Glitter Me Monday: Let It Glitter!-Candy Cane

Hello lovelies,

Happy 1st December! That means it's officially time for Christmas glitters and I've bought a fair few this year so I thought I'd better crack on using them! This is one coat of Candy Cane over Maybelline-Winner Takes It All. Let It Glitter! is a Dutch indie brand that I've never tried before, but I couldn't resist getting a couple of her Xmas ones this year.

Candy Cane is your typical Christmassy colours-red, green and white micro glitter and it's really pretty! I think it would look nice over a black base as well.

Look at the dinky bottle!

I had planned some nail art with this one but it went out the window so I just glittered them all-yay! I'm finally looking forward to Christmas now I have an income and can actually afford to get stuff for the people I love!
Hope you are too!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 12-Freestyle Christmas

Well we've finally reached almost the end of December and the end of this little challenge! I'm quite sad to see it go, I've had a fantastic time doing these and shared the experience with some really lovely ladies. Originally my plan was to choose some of their manis to do on my nails today but there have been so many lovely ones that I couldn't just choose 10, and I also would not be able to do them credit at all. So instead I want to dedicate this mani to lovely ladies who have taken part alongside me-there's been over 150 fabulous designs created for the various prompts and I, for one, have really enjoyed myself. I want to say thankyou to everyone who took part with me, whether it was just once or every mani-I never thought when I had this idea in November it would have become something this great! You've all been really awesome company, and I've loved seeing so many different designs. I can't wait to see what you've all come up with for today!

My 'freestyle' mani is made up of various things I've done along the way, and I used about 30 polishes in total for it! I won't list them, most of them have been used in the other Xmas posts anyway, but if there's one you want to know for definite just ask =) Also I used this tutorial from The Little Canvas to do the reindeer.

Here we are then, my final Christmas mani of 2013:

And just because it's Christmas, and I haven't yet, here's some pics using decorations too:

I can't believe it's over! Look out for my round up coming soon, but other than that I would just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), and I will be back after the festivities have quietened down a little!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 11-Christmas Trees

Squeezing this post in before the end of Saturday so I can still claim to have posted on time, haha. I've been visiting my boyfriend today so haven't been able to post yet.
The penultimate Xmas challenge mani! Boo! I've had such fun doing these every day and sharing the challenge with some awesome ladies. For 'Christmas trees' I've known what I wanted to do ever since way back when in Metallic week of the Mish Mash challenge. I festived them up a bit but that's where the idea came from.
Polishes used: GOSH-Holographic Hero (not that you can really see the holo any more, many layers of topcoat killed it. It did look pretty awesome to begin with though!), Barry M-Cosmic Glow (magnetic), Maybelline-Winner Takes It All, London Girl Polish-#79, Rimmel-Red Carpet and Barry M-Teal. I added some gems that I won in a giveaway prize because hey, it's Christmas, and I fancied trying something different. Amazed how well they've stayed on actually!

These are fun! I did find the gems a bit weird at first because I wasn't used to having 3D things on my nails but I forgot about them fairly quickly. These make me feel VERY festive!

Rara
Polishes used: Base of Layla-Mermaid Spell, thumb xmas tree; nail art pen with Tara's Talons-12 Days over the top, index finger; Avon-Noir Emerald with nail art pen decorations, middle finger: Essie-Mojito Madness with Tara's Talons-Bauble over the top, ring finger; Avon-Garden Green mixed with Sinful Colors-Pistache with Andrea Fulerton silver nail pen for tinsel and little finger; as before. All trees have Avon-Express Mocha stumps and yellow nail pen stars.
I am very surprised how many greens I actually have as I don't really like green!! I like how all of my trees are different and my favourite two have to be the ones on my thumb and index fingers! 

Really sad that we only have one more mani left to do :'(

~Rara~

I'm also quite sad we've only got one left-it's been a really fun month trying to organise these around my life haha! Don't forget to check out the other ladies trees in the inlinkz. I'll be back on Monday with the FINAL mani, booo!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 10-Santa

~Pic Heavy Post~

So we're down to the final three manis of this challenge and I still can't really believe that it's gone by so quickly-I mean in a WEEK Christmas will have been and gone, what's that about?! In the spirit of all things Christmassy, here's some Santa nails-hope you've all been good this year ;)
I saw some awesome ones by Pause For Polish yesterday and decided to recreate them as accents, along with some Santa hats. For my Santas I used Rimmel-Red Carpet/Serene plus W7-Black and Maybelline-Winner Takes It All. On my hats I added Barry M-Lady to add a touch of sparkle and to make the fluff look fluffier, oh and the background is Revlon-Silver Screen. My other fingers have a base of Tara's Talons-Carollers from my Advent Calendar which is a lovely forest green with gold glitters. On top of that is two coats of the appropriately named Absolut Lacquer-Mrs Claus' Night Out for that perfect mix of Festive colours!

