Santa and friends

Turns out it was Google who added the snow to previous photos and looks like they've done it again. It looks very festive doesn't it? I've combined two challenges again, the Aussie Nails Holiday challenge - Ready for Christmas theme and the 12 days of Christmas Santa and freinds theme. So today we have Santa and some friends bodies. Firstly on my index is a snowman, next is Santa's suit, then there is an elf and lastly a gingerbread man. I used Cult Nails Tempest for the white, a Englan Perceval for red, the lighter green in butter London Squatter and the daker green is Zoya Holly, the brown is Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme. I used tape for the belt and elf striped and free handed the rest. It's Christmas Eve in Australia but I still hope to post a couple more Christmas manis. Hope everything is going smoothly with your festive plans, Tx

12 days of Christma Nail Art Challenge - Christmas Decorations

Again I couldn't go past baubles, I just love baubles! This is a simple mani but I love the pop the glitter gives. I used OPI My Vampire is Buff as a base colour and the baubles are done with Nubar Night Sparkle, Violet Sparkle, Teal Glitter and the aqua one has lost it's name. Busy times around here with a wedding tomorrow and Christmas things to do it's going to be a busy few days. Take care, Tx

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Snow, snowmen and snowflakes

I feel a little bit of a fraud everytime I do a snow mani for Christmas. Here in Australia, our weather is far away from snow and we are enjoying some gorgeous summer days. So in homage to our summer I've done a snow man and snowflakes but teemed them with neons to add a bit of summer. The base colour is China Glaze I'm with the Lifeguard, this is an awesome neon green that I just love. I freehanded the snowman and snow flakes which I'm pretty sure you could already guess. The snowman has Orly Glowstick and China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy in his scarf and his hat is China Glaze Towel boy and piCture pOlish Wisteria. It's definitely a different Christmas look but I like it :)

Link for more 12 days participants 

Santa and Sleigh with Moon Nail art tutorial - Crumpet's Nail Tarts Holiday Challenge and 12 days of Christmas combined

I've had to roll two challenges into one, as 12 days of Christmas is inspired by a Christmas Movie and Crumpet's Nail Tarts challenge is a family tradition. In our house it's tradition to sit of an evening in December with eggnog and Cadbury festive sweets and watch all three of The Santa Clause movies. They are my absolute favourites. Now before you are worried I made a mistake, the sleigh is meant to be upside down as it's taken from the poster below, where the reindeers are driverless for a little while in Santa Clause 3. I loved doing this mani so much I decided to do my second tutorial ever, so this post is heavy on graphics. I've also included sun and shade photos as I love both, the sun is sparkly but the shade adds a little something to the scene. Tutorial below under photos.

 Tutorial

Now this whole look only required three polishes, and two stamping polishes. I used the gorgeous Zoya Dream as a base colour. Then I didn't slop it on but wasn't overly careful to get the shape of the moon across my fingers with Zoya Snow White.

I then filled it in more carefully with the same polish.

After leaving it to dry a bit, I then used a tiny piece of sponge in tweezers and gently sponged Zoya Seraphina over the moon to make it have some depth.

The next step was to top coat and wait to dry. Then I stamped some tree tops from plate BM-H02 on the corner of my index and pinkie. Now the first stamp didn't come out perfectly and you can stress and redo it but in the end (apart from now I'm telling you) with accent stamping most often the only one to notice the error is you. It's also intended to be background so you don't need to stress too much, mother nature is never perfect anyway.

Once both tree tops were stamped I again top coated those fingers and allowed to dry. This is so if you make a big mistake on the next stamping the top coat allows you to carefully erase it without wrecking your whole design. Then it was on to the sleigh (plate BM-213) and reindeers (plate QA19), which I did with Konad black stamping polish.

With that you're all done. Carefully apply the last coat of top coat, you want a bead of polish to fall on the nail and you push the bead with your brush, trying to not make contact via the brush and the nail as this is when smearing happens. I love the finished look and hope the tutorial is of some help to someone.

Link for more 12 days participants 

12 days of Christmas Challenge - Santa's Workshop

I have had the weirdest thing just happen, I can 100% promise I did nothing to make these snow photos, they just appeared where I save photos to upload! Either I've completely lost my mind or there is some Christmas magic happening, and I can swear I haven't had a holiday tipple. I just don't know how on earth it happened, I can't even tell you how you would do it!!

Ok so onto my Santa's workshop mani. My elf outfit on my index is a England Perceval again with trimmings in butter London Swinger. Santa has the same red, the base for the reindeer is butter London Squatter - I'm so in love with this green! The reindeer is from a design on Simply Rin's and I used Elf Innocence for his head and Elf Smoky brown for his antlers. The little bear is on a base of Zoya Seraphina.

I hope you enjoy my little workshop mani and the mystery snow!!, Tx

12 days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Inspired by a Christmas Carol/Song _Frosty

Oh, Frosty, the Snowman, was alive as he could be;

and the children say he could laugh and play,

just the same as you and me.

I've been wanting to do a snowman so when this challenge came around I knew I had to do Frosty the Snowman. Probably very un-Australian but how cute is the snowman? I am wearing piCture pOlish Wisteria as a base, this colour is just gorgeous and while I have quite a few purples this one is unique to my collection. I then stamped with Konad white and Winstonia plate W120. Below I've included a then and now photo as I did this snowman last Christmas. There is a lot of difference in my nail shape and my stamping ability has improved a lot! I love seeing how far I've come in what must be a couple of hundred manis since the original Snowman Mani.

Frosty the Snowman isn't my favourite Christmas song, War is over is my absolute favourite but I couldn't think how to turn that into nail art.

Hope you're having a wonderful week, Tx

12 days of Christmas - Christmas Where You Live

So I'm a little behind but it's December so it's allowed :). This is Christmas in Australia. Unlike the Northern hemisphere we usually have a gorgeous sunny hot Christmas, where our Santas sweat and just about faint in their heavy outfits. For some strange reason we still stick to the traditional full hot Christmas lunch which leads to sleepy afternoons after hot stressful mornings. A bbq and salads would be far better suited to our climate but for some reason our families stick to the traditions.

I love this look and took a lot of inspiration from One Nail to Rule Them All's beach scene . I started with a base coat of butter London Fiver. I then painted two thirds of my nail with Zoya Rocky, trying to be a little 'wavy' it the top section. I added white to Rocky to paint some lines to look like waves. The bottom third I painted with butter London Cuppa. I then sponged white along the line to represent the waves meeting the shore and clouds in the sky. A large dotting tool was used for the sun. I then used my acrylic paints and did the Christmas tree and Santa hat. I let them dry added top coat and I was done :).

It's Monday already, I think Christmas is going to come very quickly! Have a good and safe week, Tx.