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!

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!