First (pre clean up!) pic is to show Carollers in all its glory.

I also grabbed one without flash to show off Mrs Claus to her full potential-she's packed full of silver and red micro glitter and larger silver pieces:

I really like these! They're super festive and really rather cool I reckon. My Mum liked them so much that she asked me to do some on her too (and that's a big deal because she never ever wears nail polish!), which I think is pretty cool =D

Rara
Polishes used: Barry M-Retro Red, Essie-Cascade Cool, Nails Inc-Uptown Glamour, Barry M-Matt White and Andrea Fulerton black and silver.
I love my Santas!!!!!! I'm not sure if you can tell but they are tiny boots on my little finger! I like how happy and cutey my Santas' faces are!!!

It's "Christmas Day" today so I'm meeting Novice and we're going to swap gifts so it actually feels like Christmas now!!

~Rara~

Haha, yeah, we're going to take our Santa nails and eat some scrummy food whilst exchanging presents today, yay! I love Christmas!
Here, if you need them, are the challenge prompts one last time-only two left to go now.

And check out the other Santa manis too!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 7-Christmas Animals

OK so I did a very silly thing this week. I'm currently up in Sheffield visiting friends/rehearsing and performing in a show and I brought all my polishes with me to do this mani. Or so I thought. I'd actually (somehow!) managed to forget both my base coat and top coat, which is basically a massive fail for a nail blogger! I had to go out and buy some more and could only find Sally Hansen Double Duty. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty decent for what it is, but man I missed my Seche Vite! I don't know how I ever managed to function before I owned fast dry top coat, because these took hours to feel like they were properly dry, and even in the short time between finishing them and taking the pictures they got a little battered/dinged up. SIGH. Lesson learned there, methinks.

Anyway, enough of my idiotic-ness. I used lots of polishes for this one so I'll zip through them quickly: Rimmel-Red Obsession, Barry M-Red Glitter, W7-Black, Barry M-Matt White,Mango, Mushroom and Lemon Icecream. I also used some reindeer water decals which I picked up on ebay here.

I do think they look better in white but I wanted to try both colours out

So there's my Christmas animals-cute little robins and penguins!

Rara
So for some reason the majority of my Xmas animals are birds! I've done an owl, penguin, robin, reindeer and another robin. Not sure why it was so hard to think of Christmas animals but it was and I was sorely tempted to redo my Christmas pigs!! However I am pleased with how these came out, especially after I added the Santa hats...no Xmas mani is complete without a Santa hat!! Polishes used - base colour NYC-Sidewalkers, Avon-Express Mocha, Tara's Talons-Three Wise Men, Barry M-Matt White, Barry M-Red Glitter and an orange nail art pen. 
Friday 13th...hope it was a lucky nail art one for you all!!

~Rara~

Don't forget to check the inlinkz out for more awesome festive manis =)

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 6-Decorations

-PIC HEAVY POST-

Do you ever have those moments where you do some really awesome nail art that you're really proud of one one hand and just know you're not going to be able to recreate it well on the other? Yeah, this was one of those! I took inspiration for these from Chalkboard Nails' Functional Christmas Lights and for this decided to stray away from the Christmas colours I've been sticking to at the mo! I did a base of Revlon-Minted and then topped it with my Iconic Effect-Extreme Holo Topcoat...because I couldn't resist using it again haha! I did the "string" with my black Barry M nail art pen and drew "bulbs" with the white to provide a good base for my slightly jelly like glow in the dark polishes. I used BK Polishes in 05, 06 and 10 to colour them in. On my thumb I did a sort of Christmas tree with the lights which I really like. Then it came to my right hand. My Barry M pens started playing up and the bulbs all came out different sizes and shapes. I did attempt the tree to match but it just wasn't playing so I gave up in the end, haha! Ah well, can't have it all ey?
I feel I should warn you that my camera was a little dazzled by the holoyness of these, poor thing, so these are a little blurry around the edges.

While one hand is definitely better than the other, I do really like these! And look, they really glow:

GITD nail varnish makes me so happy, which is good because I had crappy news today so I needed a pick me up!
Anyway, let's see Rara's decorations too!

Rara
I had absolutely no idea how to do decorations...so I kind of cheated. I decided to use a new polish from a TarasTalons goodie bag called Paper Chains. I layered it over the top of Avon-Forget-Me-Not Blue. Paper Chain is a beautiful many coloured glitter and makes me happy! To try to match it I painted my other nails with Layla-Mermaid Spell (Holographic effect) and attempted paper chains with my nail pens from Paperchase. Not sure you could tell what they are unless I had already told you though!

Bring on Christmas Animals!!!!

~Rara~

I actually really like those paperchains, they're so colourful, and that glitter is loooovely! There you go, lots of holoy goodness and pretty decorations. Here's a reminder of the rest of the prompts, can't believe we're half way through already!

