Week 2: Winter Nature (or: Have a Holly Jolly Christmas)

Howdy hey buddyo! I've been really excited to do these nails since the moment I ordered A Fresh Evergreen and Very Ornamental, both by I <3 NP, one of the most lovely of all pseudo-mainstream indie nail polish brands. (I also ordered Nostalgia and Princess Diaries in the same shipment. It was a really exciting package to receive, to say the least, and you'll be seeing those other shades pretty soon I'm sure.) Both of these colors are from the special seasonal collection, as indicated by their names, and so I knew that I had to incorporate them into this winter nail challenge.

Winter foliage? Plants? Red and green??? HOLLY. I love holly. It's so bright, it has weird effects on birds, and it's very festive.

Info and more pictures under the cut:

Week 1: Winter Challenge

After an incredibly long night of sleep last night, I spent most of today watching tv, biking, and planning what I wanted to do for today's mani. Aka the perfect weekend. So I sat down with a pot of peppermint tea and spent an ungodly amount of time bringing this mani to life.

Info and more pictures under the cut!

Hello Winter!

It's December! Here in Chicago, that means one big thing: it's cold. Really cold. But hey I love the cold so no biggie. This cold is just ushering in Eggnog And Hot Beverage Season, one of my favorite times of all. In an attempt to capture the warmth of this chilly season, I painted my nails using Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Red Velvet.  I got this lovely shade from a clearance bin, and boy am I glad I picked it up!! It's a very rich burgundy berry shade, and it's quite festive. The sugar coat texture is really nice, and reminds me of the way that Zoya Pixie Dust polishes look in the way that it sparkles. It covered really well in one coat, but I did two for added depth. Although it was really pretty on its own, I couldn't resist stamping it with some of the winter stamps that I've been chomping at the bit to use for months!!

Pastel Space

So if you know me, you know I love space. Like, a lot. My background on both my personal and work computer is not just one picture of space, but like 10 different ones that just rotate every half hour. I usually have glow in the dark stars on my ceiling. I really really love space. So naturally, when I'm on vacation and I have a very limited number of colors but I still want to do something fun, my go-to design is space. Pastel space!!

I started off with two coats of OPI Can't Find My Czech-book, which is a super super gorgeous blue and I can't believe how long it took me to convince myself to get it. Next I skipped my usual next step of sponging on white and went straight to the colors. The pink I used was OPI Tutti Frutti Tonga, which is a really gorgeous iridescent pale pink. I'm excited to use it alone at some point because it's gonna look great. The yellow was China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, which is basically my go-to for a nice bright yellow color. The glitter was OPI When Monkeys Fly, which is part of the Oz the Great and Powerful collection. (Coincidentally, I just saw that movie, and I thought it was great except for the part where I couldn't take James Franco seriously. He has such an insincere smile and it was just really throwing me off the whole time.) Ahem, anyways. the white star designs I did with a Sally Hansen nail art pen in white. I love these pens and will never ever be able to sing my praises for them enough, even though I'm super bitter towards Sally Hansen due to the fact that they totally ignored my suggestion to bring back the Sally Hansen Magical line, aka the best holo line ever to exist ever.

I think I've rambled enough for one day, look at my nails:

Feathered

Yo! It's been a long time. Like, months. I'm super super sorry about that. In that time, I moved from California to Chicago, started working, and have barely had time to paint my nails. Fortunately, I've got a ton of photos to post in the backlog!! So woohoo get ready.

First up today we have a really rad combo that I absolutely loved the look of and will definitely do again. I started off with two coats of Two Fingered Salute by Butter, which is an amazing dusty turquoise color with flecks of copper in it. In the bottle it looks a little dingy, but once it's on the nail it looks INCREDIBLE. Super sparkly, and a great color. After that, I pulled out my feather nail decals from the Born Pretty store, aka my favorite online shop for nail art supplies, and picked the yellow ones because they contrasted great against the color of TFS. After topping it off with a coat of Seche Vite, I was good to go!

Colors used: Two Fingered Salute by Butter London