Christmas Movie/Nail night

It's been so long since I held one of these & what better time than Christmas! It was so much fun, I enjoyed every minute as I got to see each lady light up when their nails were done & that was my little bit of Christmas Cheer!

The Movie of choice:

Who doesn't love this movie? It's full of fun & love, the kind of movie that makes you feel warm & fuzzy & touches you at your core. (It also inspires you to try out your British accent all night, heehee!)

The following are pictures of everybody's nails, in no particular order. 

Polishes used were:

Sally Hansen "Sent me to Green Heaven"

Sally Hansen "Celeb City Silver"

Zoya "Sara"

Zoya "Blair"

Butter London "Fishwife"

Orly "Royal Navy"

Nicole by OPI "Follow me on Glitter"

Designs were created using acrylic paints & a fine nail art brush. Some pictures didn't come out as I had hoped, it was late at night & the lighting was bad, so I'm sorry. You will notice that the last pictures look much better, these were retakes the next day at the office & I could only do that with the ladies I work with. I also got creative with my snowmen, lol, so don't laugh. Overall you get the feeling of Christmas Joy!

Leslie's abstract c'mas tree

Tara's blue Christmas snow

Melissa's presents

Linda's snowflakes

My Christmas Tree

Corinne's snowflakes

Yesenia's Holly & Snowflakes.

Where in the World Challenge: Australia

I've gone & picked up another challenge. I know it seems a bit silly to do more than one challenge, I'm currently in the beginning of the Time Warp Challenge, in addition I have been very busy lately with 2 jobs, a house, hubby & animals to care for. But this second challenge is very low key & can be spaced out extremely well giving us about 2 months for each individual Country listed.


The Challenge was created by LifeinColor & SuperficiallyColorful. Here's the Banner:

Here are the rules, I've copied & pasted from Superficially Colorful's site:

1. The challenge will start on September 10.
2. You may join us at any time along, but you must keep the original order of countries and without skipping. This is why it is called "A challenge", to differ it from a random one country mani idea.
3. There is NO time frame for each post, as long as it is in order. If you don't have time this week - you may work on your mani next week. No problem. As long as the order is kept.
4. What should your mani look like? You decide. The country is your inspiration. How you represent it - it's up to you. It can be as simple as the polish name (e.g. OPI "Russian Navy" to Represent Russia), the country's flag mani, using a country's colors or even make a complicated artwork to represent a country. Your choice!
5. The list of countries will be set once the challenge takes off. If you would like to add to the list - please let either Me or Gosiaknow, before September 8.
6. Every country will have an inLinkz code so that everyone who participate can have a thumbnail link to their blog post, in every participant's post. If you play along - please email Me or Gosia so we can give you the code to put in your blog post.
   
   Please note: if you add your link to the display but you don't put the code in your blog post to show all other participants, your link will be deleted without warning.

Today is Australia & I have picked the Sydney Opera House as my inspiration. I used Sally Hansen insta-Dri Blue Away as my base to imitate the clear blue sky that I always associate with Australia. I then used some acrylic paints to do my tips in the curved shape of the famous opera house.

The inspiration

The result

Summer Fun Challenge, Day 3: Pool Party!

For day 3 of the Summer Fun Challenge it's Pool Party time!!! yay, I love pool parties, especially living in Houston where it's terribly hot in the summer, yesterday hit 102 degrees, this is what we in H-town refer to as "F*#k!" cause it is just so beyond hot.

I didn't have a lot of time for this one, but the first thing that popped in my head for today's pool party was that song about a yellow polka dot bikini, we all know it, we all love it:

MY INSPIRATION

My Pool Party Mani: (I did this really fast & didn't take note of the colors, I used acrylic paints for the details)

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 4:Inspired by the Runway

Day 4 of the Girly-Girl challenge: "Inspired by the Runway"

I love this idea & I immediately started Googling fashion runway looks that I wanted to imitate on my nails.Take a look at all the lovely colors & styles of fashion on the runway & you are literally overflowing with ideas one after the other until you have to narrow it down to your absolute favorite & which you feel expresses the most inspiration for you. This is so hard to do. I found this pretty color block dress that was just lovely, I really liked the color combo, so I figured "why not!"

My inspiration.

