Christmas Sweater Skittle

Hi, all! So, I finally felt inspired to do a Christmas manicure. For this one I started with a regular base coat over a school glue base. I thank all the ladies who shared the glue tip with me...I've been wearing glitter nearly every day since! Here's what I came up with.

The main polish for this mani is from a new-to-me brand called Glitz 'n Glimmer Polish. This brand boasts a 5-free base, and I stumbled upon it in a Facebook group that I frequent. I used two thin coats of Christmas Sugar Cookie, a white crelly with multi-colored glitter. The glitter is most prominently red and green, although I think I spotted some yellow, pink, and blue, as well. It covers beautifully, and I think it could have been a one-coater if I'd been as heavy-handed in application as I normally am. With glitters, though, I am finding I prefer thinner coats, because I like the way the particles look suspended in the different layers of base. See, I've been learning. :) The wear time is quite nice. Before I attempted any art, I wore it solo for a few days with only minimal tip wear. For this look, I stamped a pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-603 on two nails. For my index finger, I used Revlon Top Speed in Emerald, and on my pinky, I stamped with Wet n Wild Megalast in I Red a Good Book. On my ring finger, I added a coat of Emerald, then sponged on a glitter gradient using an other brand I hadn't tried before, Barielle Goldfinger.

While I (clearly) haven't yet mastered the art of stamping, it still turned out better than I expected. I found myself a squishy little Vaga stamper on Amazon and have had slightly better luck than with my much firmer Konad stamper. I thank you for stopping by, and I wish one and all a Merry Christmas if you don't hear from me before then!

My Thanksgiving Manicure

Hello, all! I hope all of you who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm still recovering from my turkey-induced coma. :) As you can tell, as a beginner I'm sometimes too ambitious with my nail art. This time is no exception. I've shown you proof that I'm just no good yet at stamping. That being said, what did I try on this attempt? Double stamping!

For this look, I used a base of Wet n Wild Megalast in Under Your Spell, which is a rich, vampy burgundy that's full of red shimmer. I then stamped it with a wood grain pattern from Bundle Monster's 2014 CYO collection, plate BM-608. For this I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Bittersweet, which I'd describe more as a creamy milk chocolate color. After a top coat, I stamped a leaf pattern from plate BM-617 using Sally Hansen X-treme Wear in Golden-I. I love this color for stamping because of its super shiny foil finish. I finished it all off with a matte top coat that I got months ago from a Cult Cosmetics buy 1, get 2 free sale.

So, while it's by no means perfect, (some gaps in the stamped images, I flooded a couple cuticles with acetone rushing through clean-up), I'm actually quite happy with how this manicure turned out. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks so much for looking!