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!

Shopping Nails for #NAILLINKUP

It’s week two of the December N.A.I.L. Linkup and the theme is shopping.  If you’re like me, the word shopping in December means a mad scramble to finish your holiday shopping list!  Luckily, I got most of my shopping done on friday.  The only time I ever really visit Kohl’s is Christmastime… and what amazing deals they have!  Then they give you Kohls CASH which is icing on the cake!  I got gifts for everyone on my list and now I’ve even got gifts on my nails! Let’s take a look at my shopping nails for #NAILLINKUP…..

The wrapping paper and bows came out great!  They’re actually decals that I made.  I’ve shown you how to make decals here, but I’ve never tried it with stamping before.  So basically, I stamped the gifts onto a plastic baggie using my MoYou Festive 03 plate.  Then I painted on top of the gift stamps with green/gold/blue and then I topcoated it.  Once it was dry (overnight) I peeled it off the baggie, flipped it over, et voila!  A pretty little painted present!  I got the idea from Indian Ocean Polish’s blog.  Everytime I login to pinterest I go ga-ga over her decals so I just had to try them out!  Here’s her tutorial- you should check it out!

I’m also happy to wear red again.  I’m loving red more and more lately!  Shown here is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red.  I’m really impressed with it’s formula!

Be sure to check out the other girls’ designs for the Linkup- see the blue guy below!  If you’d like to join in, here’s more info on the linkup…

N.A.I.L. December Theme 2 – Shopping

Candy swirls for my friends

Hey all!  I haven’t posted in a few days but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doin lotsa nail designs!   I’ve been busy making some festive diy nail decals using some of my moyou plates…and I also did some holiday candy swirl manicures for my friends.  Let’s check them out….

For Vanessa’s nails we didn’t really have a plan, but we wanted to go with glittery red and gold.  I started with two coats of Butter London Chancer, a red glitter that glows just like Dorothy’s shoes!  Then we dotted her ring fingers to created some triangular christmas tree shapes.  Accent nails are always fun!  Then for the other fingers we sponged some gold glitter on the tips.  It looked so festive and glimmery, but we didn’t stop there… we were on a roll.  Vanessa wanted some stamping on top for extra pizazz so we decided on MoYou Festive 03 plate which has a cute peppermint candy swirl design.  We used a silver polish for stamping, but then I free-hand outlined the stamp with some dark green polish to make the swirl stand out.  I really like the effect that the outline created.  We also added some rhinestone bling to the center of each nail and on top of our accent nail xmas trees!  Here they are ↓

Vanessa’s nail are usually much longer but she had to cut them recently for her piano class.  She also has an upcoming piano recital for her final grade.  Pianists nails should be short and simple so I hope these nails don’t get in the way during her recital.  However, I think she should get extra credit for nails like these.  Don’t you agree?  😉

Now let’s take a look at the nails I did for Sue!  The candy swirl design was a winner in my mind, so I tried it again on Sue’s nails, but using a different color combo.  Check them out↓

I used a cream white OPI called Alpine Snow as a base color and then stamped on top using a red holo called Sparkle Ruby by L.A. Girl.  It’s funny how the photos look like we used pink instead of red. We decided to use a photo editing filter to fancy up the pics- but they still look pink.  Oh well!

We hope that Sue’s candy swirl manicure lasts a while since she has some MBA graduation festivities coming up.  I used Orly Bonder as a basecoat so hopefully they will withstand the test of time.  🙂  And congrats to Sue on her MBA- all her hard work has paid off and I’m so proud of her!

If anyone wants to drive themselves over to my house- I’ll gladly paint your nails too!  But we just got slammed with a massive snowfall in NY so I assume most of my friends will be hibernating this weekend. 🙂

See you tomorrow for my next holiday manicure!  The theme for our December NAIL LINKUP this week is SHOPPING and I have some fun homemade nail decals to show you.  Cheers!

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!

