Holiday Memories Nails

It’s the third and final week of Nail Polish Canada’s 2nd Annual Holiday Nail Art Challenge!  What a bunch of fun this challenge has been!

The theme for this week’s nail art is HOLIDAY MEMORIES so I tried to think back to one moment that stood out to me.  It winds up being Christmas 2010 and it was my first holiday with my boyfriend Justin.  He’s an amazing artist (he paints mostly movie paintings and posters) but he worked on something different that season- an awesome landscape painting that he created just for me.  He painted Lake Minnewaska since we went there on one of our first dates.   He even had the painting professionally framed.  I cried when I unwrapped it- it was a complete surprise and so thoughtful.  I thought, “wow, this guy’s a keeper”!  I’ve included a photo of the painting so you can see too.  This is what I based today’s nail art on!

I painted a few nails with trees, lake and clouds to simulate the landscape.  Ok, I don’t have Justin’s painting skills, but not many people do ! lol!  I tried my best.  Then I painted my other nails with X’s and O’s to give the feeling of love and romance since it was our very first Christmas together.  I dunno why my green O’s look so bright in the pics though…they weren’t quite so bright in real life.  But I like the green and red combo- it gives it more of a festive feel.  I really like the x’s and o’s pattern too- I will have to try this again sometime!  Maybe for valentines day if I change up the colors.

Anyway, I hope you like my nails! If you’d like to vote for me or any other mani here’s the link: HOLIDAY MEMORIES CONTEST.  There’s been a ton of talent so far on the Nail Polish Canada page, it will be hard to pick a favorite!

Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

Holiday Underside Mani

Nail Polish Canada’s Holiday Nail Art Challenge is happening right now!!  I did Snowbunny Nails for WEEK 1 and I got a lot of votes… so THANK YOU to everyone who voted for me!!!!!  Although I didn’t secure 1st place I received a lot of sweet comments on my skiing bunnies, so it was still a WIN.  🙂

I just finished my second design for the holiday challenge since it’s week 2 right now.  The theme for this week is DECORATIONS.  Since I love DECORATING the underside of my nails- I went with a holiday UNDERSIDE MANI, as I like to call them! 🙂 

Underside manis are easy to do as long as your nails have some length to them. Just use a polish that has a skinny or small brush so you don’t bump your skin too much.  I like to wipe most of the paint off my brush so it doesn’t drip all over.  A few thin coats underneath are better than thick ones.  I painted it carefully and I didn’t need to do any cleanup at all.  I used a gold foil polish called Golden-I by Sally Hansen.  Then I placed some tiny blue rhinestones for extra appeal.

To keep in line with the DECORATIONS theme- I naturally wanted to add designs to the top of my nails too.  I pulled inspiration from some traditional-type holiday decor; snow flakes, candy canes, a trimmed Christmas tree and a string of holiday lights.  The snowflakes and candy cane designs were stamped using MoYou London Festive 03 stamping plate.  Then I hand-painted the Christmas tree and lights.

Because it’s half stamped and half-hand painted it has a very mix-matched feel… but I think the studded undersides bring it all together!  I hope you like them!

Here’s the URL if you’d like to vote for me or your other favorite nails: NAIL POLISH CANADA WEEK 2 DECORATIONS.  Votes can be placed on the bottom of that page…just pick me (CRAFTYNAIL) from the list of bloggers.  You have to enter your name and email to vote, but don’t worry- they will not spam you. 🙂  Thanks for stopping by and see you soon!

Snow Bunny Nails!

I don’t want to write this whole post in Caps Lock mode… so you’ll have to take my word for it– I am excited over here!!!!!!!   Nail Polish Canada is hosting their 2nd Annual Holiday Nail Art Challenge and I’m participating this year!  They were going to announce the first theme yesterday so I basically spent all my free time obsessively checking my email waiting for the prompt! 🙂 Upon finding out that the theme is SNOW I quickly thought of SNOW BUNNIES!  You skiers out there may enjoy this nail art!  Here are my cute snow bunnies skiing down the slope…

You can click THIS LINK to see all the contestants’ manicures.  If you’d like to vote for mine simply enter your name and your email and then pick CRAFTYNAIL.COM from the list of participants.  Whomever gets the most votes this week wins a bunch of nail polishes from Nail Polish Canada.  I clearly don’t have enough nail polishes, so thank you in advance! 😉  And may the odds be ever in my favor! ha!

