Finally! Better late than never, here I am with my Artsy Wednesday post, which should have gone up on Christmas Day. I actually did have these nails done on the big day, but I feel like I haven't had a moment to myself to put them on the blog. I kind of lost my nail mojo for a while there, but thankfully it's coming back now.
I've had a lovely Christmas, FAR too much indulgence, but will be back on the wagon in the new year (that's the plan anyway). I actually didn't get much in the way of nail presents, just four No.7's in a gift box, and some manicure items from my mum, but that just gives me all the more reason to buy my own hee hee.
I've been nursing a split on my middle finger. It went above the nail line and I've been babying it along until it grew out enough to cut off without including my actual finger in the operation, so you will see a lump there where I've been gluing it. It's come off now, and that nail is super short, so it'll be a left hander for the new years nails. Which means stamping probably.
The best glue I've found so far for nail splits is Loctite Superglue Power Flex Control. Here's the Amazon LINK to the one I have. The lid doesn't get stuck on, polish remover doesn't take it off too easily, and it's lasted a good 3 or four days on me before I have to reglue. Plus, as I keep it in my handbag, it's a hard tube so it doesn't get squished. You have to squeeze the grey handles at the side to get the glue out, and it comes out nice and slowly. I like alot.
So, for my Christmas nails, I fancied something glittery. I own quite a few glitter polishes, but hardly wear them as I hate the removal. But for Christmas, I don't mind a bit of extra work. I eventually decided on a cloud manicure of festive red, gold and green. As chance would have it, I own all three colours in China Glaze glitter polishes. So I went with those. Here's what I made:
I started with a base of the green glitter Running In Circles. Just one coat needed, but I did touch up a few slightly bare areas at the end, so I should probably have done two coats.
Then I did the cloud detail in red, which is of course, Ruby Pumps. This is a really easy technique, just three swipes of the brush, straight out of the bottle at different heights. Being over the green darkened it a bit, bit it was still bright enough to look like red, so that was okay.
Then, over that, I used I'm not Lion, which is a holographic gold, which I love. Same technique, three swipes.
Here's the bottle shot:
On top of that, I used Glisten & Glow HK Girl topcoat, which has had some brilliant reviews, but I haven't used enough yet to form my own opinion on. It certainly get marks for wear though, because after three days I had almost no chipping, which is a first for me. It could be just because it was on top of glitters? More on that as I find out myself.
I took a few more pics of the mani, so I may as well show them to you. Here's the first. Bauble-tastic:
And here's the other. Traditional close up bottle shot. You can see the lump on the left of my middle nail quite clearly there, down by the red section:
And that's my lot! Christmas nails, done. Have a ganders (goose pun intended) at what the other beauties in the Artsy Wednesday Club have come up with:
Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)
Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)
Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)
Anna & Haylee at Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)
Anna at Makeup N More (link)
So what did you have on your nails this year?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi there again!
It's a late one today, has been lots to do this weekend. Christmas trees are up, and I feel like I've hoovered up about 10 times in two days. Christmas is so messy! But hopefully all nice and jolly too, so a happy trade off.
I don't usually enter into these nail art challenges, because I feel like I HAVE to do them, and then my creative juices totally dry up, but this one sounded like fun. Here's what I have to do:
As you see, today is Christmas Tree day. I was thinking of all sorts of 'outside the box' ideas, but in the end I decided to just paint on some Christmas trees haha.
I started with a base of Revlon Matte Suede polish in 863 Ruby Ribbon. It's a very thin polish, and I've been exasperated with it before, but today it seemed to co-operate a bit more readily than usual. It could even be because it's colder? Not sure, but not complaining! I used two coats, but forgot to take a picture, very remiss of me.
Then I used a small nail art brush and some green acrylic paint to draw in the Christmas trees, and used some glitter stripers to dot on some Christmassy bling! I took alot of photos, but I'll try and pare them down (not sure if I can haha):
As you can see, I didn't top coat because I liked the texture, but if I wanted to keep this on I would have to topcoat it, because I doubt the acrylic paint would last long! Possibly you could just topcoat the trees. Also if you do topcoat Ruby Ribbon, it gets a nice shimmery sparkle to it. I hate the way my index finger seems to want to go off in a different direction to all my other fingers, it's so contrary!
The picture above shows the design best, but then I got a bit arty with my photos:
and here's another pic:
This nail art was pretty simple to do, and only took half an hour from start to finish. Acrylic paint is actually cheaper than alot of nail polishes, and if you mess up you can wash it off with water if it's not completely dry. It also doesn't dry as quickly as polish so you can work with one blob of it on a plate and not worry about having to work too fast. Although, as you can see, it doesn't dry flat like nail polish does, but that's not too noticeable with topcoat on.
So there we go, one challenge down! I've enjoyed it for my first time, it's a bit daunting thinking about all the others, but will give it a good old go! Next one is on the 5th, a holiday song? hmmmm....
See the links below for other people taking part, have you got your tree up yet?
Until next time....
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