Once again using Sache Vite for both my base & my top coats. I then painted my entire nail a pretty pale gold shimmer from Revlon called Gold Get 'Em, for the other block colors I used a greige color from e.l.f. called Desert Haze & a bright orange from the brand "Savvy" that I found @ Sallys called Orange You Happy. And for the tip I used Zoya Cynthia to tie it all in.

Here's my Girly-Girl challenge, Day 4, Runway inspired look:

Girly-Girl Challange Day 3: Delicate & Elegant

Day 3 of the Girly-Girl challenge asked for a delicate & elegant design. So many ideas ran through my head, I'm surprised I could settle on one. I was looking through all the pictures I have of nail art I've googled & want to try, I found one that's very simple & yet intricate at the same time making it a perfect pick for "delicate & elegant".

I used Sache Vite for my base, then painted all my nails with a very light kinda pearly tan from CQ called Halo Beige. Using a black acrylic paint, detail brush & striper brush I painted the crisscross netting, dots & roses. I added a layer of Sally Hansen Disco Ball  for a little sparkle & topped with Sache Vite top coat.

Here's my "Delicate & Elegant" design: (BTW, isn't my phone case just lovely...got it on ebay for like $4, thought it was perfect for something to hold while taking pictures of my nails & especially went well with this design!)

Girly-Girl Challenge Day 2: Gimme that Bling!

Day 2 of the Girly-Girl challenge: "Gimme that Bling". In the description it says, " Diamonds are a girls best friend, so put some bling on those nails". Immediately I had Marilyn Monroe stuck in my head with her singing that famous song, so why not honor the queen of girly-girl glam & make the nail design all about Marilyn.

Here are some of the pictures where I got my inspiration...

After applying Sache Vite, ridge filling base coat, I did a couple different designs to capture everything girly & glamorous about Marilyn in the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blonds. Red Carpet from Sally Hansen  & a pearl from Zoya called Angella were used as my background colors. I then added some pink curves over the red base using Spoiled nail polish called Fuzzy Dice to look like Marilyn's lovely hourglass shape, I also used a silver acrylic paint for some outline dots. A whole lot of glitter is what went on my ring fingers, I used a silver glitter, a pink one & a white one over the pearl base, to look like the sparkle of diamonds. For the thumb I cut up a very small picture of the lovely Marilyn herself to size &, using just some regular white glue, placed the cut picture on my nail & held it there for about a minute pressing it down so it would stick. I then topped with Sache Vite top coat & viola! I still have to see if the picture will actually stay on & for how long, I'm especially concerned about showers, lol. I will let you know how that goes, but I really just wanted a picture of Marilyn & i'm too busy to paint it & didn't want to wait to search for an actual sticker, so I just used paper :-)

So without further ado, here is my girly-girl "BLING" design:

These first 2 show the best view of the design

Then I got a little creative with picasa & made a couple artsy versions...

Comic Book style

Cinema Scope

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 1:Think Pink

I grew up a tomboy & would not be caught dead in pink. Not until I reached my 20's did I actually even attempt to incorporate pink into my closet. Now I can't imagine not having pink in my closet, in my polish collection, makeup, etc.

Day 1 of the Girly-Girl challenge, created by NeverlandNailBlog, is to wear your favorite pink polish & nail art. So I combined my favorite pink holographic with another fav. pale pink & my love for flowers to create this design.

For my "Think Pink" design I used a light pink creme polish from China Glaze called Something Sweet for all my nails except my ring fingers & topped it with a clear glitter from Sally Hansen called  Disco Ball for a little girly sparkle. On my ring fingers I used China Glaze QT which is a beautiful holographic polish that took me forever to find because it's discontinued. I then used acrylic paint to make some dainty little flowers & here is the final result:

The Dotting Tool Pollock painting

My Entry for the Dotting Tool contest, that Chalkboard Nails is hosting, was inspired by this Jackson Pollock painting called Full Fathom Five:

Here are the polishes I used, L-R: Sally Hansen white tip, Santee Black, Zoya Cynthia, Zoya Dove, Sally Hansen Blue-Away & Santee Neon Orange.

The finished design...

For my base coat I used Sache Vite ridge filling base coat & for my top coat I used Sache Vite fast dry top coat. First I applied the base coat, followed by 1 coat of white, then I painted some random swipes of blue-away using the brush that came with the bottle. Next, using my dotting tool I dragged & pulled the various other colors so as to look like the dripping technique mastered by Pollock. For the finishing touch I topped it off with my Sache Vite top coat, here are pictures of the art step by step: