Mani Monday: Candy Cane Lane

Dear Nail Diary,

As promised here is the first of my Holoday Nails, before I do my Mom's and potentially ruin them.  Also if you want to get technical there isn't actually any holo in this design, only iridescence and sparklies.  I was desperate to try my new candy cane stripe vinyls - now they are holo! I started off with a base of Barry M - Lady.  It's a textured polish, but a couple coats of SV sorted that out.  I then applied the vinyls and painted on Nails Inc - St James.  I was just going to leave it there but there seemed to be something missing...

More sparkle!  So I glued on some square rhinestones and added another coat of SV.  However it still wasn't enough...

So lastly I stamped a filigree style design on the tips of my nails using China Glaze - I'd Melt For You and added a final couple of coats of SV.  It's been a couple of days and I'm impressed I haven't lost any rhinestones yet as I've usually lost at least one an hour after I've done my nails.

I'll be back when I've done my Mom's nails as I forgot to take a photo of the design I last did for her.

=:x

Christmas Nails

Merry Christmas!
I thought I'd show you some of the nail designs I've been doing in the run up to Christmas.

 This is the Gift Wrapped design I did for my mom.
I started out with two coats of China Glaze's Tip Your Hat from the Twinkle Collection.  Using gold sticker stripes and a gold bow, I created the gift design on the middle finger.  On the index and ring fingers I added glitter stars.

Recently I did this Christmas design, inspired by various designs I saw over the internet.

On the thumb, index and baby fingers, I painted two coats of Rimmel's Block Your Green.  Then on the middle and ring fingers I painted a two coat base of China Glaze's White On White.

 On the middle fingers I applied striping tape in a diagonal pattern, painted London Girl's 149 on top and carefully removed the tape to create this candy cane effect.

For the ring fingers, I applied tape in an inverted "V" and began dotting various sizes with the London Girl and the Rimmel to make a tree and placed a star sticker on the top before sealing it with a top coat of Seche Vite.

My own mani was inspired by a candle created by my friend Maryann over at One Stop Pamper. I'm not sure if she still makes it, but it smelt like peppermint.  It had these glitter particles in it, so it not only looked, but smelt like fresh snow.

Two coats of China Glaze's White On White and then a coat of Butter London's Frilly Knickers to create the snow effect.  On my thumb and baby fingers I did a glitter gradient with China Glaze's De-Light from the Twinkle Collection.  On the rest, I painted on Nails Inc's Diamond Arcade and sealed it with Seche Vite.

I may do another mani for Christmas Day, if I do, it will probably posted after the day itself.  It I don't, have an awesome December 25th, whatever you may be doing that day!

=:x