It's Beginning to SOUND a lot like Christmas

It's beginning to look ... and SOUND ... a lot like Christmas at my house!

The tradition in my family growing up was that everything Christmas had to wait until after my Dad's birthday, which is November 28th.  Even though I'm "all grown up" now with a family of my own, that's still the Tradition!!  So, since yesterday was November 29th, we pulled out ALL the Christmas stuff last night!  Including new Christmas Nail Art!  And the tree, stockings, and music, of course!

Actually, this is Christmas Nail Art #2...the first attempt was, well, Junk Nail, and since this is NO Junk Nail, that had to go!  I tried alternating red and green polish with silver glitter on the top, but the silver glitter was too thick and just covered it all up in a real mess.  So I did THESE instead.....in honor of CHRISTMAS MUSIC!

It's beginning to SOUND a lot like Christmas!!

(Left Hand with Christmas Tree in background)

(Right Hand with Christmas Tree in background)

After the complex and time-consuming Thanksgiving Nails, these were an easy one!  I alternated 2 base coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Emerald City and Cherry Red.  The music notes were done with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Celeb City.  (This was the polish I tried to do over the other ones....it's a GREAT glitter if you want thick glitter.....really smooth, not rough like some glitters are)


I hope this Advent Season you find some time to remember the reason for the season....the birth of Jesus.  Can you imagine what it would have been like to be waiting for a King and be given a baby?  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!  

Thanksgiving Nails

I know it's been a while since my last nail art post.  I took the Jayhawk jerseys off and left them bare for a few days because we had a funeral at the church where I work for a wonderful man in our congregation.  Don Ruff will be missed!


Last night, I sat down, planned and then painted these Thanksgiving Nails!  I used more colors and more detail than I've ever even attempted before....and I think they turned out pretty dang good!  So without further adieu...pictures!

• Started everything off with two coats of CG Boundless Color White Night
• Thumb - Pumpkin 
• used Pure Ice Hot Tamale for pumpkin, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Emerald City for vines, Pure Ice Naughty Girl for light highlights and New York Color Fifth Avenue for dark highlights
• Index - Apples
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red and New York Color Fifth Avenue
• Middle - Indian Corn (MY FAVE!)
• Pure Ice Hot Tamale, Excuse Me & Naughty Girl and New York Color Fifth Avenue and and embossing tool to make lots and lots of really close dots!
• Ring - Squash
• Pure Ice Naughty Girl w/ outlines in Hot Tamale
• Pink - Wheat
• Mixed together New York Color Bryant Park and Pure Ice Excuse Me and then added some darker lines with just NYC Bryant Park
• Topped it all off with Revlon Extra Life No Chip Top Coat

Just for fun..........this is what my workspace looked like...

These are my Embossing Tools I used for just about everything.

Notice the tips are balls of different sizes.

Last Photo....

I store my "stash" in a shoe box and the colors are arranged by color...

which makes it so much easier to find exactly what I want to use.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

And THANKS for reading my blog!

KU Jerseys

(Sorry, I couldn't think of a catchier title!)


We're going to another KU men's basketball game tonight!
So, I had to do some sort of KU nail art.  My husband helped me brainstorm for this one and we came up with doing a mani that was the players' jerseys!


Like this:

And this:

Here's a close-up...can you tell they're jerseys?

For the jerseys, I used CG Boundless Color White Night.  The blue trim around the neckline and the numbers were done with CG Boundless Color Blue You.  The necks were done with either New York Color Bryant Park (for the lighter-skinned players) or Fifth Avenue (for the darker skinned players). 

And in case you were wondering, there really is a rhyme and reason to the order of the numbers.....height!  My left hand middle finger is #5 - Jeff Withey, who is 7' tall!  Here's how it lines up:

Left Hand:

Pinky - #12 - Brady Morning Star 6'4"

Ring - 0 - Thomas Robinson 6'9"

Middle - 5 - Jeff Withey 7'0"

Index - 23 - Mario Little 6'6"

Thumb - 10 - Tyshawn Taylor 6'3"

Right Hand:

Thumb - 14 - Tyrel Reed 6'3"

Index - 24 - Travis Releford 6'5"

Middle - 21 Markeif Morris 6'10"

Ring - 22 - Marcus Morris 6'9"

Pinky - 15 - Elijah Johnson 6'4"

ROCK CHALK!!!

Eat Mor Chikin - aka Cow Spots

EAT MOR CHIKIN!

(aka Cow Spots!)

This one was super-easy!  Anyone can do it!

I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear White On for two bottom coats.

To make the spots, I used Sally Hansen Black Out.  I put a blob on some aluminum foil, then to paint the irregularly shaped spots, I used an embossing tool I bought from Hobby Lobby.  I bought a three-pak of dual-sided embossing tools with different sized of balls on the tips for dots and painting.  You could easily achieve the same effect with a toothpick.  The best part of all this is that the spots are irregularly-shaped, so painting the right hand with my left hand was a piece of cake!  No perfection needed!  

"V" for VICTORY (Rock Chalk!)

Tonight, we're going to the KU Jayhawks Basketball Season Opener!!
So, of course, I had to do some Jayhawk-inspired nails!
(Two different nail art designs in two days!)
So here they are...."V" for VICTORY!

And a closer look.....

I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Blue It" to make the v-ish french manicure-ish shape on the tips.  Then, using a brush that was intended for eyeliner, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Cherry Red for the "V"s.  I topped everything off with two coats of top coat.


Can't wait for the KU Game Tonight!!
ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

Acorn-y

This nail design was inspired by the lovely bunch of acorn nuts my four-year-old daughter found, put in my purse, and forgot about.....until I found them when I cleaned out my purse last week!  Fun.  Easy. Cute.

A little closer...

First, I applied two coats of New York Color Fifth Avenue for the body of the acorn.  Then, I did the "hats" with New York Color Bryant Park.  These were two new polishes I bought just for this nail art, and I really liked them!  I can't wait to find other uses for them, especially the darker Fifth Avenue!

The next part didn't show up very well.

I combined the two for a color in between the two.

With an eyeliner brush, I tried to do a cross-cross pattern on the "hats" to make them look more "acorn-y".  If you look closely at the bottom pic, you can see them.

It was easy.  It was fun.  It was cute!

You can do it, too!  (which is half the point of this blog!)

Fading Into Fall (or Flames...)

This one took a little experimenting and was pretty easy in the end.
I was going to a Fading Into Fall kind of look.....but they also look a lot like Flames!


First the photos, then the "how-to"

Here's how I did it:

• Painted each nail with one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
• I cut a new sponge in to pieces (pictures below) and slightly dampened and wrung out all the water.
• On a piece of aluminum foil, I brushed a few stripes of Pure Ice Hot Tamale, then sponged it on the top third (or so) of the nails)
• Repeat with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Cherry Red on the top third of the nails

Here's a closer look at the nails:

And the mess I made to paint them:

Jayhawk Marbled Nails!

Do you know what season starts today?
KANSAS JAYHAWK BASKETBALL SEASON!!!!
And with that in mind, I did some Jayhawk Marbled Nails!

Close-up:

I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear 

"Blue It," "Cherry Red," and "Mellow Yellow"

on top of a single coat of SHHANXW "White On" to give it something to stick to.

I hope to do a photo tutorial of how to do marbled nails soon!

So stay tuned...

AND ROCK CHALK!!

Naked Nails!

The Halloweeney Nails Art came off this morning...
and that means I have NAKED NAILS!


So be on the lookout for a new design....coming SOON!