned my nails differently on each hand just for effect. 

Do you think magnetic nail polish has a fun ‘party feel’ ?  I love it and I think it’s just perfect for the holidays. Plus, I did magnetic nails last new yrs eve… so I’m sorta keeping up with traditions by doing another one tonite.  These nails are also just in time to say goodbye to the SNAKE.  Au revoir 2013, year of the snake!  Bonjour 2014, year of the horse! 

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to show you a pic of my new horse calendar for 2014.  I got it as a Christmas present from my uncle!  Isn’t it purty?

I look forward to a new year!  See you in 2014!

View the other N.A.I.L. entries here:

N.A.I.L. December Theme 1 – Snowflakes

N.A.I.L. December Theme 2 – Shopping

N.A.I.L. December Theme 3 – Winter Solstice

N.A.I.L. December Theme 4 – Festive French Manis

N.A.I.L. December Theme 5 – New Year

Rival de Loop Perfect Pinky

Today I’m showing you a lovely polish that I won from luchessa.org!  Luchessa mailed it to me all the way from Germany so this polish is totally unique in my stash!  It’s called Rival de Loop Perfect Style Effect Nail Color in Perfect Pinky.  Even though the name suggest it’s pink, it also has nice purple tinge to it.  So I layered it over a purple OPI to really play up the violet tones….

Shown here is…

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Growth – one coat as a base coat

♥ OPI Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI – two coats as my purple base color

♥ Rival de Loop Perfect Pinky – one coat as a special effect topper

♥ purple painted studs – for fun!

Isn’t it gorgeous!?!?!  I also tried Perfect Pinky on its own- it needed four coats for opacity and it looked totally different!  It had an almost rhubarb-colored pinkish purplish tone with tons of copper shimmer.  It’s so pretty any way you wear it though- by itself or as a topper.  I’m so thankful I won this bottle- thanks Luchessa!

Have you ever tried this brand Rival de Loop?

my long-lasting frenchie

So my last post was my festive french mani that I wore on Christmas day.  But I snapped a few shots of that mani before I applied my DIY holly decals (just to see what a plain ol’ frenchie looks like on me)…

It’s been so long since I wore a frenchie, it was a nice break.  I did this french manicure on monday and today is saturday.  That’s 6 days with no chips!  Like, seriously?? How does that even happen?  I give credit to my basecoat- I used Orly Bonder.  But also…. to my nail shape.  My nail polish just does not seem to chip on my pointy nails!  It’s great.  I hope to write up a pointy nail post soon.  Kinda like an A-Z/everything you want to know about pointy nails sorta post! 🙂

Even though today is the 6th day and I’m curious how much longer this one will last, I will be removing this frenchie later today.  I am itching to try out my new christmas gift nail polishes!!  See you soon!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! And if you don’t celebrate Christmas then I wish your day is filled with plenty of good food, family, friends and love! ♥

This manicure is my entry for December’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup.  The theme this week is FESTIVE FRENCH MANI and I’m realizing how seldom I wear French manicures!!  I free-handed the white tips using a skinny brush and cheap NYC brand nail polish called French White Tip.  I could’ve used tape or nail guide stickers, but sometimes that feels like a hassle to me.  I did a light coat of a Seche Vite French Manicure color called Chic over top too.  This may be my favorite French mani color ever!  It’s very transparent but one one coat does the trick.  It looks so sheer and natural and it has the slightest shimmer in it which is not even noticeable, but it keeps the nail from looking dull or flat!

I’m happy with my finished frenchie, especially since I painted the white tip a little high to create an illusion that my nails are longer than they actually are.  It’s all smoke and mirrors, girls! lol

Now how did I do the little holly design?  That’s actually a diy decal that I made last week. I stamped the holly design onto a plastic baggie using black nail polish and my MoYou Festive 03 stamping plate.  Then I used some green nail polish to paint over and fill in the holly leaves. I topped that with a few swipes of topcoat and let it dry well.  The hollies peeled off the baggie like perfect little stickers.  Then I used some tiny scissors –you know those teensy cuticle trimmer scissors that we all have but never use?  They are perfect for cutting up decals!  I trimmed my holly bunches from three leaves down to two so they’d become smaller to fit better on my nails.  I laid the decal on my accent fingernail, dotted some clear polish on top to secure a few red rhinestones, then I topcoated the whole thing.  Here’s a shot of both hands…

These Christmas nails are a bit tamer than my usual style!  I felt a little bare wearing such a simple french manicure.  But don’t worry, I’ve already blinged them up by adding holo glitter that santa left in my stocking.  If you give me nail polish, I will be using it as soon as humanly possible. 🙂

WHAT DID YOU WEAR ON YOUR NAILS FOR CHRISTMAS??  Did you go simple like me, or did you wow everyone with your major cray cray nails? 

Warm wishes to you and yours- from the bottom of my heart!  Talk soon, Craftynail xo

N.A.I.L. Dec Theme 4 – Festive French Manis

Dotted and stamped! Another holiday manicure…

I love nail stamping with my Konad, Cheeky and MoYou plates… but sometimes a solid-colored stamp is just too boring for me.  I’m always looking for fun ways to complicate a simple stamp manicure.  Then it hit me: why not do a dotticure, then stamp over top of it!?

I like the end result!  It has a sorta country-appeal to it.  Kinda like shabby chic wall-paper or something.  It didn’t take long to do, especially since my MoYou XL stamper is soft and squishy so I don’t need to press very hard.  Which means my underneath layers of polish don’t have to be dry when I stamp.  That saves me a lot of waiting/dry-time.  I hafta say, since I got my MoYou stamper- I haven’t even touched my old Konad one at all!

Here’s what I’m wearing:

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Growth – as my basecoat

♥ OPI My Vampire is Buff – three coats

♥ AVON Ruby Slipper & AVON Garden Green w/a dotting tool – for the dots

♥ Black Konad polish and my MoYou London Festive 03 plate – for the stamping

♥ Seche Vite – as my topcoat

When I topcoated my thumb it seemed very prone to smudging.  So I had to really slather the seche vite on super thick as to not drag the brush across my design.  I hate how stamping smudges so easy.  I’m wondering if different polishes smudge differently?  I dunno, but Konad polish surely smudges!  I SHOULD DO A SMUDGING EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT BRANDS!  I’ll put that on my blog to-do list.

Only two days left til Christmas!!  You ready for it???  Tonight we just need to make a big batch of cookies and then we are all set for the festivities!

Green Glitter Christmas Nails

I wanted to squeeze in another holiday mani before Christmas day arrives.  Ready or not, it’s right around the corner!

I got this cute green glitter polish in an ABC Store in Las Vegas earlier this month.  It’s called Island Volcano by Island Girl Hawaii and it’s a perfect polish for a Christmas mani!  I also grabbed a few other items from this brand and I love that I own Hawaiian nail products now!  Especially the beautiful bottle of cuticle oil with dried flowers floating in it.  I’ll have to show you sometime!

Here’s what I’m wearing…

♥ Essence Peel Off Base Coat – 1 coat

♥ Funky Fingers in Limelight – 2 coats

♥ Island Girl Hawaii in Island Volcano – 2 coats

♥ no-name brand red studs – I like that they look like tiny maraschino cherries 🙂

♥ Seche Vite topcoat

I’d also like to add this manicure to the INSPIRED BY CHRISTMAS COLOURS inlinkz for #ChristmasWithFLP which is a cute December Nail Challenge that I found out about on Lekker Lacquer’s blog.  There’s a lot of fun themes for this Christmas Challenge… check it out here!

Early Christmas Prezzies for Crafty!

Here’s a couple stocking stuffers that I got from my boss.  She knows me so well!

This Miracle Birth Control Gum cracks me up!

Here’s a bottle of hand-blended Brijits Digits polish from my good friend Brijit! It’s a semi-matte brick red called Yowl.  It’s formulated to have a rubberized finish, but topcoat transforms it to super duper glossy!  Here’s two coats of Yowl with one coat of seche vite on top…

And here I am modeling Yowl with my new fingerless gloves.  These gloves were a gift to myself!  They have silver studs attached to the tops of them so I couldn’t resist.  They will keep my hands warm while I’m kicking around my chilly house and I can even paint my nails while wearing them.  🙂  Perfect!

I usually end up buying myself stuff when I’m supposed to be shopping for others.  Strange how that always seems to happen.  😉

Did you get any early Christmas presents? Do tell!