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

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.  🙂

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 18 of OMD Challenge- Scalloped Lace

Day 18 of the nail art challenge is centered around DELICATE designs.  I’ve never tried a lace pattern before.. so I decided on some hand painted scalloped lace over a pretty coral.  Here’s what I’m wearing:

• Color Club Coral Cascade– 2 coats as a base color
• Color Club Lava Lamp– sponged onto the tips
• NYC French White Tip– lace accents
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Perky Pink– 1 coat (it’s a pink holographic glitter)
• Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat

I think it’s looks way better in real life.  The white looks crisper and the Lava Lamp tips look so bright in comparison to the soft coral base.  I guess my camera couldn’t handle that lava lamp!

DELICATE can be interpreted in so many different ways so I’m excited to see the other designs for today!  Here’s the linky dink-

18. Delicate :

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 :

Day 6 of OMD Challenge- BAM Neon Cloud Mani!

Welcome to day 6 of the OMD Challenge!  I’m psyched that today is NEON DAY since I have always been a huge fan of neon polishes.  The brighter, the better!  I love wearing nails that are eye catching.  I spend a lot of time on my nails- so I guess I want people to see them?  Hehehe.  Do you feel the same way?

I have the perfect polish for today’s theme!  It’s a bright green from Funky Fingers called Limelight.  I went with a ‘cloud mani’ for this design.  Have you ever tried it?  If not, you gotta!  It’s so simple and no special tools required!  Here’s an excellent photo tutorial on Nailside blog.

For this design I’m wearing:

Funky Fingers ♥ Limelight (2 easy coats)

NYC ♥ Black Lace Creme

NYC ♥ French White Tip

Cheeky CH47 Plate ♥ BAM stamp applied with Konad black polish

BAM!  It’s so bright and in your face!  Here’s a swatch of Limelight since it’s just so pretty- I couldn’t resist photographing it before I started my nail art.↓  I actually won this green from In The Gray Area’s awesome giveaway!  I feel like I could do a whole month’s worth of posts using all the cool polishes that J sent me.  15 in total!  So, if you’re out there and you haven’t won a giveaway yet- keep trying!  YOUR DAY WILL COME!  Maybe you will enter the OMD challenge and win the giveaway at the end?  Ya never know!  😀

You can see the other designs here:
6. Neon :

And here’s the themes for the upcoming days:

Nebula Galaxy Nails

Last month I won a giveaway hosted by In The Gray Areas!  I’m such a lucky ducky!  One of the polishes I received was this gorgeous bottle of Nebula by Fresh Paint.  Nebula was just screaming for some galaxy nail art!  Here’s what I came up with!

I like that my fuchsia design is a little different than the normal black or dark blue galaxy nails you see online.  Also, I did a google search for the word NEBULA and a lot of the pics of space have this color scheme in them anyway.  So I guess my nails are true-to-life!  Here’s the color combo I used:

Fresh Paint Nebula ♥ base color

L.A. Girl 3D Effects Sparkle Ruby ♥ sponged on

L.A. Girl 3D Effects Black Illusion ♥ sponged on

Wet n Wild Megalast Break the Ice ♥ sponged on

NYC Nail Enamel French White Tip ♥ for the stars

I love galaxy nails!  There so many effects you can do and the color combos are endless!  Next time I’d like to stamp over top of it.  I have a Cheeky stamping plate with UFOs and Saturn on it.  How cute would that be?  Maybe a creepy little glow-in-the-dark alien head?  LOL!  What do you think?