I really love my lil bunnies and trees and I’d like to give credit to this cutie graphic I found online (which was the perfect inspiration for this mani).  Of course painting a tiny little ski bunny was a challenge, but hey- I’m up for a good challenge! It probably would’ve been much easier with acrylic paints, but what can I say?  I’m a nail polish kinda girl. 🙂

I made my own nail decals by hand-painting my snowbunnies and trees with nail polish onto a plastic baggy.  I waited overnight for the I decals to dry and then placed them over my blue and teal painted nails.  I put some white dots on top to look like lil snowflakes and then topped them with seche vite.  I love diy nail decals because when you topcoat them they melt down and adhere to your nail like magic.  Oh, I also would like to mention that my bunnies and snow flakes were painted using OPI’s Alpine Snow.  So maybe I should call this mani Alpine Snow Bunnies? 😀

This manicure really got me into the holiday spirit!  It even snowed here in NY today.  I’m really feelin it now!!!!!!!  Don’t forget to vote for your fave snowy nails here and Happy Holidays!

-Craftynail xx

Halloween Tutorial for #31DC2013

The Supernatural is the inspiration for the manicure I’m wearing today!  I’m trying out some cutesy GHOST NAILS as part of the Chalkboard Nails 31 Day Challenge. This is a fun and easy manicure to try for halloween so I put together a picture tutorial for you!

Here’s how I did it:

» I started with one coat of Sally Hansen Maximum Growth as my base

» Then I painted most of my nails orange using Art Orange by AVON (a one-coater!)

» I painted my accent nail black using Liquid Leather by China Glaze (another one-coater!)

» The ghost was painted with a skinny nail art brush from Sephora and NYC nail polish in French White Tip

» I dotted the ghost’s eyes with black polish using my smallest dotting tool (or you can use a toothpick)

What do you think..easy, right? Go ahead and try it this October.  🙂

#31DC2013 – Half Moons (in halloween colors)

As part of Chalkboard’s 31 day nail challenge I’ve got a funky halloween halfmoon design for you!

Now that fall is here I’ve been DYING to do some autumnal nail art- especially for halloween!!  Weeeee!!  I love halloween… and my blog is a great way for me to showcase my holiday spirit!  Halloween is all about orange and black, but my fave combo for the holiday is actually green and purple.  This mani is kinda crazy looking and perhaps a little fugly, but I don’t care!  I’ll wear pretty much anything on these nails- and I’ll love it too!  lol

What I’m wearing:

♥ one coat of Nailtiques #2

♥ two coats of Essence lime green called L.O.L.

♥ one coat of seche vite to make the green dry quickly

♥ then I used painters tape to create the crescent/halfmoon line

♥ then I applied one coat of Milani TEXTURE in Purple Streak and then peeled the tape off

This mani was quick and easy!!

Would you wear nails like these, or is the color scheme a little too ‘out there’ for you?

You can view some of the other halfmoon designs for the #31DC2013 right here: 

#31DC2013 Flowers Nail Art

Day 14 of Chalkboard Nails’ Challenge is FLOWERS and I’ve got some brown cherry blossom nails for ya!  I’ll be honest with you… I don’t really like how these nails came out.  I don’t like to be negative… but it is what it is.  And I realized that when I don’t like one of my designs I usually only post one pic.  So here it is….

I’m wearing two coats of a cream brown called Nirvana by Sinful Colors.  A few months back you may remember me whining about how I didn’t have any basic brown polishes… well, now I have one!  I think Nirvana should come in handy for nail art this fall and winter. 🙂    For my floral design I painted some branches using Orly Nite Owl.  I wish I used a dark polish for the branches.  (On this old AriZona Green Tea mani I made the branches black and they looked amazing!) The pink flowers are China Glaze Dance Baby and Orly Kiss the Bride.  I used a toothpick to make black dots in the middle of the blossoms, but the dots came out much bigger than expected (oopsy)!  I topped it off with seche vite and there you go!  These aren’t that fantastical, but they were quick to do, so that’s a bonus.  😀

See some of the other flower nails from #31DC2013 right here:

#31DC2013 – Polka Dots

Polka dot nails.  The french manicure nail guide stickers pulled some of my peach basecoat off.  How annoying !  I put topcoat over it and that helped smooth it out a bit.  Here they are………..

FYI-This is my 2nd attempt at polka dot nails tonight.  My first design got messed up too!  That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

signed, crabby in NY