Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Day 11 - Tinsel

Happy Christmas Eve!

I'm off work at last hooray!  This morning was my last shift until the New Year, so I'm very happy about that!

I dodged the elves challenge.  I was completely uninspired by it, and I didn't want to sell my blog short by just bodging something in order to have something to post, so I just didn't do it.  It's a shame to not have done them all, but there you go, that's life sometimes.  There are some manis from this challenge I've been really pleased with, and others I wouldn't have ordinarily put on my blog in a million years, but it's definitely been an experience, and I'm glad I've taken part.  After this one there's only Santas left for tomorrow.  Hopefully I can get that painted up and prepared today, because I'll be out most of the day tomorrow doing my own Santa duties. Ho Ho Ho!

Tinsel as a challenge can only really mean one thing - bar glitter.  Luckily for me that means not much decision making because I've only got one bar glitter, a £2.50 silver holo one from Claires Accessories.  I've found Claires polishes to be a bit hit and miss, so I thought I would double up this nail art post with a review of this polish.

Firstly I thought I would try it over a range of colours, so I used 2 coats of each:
White - OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls reviewed here
Black - L'Oreal Color Riche in Black Swan
Red - Maybelline Express Finish Cherry Red shown here
Silver - Jessica Hologram Chic Disco Diva reviewed here

Here's how it looks in all its Christmassy glory:

This is two coats of the bar glitter with a color club top coat.  Dry time was medium.  I found that I only got a decent amount of glitter onto my nail if I put the brush back in the bottle and gave it a good shake for each nail.  Just dipping the brush back in the bottle without shaking it meant I just seemed to get clearcoat and not glitter.  I also moved it around a bit on my nail as just brushing it on made all the bars face one way and that made my nails look hairy, which is the bar glitter look I hate.

The holo isn't as wow in ordinary indoor light, but it is still there:

But outdoors in daylight it really comes into its own:

If you want a really smooth finish to this you will need at least two coats of top coat, or perhaps one thick coat of Seche.  With one coat of normal top coat I could still feel texture there.

I'm quite surprised because I thought I would like this best over black, but in fact it looks best over the most similar colour, the silver.  I think this is probably because I'm not that mad on the bar glitter look anyway, and to just get that bling of mad holo is much more 'me'.

I also liked it over the white, it was quite a futuristic look.  Am considering the silver for New Years Eve, I think it would be quite fitting and fun.

And there we have it, I hope it was tinselly enough for you!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Day 4 - Snowmen

Hi again!

Am late in the day posting this, has been an action packed one for me full of Christmas gift shopping.  It's been quite fruitful too, as I've got most of it done.  Just got a few more people to get for (the tricky ones), which I'm planning to do on Friday when I have a day off, then that's it done! 

Am glad I went on Sunday rather than Saturday, I bet Carlisle was a bustling nightmare yesterday, and most places (even the market) were open today, which surprised me.  Mind you, Lush have put all their gift items at the door which is stupid, because you can pick one up, but then the tills are right at the back of the shop, so you have to struggle through to buy your items, and back again afterwards to get out. 

Tills used to be at the door of shops for a reason!!  Anyway, rant over, lets get on with the challenge. 

Todays theme is snowmen, and this is what I finally came up with, and I like it, hooray!

The blue is L'Oreal Color Riche 611 Sky Fits Heaven, and the glitter topper is Nubar White Polka Dot.  I was quite disappointed when I put that on, because funny enough I was expecting white round glitter, and it's actually silver hexes, but what they hey, it still looks kind of ok, and sufficiently snowy.

 

I painted the snowman in with acrylic paints and I'm really pleased with him, he came out exactly as I'd planned, although the Seche did crinkle him at first, he calmed down later haha. 

 

Here's a closer pic:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...... me being me.... he wasn't my first try.  My initial idea was to test out my Nails Inc Bling it On set, by painting a snowman in Floral Street that came in the kit, then pressing it in the silver holo glitter from the kit to make a super blingy snowman.  This is how he came out:

He actually came out quite well, but his paint job was... well... a bit suspect.  He looks like he's packing a baseball bat rather than a broom.  Maybe he was made in the Hood?  He was SUPER blingy though, here's a blurred shot to show you:

See that super holo blingy-ness?  Nice! I'm glad the kit came with a top coat of it's own though, because glitter did get in it after only this one use, so I think you'd need a dedicated top coat to use with it.

So there we have it, there's todays challenge done.  Next is a holiday movie, I have NO IDEA what to do, I keep thinking and thinking.... something will come to me I suppose.  Check out every one elses snowmen below, I'm looking forward to seeing them!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~