Nutcracker

I actually wore these to Thanksgiving, but that is when the Christmas decorations go up! The story here is that my mother-in-law collects nutcrackers. She probably has around 100 total, it is pretty incredible. I wanted to do some nails that she would enjoy!

As such, these were inspired by the adorably painted and carved toys, not the ballet! Usually I would be doing the ballet, but not this year. I should mention that this was a little bit of striping tape and a LOT of freehand, and I am quite proud of his face!

This is only 5 colors, and a lot of different golden studs. You have no idea how many photos of nutcrackers I looked at when trying to decide what to make what color and which body part to paint.

Also, because I am a dork, there are three sizes of studs on here! Caviar beads on my pinky, normal sized studs on my middle finger, and some small ones on my thumb. I finally have enough different sizes to do stuff like this!

Colors:
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco

If you liked this or want me to be happy (either works!) please go vote for this design at Nail Polish Canada so I can win some free polish! The link is here. Thank you guys!

Hop On!

It’s the friday before easter! This only matters because it means I have to take a plane tonight :-p. Somehow, I’ve been wearing these nails all week and none of the fellows, residents, attendings, or patients noticed! My fellow med student did, at least!

The art was inspired by this pin. I just really like the periwinkle color coupled with the egg pattern! Of course, I had to add an easter bunny. The nails on my other hand don’t quite match (and don’t look very easter-y so they’ll be posted at a later point).

My ACTUAL easter nails are red, like the eggs used to crack each other at a greek easter party. It’s an odd tradition, since there are easily twice as many eggs as people at a given party and no one wants to eat them after they are all smashed up!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Teal: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

Anyway, happy friday and happy easter if you celebrate! I’ll be busy trying to avoid chametz (bread things) since it is still passover, but hopefully there will be chocolate mousse or truffles for me to eat for dessert and not just cake!

Patches and Scarecrow

It’s Black Friday! I had plans to go shopping, but they did not pan out…yet somehow I ended up posting late anyway, whoops!

Regardless, have some pretty appropriately fall-themed nail art! I know it isn’t turkeys, but this was the best I could come up with before the actual holiday 😀

The design was inspired by sensationails4u. I ended up using slightly duskier/darker colors for my patches than her, which I think works really well! More fall, less party. Or something. Scarecrow!

Colors
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist
~ Light brown: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana + Zoya – Dea

That is a lot of colors. And yes, I had to custom-mix the light brown because somehow I don’t own one (I should fix that…any favorite light brown creme polishes I should look into?). Hope you enjoyed your Friday!

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Happy night-before-Halloween! I’ve been planning all week to show this one today, because it is my favorite :-D! Nightmare Before Christmas nail art 🙂

What I love about this movie is that it (much like Love Actually) is technically a christmas movie, not a halloween move (and similarly not a valentine’s day movie). Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the Nightmare Before Christmas during Halloween (it, along with Hocus Pocus and Rocky Horror Picture Show are my staple movies for Halloween weekend), but it is a christmas movie! Regardless, it has a wonderful art style.

This mani was inspired by @mypolishworld. I have seen quite a few Nightmare Before Christmas manis floating around, but hers was the first to catch my eye, so I went with it! I do wish I could get thinner lines out of my black polish, but it is beginning to get stringy so poor Jack’s teeth look a bit..crooked. I also wished I had thought to paint Zero on one of my nails, he is so cute!

Colors
~ Light grey: Wet n’ Wild – Sidewalkers
~ Dark grey: WOW – #333
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Salon Perfect – Snow me White
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide

I hope you get lots of candy, fun costumes, and spooky nail art this weekend! Enjoy!

Wicked

Today’s prompt was “song” but I decided to go with “musical” instead, because there are too many songs and I gave up trying to pick one to turn into a mani! That being said, I am (back) on a Les Mis kick (best musical ever) and wanted to paint at Les Mis mani but decided a French flag was dumb, so we get one of the many other musicals I love, Wicked!

I have to say, the lighting in Defying Gravity is one of my two favorite light-induced moments in musicals ever (the other being Mirror Blue Night in Spring Awakening), but its easy to come up with something fairly straightforward to paint that is Wicked-related, so here we go!

The inspiration came from a mani by Brit Nails, which was a great (and fast) idea to do most nails as a gradient! And since Elphaba is infinitely cooler than Glinda, there is no white-and-pink here.

Colors
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Black/white glitter: Maybelline – Clearly Spotted

Simple yet awesome! And no I have “no one mourns the wicked” stuck in my head. Song accomplished! Enjoy!

Penguined

Animal print day! I’ve already done a lot of zebra stuff, and I despair of leopard print, so I just went with animals. Namely, penguins!

I initially wanted to do a different accessory for each penguin, but it is summer and so a scarf seemed out of place…and I didn’t really think a necklace would look good and I was official out of ideas. So bow and bow tie it is!

After matting the penguins I went back and made their eyes glossy…matte eyes look creepy and dead and I don’t like it :-p

Colors
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Salon Perfect – Sugar Cube
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren

Fuzzy! I always find animal-themes to be some of the hardest to do, because I’m just not good at eyes, Or animals. Except butterfly wings, but I’ve done those many times at this point and it feels like cheating! So I hope you enjoyed these penguins 🙂

In Shallow Waters

This post fill many requirements. It is my “nautical” post for the OMD2 Challenge, my “summer nail art” entry for the Nail Polish Canada summer contest (which you guys should TOTALLY GO VOTE FOR) and the tutorial for it will (hopefully) be published at Nail It! Magazine in the next week or so…once I write it up.

The interesting part of this mani is that it is a duplicate of one I did almost exactly a year ago. Only this time, I have longer nails. And slightly more time. That being said, I still love fish. And seahorses. And just summer underwater stuff in general. So if I had to re-do one mani, I think this wasn’t a bad one to choose!

Colors:
– Light blue: Maybelline – Green with Envy
– Medium blue: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
– Dark blue: Maybelline – Shocking Seas
– Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
– Coral: L’oreal – Orange You Jealous?
– Light purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
– Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
– White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme

If you like these, please vote! It’s been a while since I won anything. And if you want to know how I put these together, head over to Nail It! Magazine in a few days!