Snowflakes for N.A.I.L. Linkup

Hey everyone!  This nail art is for week 1 of the December Nail Art Ideas Linkup!  The theme is snowflakes….

Shown here is…

♥ BASE COAT- Sally Hansen Maximum Growth

♥ BASE COLOR- 2 coats of Dancing Nails, a rose-colored metallic from Sinful Colors.

♥ GOLD GRADIENT- I sponged Julie G Metallic Heels onto the tips of my nails.  This rose/gold metallic gradient looked so cool!

♥ WHITE SNOWFLAKES- I stamped white Konad polish using my MoYou Festive 03 Plate.

♥ ACCENT NAIL-  The 3 maroon and beige snowflakes are a water slide decal, and then I placed rhinestones on top.

♥ Topcoat – 1 coat of Seche Vite

Don’t you just love winter-scene manis?  I hope we see a lot more snowflake designs in the #NAILLINKUP!  Here’s the gallery:

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

Brijit designed two beautiful widgets for the NAIL Linkup this month- a blue one and pink one!  Don’t they look sweet?  Which one is your fave?  I’m really groovin on the pink one!

what I’ve been up to….

1) This week’s N.A.I.L. theme is animals/pets.  I did these black and green nails a few days ago and although they look cool….  I decided not to submit them to the inlinkz for our nail art challenge.  I did stamping for these nails but for the NAIL Linkup I think I’d rather do some nail art.

On the left hand I did an owl accent nail using MoYou Pro 07 stamping plate↓

On the right hand I tried a ‘bird on a wire’ accent nail using that same MoYou Pro 7 plate ↓

The black that I used is China Glaze Liquid Leather and the green is AVON Garden Green.  The ivy on all the nails was stamped using MoYou Mother Nature 03 plate.  These are cute, but I’ll do something more original for the linkup.

Stay tuned to the blog !  I’m hoping to tackle some kitty cat nails for the ANIMALS/PETS theme!  ♥

2) This time last year I posted my Financial Aid Fingernails that I wore to the big federal aid conference.  Well, it’s almost time to do that again.  See, I’m a financial aid counselor so I have to keep up on the ever-changing federal aid regulations.  They change constantly, so my college sends me to a conference every year so I’m on top of it all.

last year’s Fin Aid fingernails

In fact, right now I’m working on editing non-disbursed direct loans to include the new increased origination fee that kicked in because of the sequestration.  This is a change that’s occurring in the middle of the aid year (mid-year changes are the worst)!   The new fees will only be a few pennies different, and since computers always round off the dollar amounts- most borrowers won’t even see a difference.  But the amount of work it takes for me to update all that in our system is quite a rigmarole!  The U.S. Dep’t of Ed keeps us aid administrators on our toes- I might as well be a ballerina!  Anywhooo, the big conference is right around the corner so I will be traveling out of town soon.   I painted my nails for last year’s conference using OPI Don’t Pretzel My Buttons (see pic on the left) but unfortunately, they chipped so fast!  I had to buy an extremely over-priced bottle of nail polish remover in the hotel gift shop, and then I proceeded to drag my boss all over God’s creation to find stores that carry nail polish.  She must’ve thought I was ridiculous, but she went along with it!  I’ll try not to push my luck this year, and I want to avoid all that hassle too.  So hopefully I can find some extremely long-lasting nail polish to wear.  I might go with textured!  I have a bottle of Pixie Dust in my untried’s stash so I should definitely try that, right?

3) I’m trying to get into better shape and I joined a month-long fitness challenge at work.  I’ve been hitting up the gym after work each day and I’ll continue to exercise like a fiend for a few more weeks still!  That means I don’t have as much time in the evening to blog.  So you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as much during M-F.  But… I’m still painting my nails, and I will be able to catch up on blogging during the weekends!  I’m still in the groove, I’m just adjusting my blog schedule a bit I suppose.  🙂

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/14496030024134267/

Thanks for reading and see ya soon!