12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 9 - Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree~ 

I was excited to do these Christmas tree nails specifically, once I saw the challenge list.  I had seen Pshiiit's Instagram of Christmas tree nails that she had done, and I thought that really nice!  She had a tutorial, so I decided to try them.

For my base, I used Layla Softtouch 02.  I'm not sure if it has a name other than its number, as I can't find one on the bottle.  This was a very pretty, sparkly gold color (and I will have swatched of it on its own, once 12 days is over haha).  After that, I taped up my nails and applied China Glaze Winter Holly. Then I just took some red and white, dotting around to make ornaments on the filled in trees.  I thought the Pshiit-style trees looked cool on their own, so I didn't add anything to those.  What do you think?  Which tree version do you like better? :)


Please also check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 8 - Santa

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas...in a few more days.  Here are my Santa nails!  I decided to go with just one Santa, on my middle finger and a Santa hat on my pinkie.  I messed up a little on Santa's eye because I don't have the steadiest hand...

To create Santa, I used Circus by Andrea's Choice in Reverso for Santa's beard and the white part of the hat.  Then I dotted on his eyes and drew his smile with Orly Liquid Vinyl.  Finally, I used Revlon All Fired Up to create the red part of his hat.  (Side note: All Fired Up is my new favorite red!  So smooth and easy to work with.  My pointer and ring finger are painted with just 1 coat of All Fired Up!) 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out! Can't wait to show you my Christmas tree nails next. :)  

In the mean time, please check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 6 - Snowman

I'm so behind on this challenge!  I underestimated how much studying I would be doing for my finals this past week, and I went to a holiday party yesterday.  So I didn't have time to do my Snowman nails until today!  And, of course, all the other days got pushed back because of that.  But I'm trying to get caught up!  I might post two tomorrow so that I'll be all caught up and ready to do my Christmas tree nails.  Pretty excited about that one!  Hahaha

Well, onto the nails!

I wanted to go with a freshly fallen snow kind of background, with snow swirls still floating about.  Now, I haven't ever experienced a snow day, so I had to use my imagination for how that would actually look.  And out in the snow is my snowman!

To create these nails, I started with 1 coat of Sinful Colors Rain Storm, and then layered 2 coats of Sinful Colors Cinderella over that.  This created a pretty blue-gray with a pink shimmer that I hoped would give it more dimension.  It's gorgeous!  Anyway, after I had my base laid down, I sponged on the snow layer at the tips, using Circus by Andrea's Choice in Reverso.  As I said, I was going for swirly snow effect, so I didn't make it perfect and left some patchiness in the snow to try and show some swirling snow, lol.  After that, I created my snowman using dotting tools and more CbAC in Reverso.  Gave him a face and added some arms using Wet N Wild Mega Last Nail Color in Blackmail.  Finished off by adding random falling snow dots and 1 coat of Seche Vite.  Overall, I am quite pleased with how it came out!  I wore it out to the mall and was complimented by several cashiers, haha.

I think my snowman looks a little like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  What do you think? xD

Stay tuned for the next set of challenge nails: lights/ornaments, hopefully coming up tomorrow!

In the mean time, please check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty

They have some great nail art! :)

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 5 - Holly/Wreaths

Sorry it took me so long to get this one up!  The nail on the middle finger on both of my hands broke, and I didn't get a chance to file my nails down to match until today.  So, here we are with Day 5: holly/wreath nails!  

I started with a 3 coats of Revero from Circus by Andrea's Choice. It's just a stark white; felt like I had white out on my nails, lol.  It was a bit streaky with the first coat, but evened out pretty well.  I feel like white nail polish is always streaky.  I haven't found one that isn't, yet!

After I got my base down, I started making a wreath on my accent nail using my LA Colors (Nail) Art Deco polishes.  I used green for the wreath, and a glittery red for the berries.  I thought doing a wreath on every nail wouldn't look so nice, so I decided to do holly on the other nails instead.  But when I was done, I thought there was too much blank space and I wasn't sure what to fill it with.  So I decided to try plaid, and that is what you see in the picture below.  Different levels of my thought process for the nail art for holly/wreath nails day.

Now that I look at it, I think the holly on its own (like on my pinkie) would have looked fine without adding anything to the blank space (like what I did for the pointer and middle).  But I don't mind the plaid either, but it probably would have looked loads better if it was on its own instead of with the holly.

Let me know what you think!  I'll have the Snowman nails up tomorrow, hopefully, and then I'll be caught up.  Thank goodness Lights/Ornaments is on Saturday.  I'll be done with finals by then, so I'll be able to work on them more and hopefully come up with something nice. :)

In the mean time, please check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty