Christmas Candle inspired by Robin Moses

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Our Christmas tree is up, our wreaths are up & everywhere you go you can see little bits of Christmas popping up everywhere. So, what does this mean to a nail artist? OMG, lets sketch Christmas nail art patterns all over every piece of paper you can find, right? Naturally!

I've got tons of pictures for inspiration & one of those is a pretty candle that Robin Moses did a while back. Since I already had been wearing this dark green color, OPI Live & let Die, for a few days I figured it would be the perfect background for my candle! I used acrylic paints, a thin detail brush & a sponge. After creating the candles I thought the rest of my nails could use a lift, since it had already been about 3-4 days since first applying my base color, so I added one coat of Essie's luxeffects in Shine of the Times that I absolutely adore & it worked like a charm! So here's the first of many MERRY CHRISTMAS designs.

Butter London Swatches (picture heavy post)

Ok, here are the greatly anticipated Butter London swatches, yay! Now this post is going to have a lot of pictures so I'm just going to give you a quick explanation first about the basics. All colors are 2 coats with Sache Vite top coat. The application was lovely on all of them, however I did find the small brush took a little getting used to because I'm accustomed to OPI's larger application brush, but the formula on all were just a dream. So here they are, in no particular order. You will see that some required a few more pictures than the others as they were more complex.

Pillar box Red

Outdoor sunlight

Lady Muck

Indoor bright light

Outdoor overcast

Bossy Boots

Indoor bright light

Outdoor overcast

Two fingered Salute

Outdoor sunlight

Indoor bright light

Tea with the Queen

Outdoor sunlight

Indoor bright light

Fishwife

Indoor bright light

Outdoor Sunlight

Indoor soft light

Indoor bright light

And another outdoor Sunlight picture for you to oooo & aaaaa  over.

(I thought I had grabbed all my framed pictures, but I guess I didn't, oopsy!)

Butter London goodies, yay!

My very first Butter London purchase ever, super excited to swatch, here are the colors I chose:

L-R: Tea with the Queen, Pillar Box Red, Bossy Boots, Two Fingered Salute,  Fishwife & Lady Muck

Fall colors to be thankful for!

Just a simple post with a simple combination of fall colors that make me smile, so I put them in a row. Starting with W7 Metallic Saturn, then OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest & finishing off with W7 Metallic Saturn. I took lots of pictures because it was kinda hard to capture the colors just right, so you will see some  indoor lighting, outdoor & direct sunlight. These colors are very rich & make my fingers look expensive, hehe :-)...ENJOY!!!

Indoor

Outside, some sun

Outside indirect sun

Direct sun

Add caption

Naked!

Naked nails, that is, lol! A rare view of my natural nails, with just a little clear coat on. I decided to give my nails a little breather, & by that I mean I had this clear coat on for about 1/2 a day before adding some color. My fellow nail polish enthusiasts can attest that this is a HUGE feat for such as myself who adore & are obsessed with polish & nail art.

In the pictures you can see my nail tips are nice & white & my nails look overall very healthy thanks to what I call "the miracle product" Mavala Scientifique. I also have a bit of oil on & cream so they look a bit shiny. I put an old picture of what my nails used to look like after about 2 weeks of using Mavala products, you can see that they have much improved. You shoulda' seen them before I used it but at that time I didn't really photograph my nails so unfortunately I don't have a comparison. Anyways, here goes:

Right Hand

Left Hand

1 year ago

I ♥ Fall Tag

Today I was tagged by Mihaela of Lacquer Buzz, I think this is my first official tag & I'm so excited it's for a  Fall theme cause I freakin' love Fall!

So without further ado, lets get started:

1. Favorite Fall lip product?

A few years ago L'Oreal came out with a lip color called "Color of Hope" created specifically for Breast Cancer awareness month (October). Not only do I love this color in the fall, I love this color so much I bought 5 of them because I knew they would become discontinued & I didn't want to be left empty handed. It's a beautiful mauve & goes lovely with every makeup look, it's a staple color for me, along with my Revlon Matte really red.

(picture owned by AMAZON)

2. Favorite Fall nail polish?

Ok, this is tough, this is really really tough! I love vampy colors in the fall, the deep burgundy, plum, metalics & variations of almost black. Like Mihaela, I can't pick just one, so here are a couple I can't live without & wear several times during the fall: Mac Immortal Gold, W7 Metallic Jupiter & Wet n'Wild Morbid.

