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

Copycat: Kelly Osbourne’s pointy black heart nails!

I’m so happy to show you my latest CELEBRITY COPYCAT manicure!  From the instant I transitioned my nails from squoval to pointy I just knew that I had to try out this design!  Ready to see my rendition of Kelly Osbourne’s black heart nails from the 2013 SAG Awards??

The photo I used of Kelly is not my property – it can be found in this article on reveal.co.uk

My mani isn’t a complete match, since her nails are way pointier.  But I am loving this fierce look!  I don’t dare file mine as pointy as hers- I really think they’d break! 

I timed how long this manicure took me from start to finish and it was 27 minutes.  And it didn’t cost me anything since I did it myself.  I wonder how much time and money Kelly spent on these nails?!  teeheehee 😉

Here’s the steps to create this look:

1) Base coat-  I used one coat of Sally Hansen Maximum Growth.

2) Sheer neutral base color-  I applied one coat of Seche Vite Chic which is a very sheer pinky peach color meant to be used as a base for french manicures.

3) Black tips-  I used China Glaze Liquid Leather and skinny nail art brush to make the heart shape outline.  Then I used the China Glaze bottle brush to fill in the rest of the heart with more black polish.  However, when I went to do my second hand I skipped the nail art brush part and simply free-handed the hearts using the bottle brush.  This was just as effective, but way quicker!!!

4) Silver accents- I can’t tell if Kelly was wearing silver glitter on her tips, or what…since they looked black but also kinda silver too.  So I decided to add some pewter-toned polish on top of the black to imitate her look.  I used a nail art brush dipped in Sally Hansen Gunmetal to go over top of the black.  I brushed it on in a very ‘quick and dirty’ kind of way since I just wanted to add a bit of silver on top of the black.

5) Top coat- I applied one coat of Seche Vite topcoat to finish off my manicure.

And that’s it!  What do you think?  Any recommendations for other celebrity copycats that I should attempt??? I want to try more!

Fall French Manicure and Pinterest Changes?

I really wanted to do a galaxy mani for Chalkboard’s nail challenge since that was the theme for today.  Galaxies are so much fun.  But I had a horrid headache tonite after my aerobics class…. so I watched some corny horror movies with my boyfriend and laid on the couch all night.  Ever seen The People Under The Stairs (from 1991) or Child’s Play 2 (it’s one of those Chucky movies)?  Ahhh I just love netflix 🙂  You get to watch super-cheese movies without the embarrassment of having to rent them out in public.  Anywho, I kinda gave up on the idea of doing my nails tonite… but once my ibuprofen kicked in I got my second wind!  Rather than going nuts with a galaxy mani late at nite I figured I’d try a nice simple french mani.  And since fall is coming I reached for my rich evergreen-toned essence polish called Deap Sea, Baby!

For this french mani I tried out my new Essence French Manicure Brush that Viviana sent me.  You may know Viviana as Nail-art Addict!   What a doll she is!  I was ooohing and aaahing over how cool this little brush looked in one of her posts so she kindly sent one my way (all the way from the Netherlands!)  If you haven’t seen the Nail-Art Addict’s blog, you’ll want to check it out.  Her nail art is the bomb but so is her blog design as she’s a webmaster in real life!!  Oh, and to top it off- she blogs in two languages.  Whereas I’m just lucky to manage one! 😀

So, my manicure looks fine but I did have some troubles with this little brush.  Some of my nails seemed too wide for it.  It was the perfect size for my pinkie though LOL!   Despite this, it’s an innovative little thing, isn’t it?

I used the brush along with Deep Sea, Baby to paint my tips.  If the brush didn’t reach the edges of my nail I did some touch-ups to get the green where I needed it.  Then I topped it off with one coat of a gold Sephora by OPI glitter called Only Gold For Me.  This glitter is smooth and didn’t require a topcoat (maybe because it’s already labeled as a topcoat right on the bottle) and I think it pairs nicely with the deep green for a nice fall look.  I really enjoy a french mani with a twist from time to time.  I used to be intimidated by french manis, but now I find them relatively simple.  Practice makes perfect I suppose.

I also wanted to mention the new changes to Pinterest.  Pinterest will soon start pinning ads for businesses.  Have you heard of this?  I don’t really know what to think just yet.  I guess I’ll have to see it in action before I can pass any judgements.  (Oh, and if you’d like to follow me on pinterest here’s my link.)  Below is the email notification I received tonite …what do you think??????

Just over a year ago, my wife and I welcomed our son into the world. Since his first day, I’ve been pinning fun things we can do together, right now while he’s still little and later when he gets older. I know many of you do the same. Pinterest is where you keep your wishlists, vacation plans, dream home ideas, and other things you want to do soon and in the future.

That’s why for us, it’s so important that Pinterest is a service that will be here to stay. To help make sure it does, we’re going to start experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of businesses.

I know some of you may be thinking, “Oh great…here come the banner ads.” But we’re determined to not let that happen. While we haven’t figured out all the details, I can say that promoted pins will be:

• Tasteful—No flashy banners or pop-up ads.
• Transparent—We’ll always let you know if someone paid for what you see, or where you see it.
• Relevant—These pins should be about stuff you’re actually interested in, like a delicious recipe, or a jacket that’s your style.
• Improved based on your feedback—Keep letting us know what you think, and we’ll keep working to make things better.

For our first test, we’ll promote a few pins in search results and category feeds. For example, a pin for a Darth Vader outfit from a costume shop might be promoted in a search for “halloween.” Nobody’s paying for anything yet—we want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think.

Thanks so much for all your support these first few years, and we hope you’ll keep pinning with us for many years to come!

All the best,
Ben

IDK!  What do you think of all this??

#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

Bold Heart Nail Art

Hey everyone!  I want to show you my heart nails that I’ve been wearing for a couple of days now…

They’re so fun to wear because the hearts are kinda pointy at the ends!  When I wave my hands around it’s like, ‘come here… lemme pierce your soul with my spiked love talons”!  Ok, well not quite that extreme.. but when you see all ten of them in real life they look kinda cute and fierce. 🙂  Here’s what I’m wearing-

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Growth – one coat

♥ L.A. Girl French Manicure in Pink Nude – one coat

♥ hand-painted hearts using NYC Black Lace Creme – with a detail brush

♥ center of hearts filled in with AVON Sweet Pea Dream – using the bottle brush

♥ french tips dotted on with NYC French White Tip – with a dotting tool

I’ve really enjoyed this manicure- but it’s time to say goodbye.  Gotta work on my design for the SEA theme of Nail Art Ideas Linkup!  And don’t forget- you still have a few days to vote for your favorite nail genius of the week from last week’s SUN manicures!  It allows you to vote three times…here’s the link:

August 7-11th SUN

Day 14 of OMD Challenge- Daisies

Day 14 of the Oh Mon Dieu Challenge is FLORAL. I usually think bright springy colors when I hear the word FLORAL… so I went the opposite way with this one.  Today’s manicure is a nice warm earthy daisy design!

I started with a few base coats of a unnamed peachy color called Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Nourishing Nail Color from my SH french manicure kit.  Then I sponged some Garden Green by AVON on my tips.  Garden Green is such a spectacular polish- it’s a deep natural looking green with slight shimmer that makes it glow.  And it’s uber-opaque which makes it perfect for nail art.  In fact, some of my favorite polishes for nail art are from AVON.  I could do a whole post about a yellow called Inspire that I’ve used 7 times already on my blog (wonder if anyone noticed).  After all my tips were green, which looked pretty cool BTW, I dotted on some daisies using NYC French White Tip.  The center of the daisies was then dotted on using a mustard yellow called Pull Over by Sinful Colors.  I added some Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat et voila!  Earthy floral french mani with daisies!

View the other floral creations here:

14. Flowers :

OMD Rather Awesome Challenge: Day 2 Blue- Dotted Blue Frenchie

Welcome to day 2 of the Oh Mon Dieu! It’s the Rather Awesome 31 Day Challenge Giveaway!!  The theme of day 2 is BLUE. 😀

First off I’d like to sincerely thank everyone for all the birthday wishes yesterday!  I had such a great day and all your warm comments really helped make the day feel special for me.  So thank you!  Nail bloggers are some of the sweetest and most encouraging people I’ve ever met!  You all are great… thank you for being a part of my life!

 Now that all the mushiness is out of the way 😀 let’s get to my blue design!  I started with one thick coat of a baby blue cream called Take Me To Your Chateau by Color Club.  When that was dry I taped off my tips using painters tape and I applied some dark blue using AVON Forget-Me-Not Blue.  I slowly removed the tape and was pretty impressed with my light and dark blue french mani!  But why stop there?  I then embellished the design with a dotting tool to create more interest.  I really like the monochromatic effect of the two blues in this frenchie- it’s pretty simple but also fun and retro.  I hope you like it. 😀

 I’m geared up to see the other blue manis now!  I really get a kick out of checking the inlinkz for updates!  You can view them here:

 2. Blue :