L-R: W7 Metallic Jupiter, Wet n'Wild Morbid, Mac Immortal Gold

3. Favorite Fall/Autumn Starbucks drink?

Well, I don't drink Starbucks because I get free coffee at work, & I don't like putting so much crap into my coffee until the name resembles that of a Hispanic person ie: Maria de los Angeles Hernandez Perez de Barajas. (disclaimer: I adore long Hispanic names, I don't like long coffee names such as "Venti, sugar-free, non-fat, vanilla soy, double shot, no foam, peppermint white chocolate mocha with light whip & extra syrup") I do, however, enjoy a dab of the coffee-mate flavors & will usually put something with cinnamon or chai spice in my double espresso shot.

(picture owned by AMAZON)

4. Favorite fall candle?

Again, anything with cinnamon spice. So apple cinnamon, pumpkin cinnamon, almond cinnamon...something about cinnamon makes me feel warm & cozy. Maybe because Mom used to bake cinnamon rolls during the colder months, I guess it makes me nostalgic!

L-R: Sister Adria, Mom, Sister Tina, Me.

5. Favorite Fall scarf/accessory?
I have a really pretty white crochet scarf that I love & hardly ever get to wear because Houston is hot as hell, but I get to pull it out at least 3 times during Fall/Winter & I love it. I took pictures & put them through a Sepia filter cause I thought it looked more romantic & this scarf makes me feel romantic :-)!

6. Haunted House, Haunted hay ride or Haunted corn maze?
Hmmmm, must they all be haunted? & what is a haunted corn maze? is that a corn field? I'm gonna go classic as well & say Haunted House!

7. Favorite Halloween movie?
Easy..."Hocus Pocus", watch it every year since it came out. Love, love, LOVE!!!

(Image owned by Wikipedia)

8. Favorite candy to eat on Halloween? ROLO's

9. What are you dressing up as for Halloween?
I went sorta classic, I was a Gothic witch, my hubby was zombie. We stayed at home for trick-or-treaters till about 9pm, then went to a local pub, found some scary new friends & partied till 4am, YIKES! Felt terrible the next day, but I got some good pictures out of it.

I lost my hat, oh well!

Used a cool app called Pho.to Lab for this one

10. What's your favorite thing about Fall?

BOOTS!!! I finally get to wear boots, I only have 3 pairs & I only get to wear them like maybe 5 times a year, so yeah, BOOTS! I especially like to wear them with my long maxi skirts, I think it's so feminine & sexy. I have a couple boots with heels but my favorite is a pair of combat boots that go perfectly with dresses & skirts.

And that completes the Fall Tag, if you are reading this YOU HAVE BEEN TAGGED!

Stamping Contest

I have a quick little post, I found a contest on one of the blogs I follow called Creative Nail Design by Sue & decided to give it a go. I hardly ever stamp, but I really do need the practice, & the first prize was the kicker...Butter London, oh my!) But it's a lovely idea & so I grabbed all my stamp plates & stared at them for a while, finally I chose one that I think is super cute & just went with it.

For my polish color I chose Orly Royal Navy, if you haven't gotten this polish it is simply the most gorgeous blue ever, I mean really...EVER! I then used the little buttons on Konad stamping plate M16 & my white Konad polish to stamp with. I added an angled french tip with white polish & accentuated with little black stitch lines using black polish & a thin art brush.

Here is my result & entry to the Stamping Contest: (please forgive the sorry state of my cuticles, I had a big clean up day & didn't wear gloves. Tsk, tsk, I know!)

This pic was taken outside, no sun today.

Here's a pic of the polish before the design, indoor soft lighting shows off the pretty  teal shimmer

Bond, James Bond

I'm so excited, a new James Bond is coming out tomorrow & I'm thrilled! I mean, who isn't a fan of Bond, I have been watching him since I was a kid, Sean Connery was always my favorite, but I will watch all of them  & I have especially enjoyed Daniel Craig's version being so raw & dirty (heehee, yum)!

Anyhow, I picked up a couple of the new polishes from the OPI Skyfall collection, did this little mani last night, so as to be ready for the midnight viewing of SKYFALL, woohoo!

Here are the colors I picked accompanied with a line from the movie they were named after:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Draco: “My apologies for the way you were brought here. I wasn't sure you’d accept a formal invitation.”
Bond: “There’s always something formal about the point of a pistol.”

The Spy Who Loved Me
Bond: “ Hmm, maybe I misjudged Stromberg. Any man who drinks Dom Perignon ’52 can’t be all bad.”

It was really hard getting a closeup picture of the detail, so I had to edit & sharpen the pictures quite a bit, so if it looks a bit grainy that is why.

My poor little pinky on my right hand is crooked  from  an accident a
long time ago where the nail came off. It just grew back all wonky!