Don't forget to check out the inlinkz for some more fabulous 'decorations' manis!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 5-Bells

Hello lovelies!
I'm back with another Xmas mani today-I can't believe how quickly these are going past. Today's is Bells and I've freehanded some slightly wibbly ones! I started with a base of Rimmel-Purple Addict and on all but my accent fingers topped it with a coat of Iconic Effect-Extreme Holo Topcoat which is basically my new favourite thing ever. A way to make any polish not only holoy but extremely so? I had to have it! I get the feeling I'm going to be using it a lot, haha. For my bells I used Maybelline-Winner Takes It All and added a little detail with Rimmel-Red Carpet/Camouflage.

Please ignore my stubby nubbin of a middle finger =(

I love the bells but I'm more impressed with that holo topcoat-look at those gorgeous rainbows! You can get it on the Iconic Effect Etsy site and it comes in three intensities depending on how much holo you want! Because I am a true "holo ho" (to quote a lovely lady in one of my nail groups on FB) I had to have the extreme one, but I'm sorely tempted to pick up the others with some of my Xmas money too!

OK, so there's my bells, now let's have a look at Rara's:

Rara
Today I used Avon-Garden Green which is quite a nice shimmery green. The bells were done using Nails Inc-Uptown Glamour which I got out of a magazine for £1.40! And the bow detailing I used Barry M-Bright Red. The lettering was done by my trusty Andrea Fulerton...think I might love that woman! I wasn't too sure how to draw bells so they could quite possibly have looked nothing like they needed to. But in the end I think you can tell what they are! Jingle all the way to the next challenge...decorations, where I'm completely stumped......

~Rara~

I love Rara's little bells, I think they're fabulous! I think it's interesting how we both have our own favourite nail art pens-she loves the Andrea Fulerton ones but I'm much more of a Barry M fan! Each to their own ey?

Don't forget to check out the rest of the manis in the inlinkz!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 4-Festive Colours

Hey lovelies-can you guess what I did for my Festive Colours mani from this pic?

Haha! Aside from about 20 strands, that tape is all from one mani which I think is a bit impressive! I had originally planned to do a sort of gradient of the three "Festive" colours (red/green/gold) but decided to try them out like this on a swatch stick and liked it so much I did a full mani of it! It's another one of my double layered taping manis which take forever to do but I think give some really awesome results!

Polishes used: Maybelline-Winner Takes It All, Rimmel-Red Carpet and Camouflage plus copious layers of Seche Vite!

As I said, I really like these-they're definitely very festive but also a bit different and quite eyecatching too! I do feel that I should probably step away from the striping tape now though-3 of my 4 Xmas manis so far have used it-oops! I just love the awesome things you can do with it-and so does Rara by the look of things:

Rara
I used Barry M-Red Glitter, Silver Multi Glitter and Gold Glitter and Andrea Fullerton dot and flick black and silver. I wasn't sure what to do for this mani and I'm not completely happy with this one. I tried to do a striping tape mani and I just don't know what went wrong with it. However it is really glittery yay!! Hopefully I'm going to be more impressed with the up coming manis!

~Rara~

Ahh my eyes! It's so sparkly! Gotta love a glitter fest =D

Here's a reminder of the rest of the prompts, and if you want to join in then the FB group with the details is here.

Have a look at the other fabulous festive manis too!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 3-Food

I was intrigued to see this prompt get as many votes as it did when we were picking themes for the challenge-it wouldn't have been one I would have chosen myself but that's the beauty of getting people to vote I guess!
I had a plan in my mind for these, but unfortunately my MoYou festive plate hasn't shown up yet (Boo!) so I had to think of something else and the only things I could really think of were candy canes or Christmas pud! As I don't eat Xmas puds I decided to go for candy canes! Polishes used were Rimmel-Serene/Red Carpet and Tara's Talons-Dasher from my advent calendar which I just adore! Sadly (for you guys) this polish isn't available in her shop because all the calendar polishes are one offs (with the same names) so my 'Dasher' won't be the same as anyone else's, which makes me love it even more!

Anyway, pictures!

I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of this mani, I like the stripes but all the candy canes on my accents are different sizes and a bit wibbly and I just don't love them. However, to redeem myself, let me show you a picture of 'Dasher' before I stuck nail art on top of it-it's gooooorgeous!

Rara
Pigs in blankets!!!! My favourite Christmas food of all time. I could eat my body weight in these every year! I used Avon-Gray Flash for the base, Essie-Cascade Cool for the pigs and the blankets were done with pens from Paperchase. I outlined the pigs with Andrea Fulerton black. And because I didn't think they looked very Christmassy I added little santa hats with Barry M-Bright Red.

Oh my gosh I love these so much...not sure I want to take them off to do my next mani!!

~Rara~

Awwh! I love them too, so cute! I also love the fact (because I'm a big sciencey nerd) that the blanket on her little finger looks like a Christmas amoeba! That might just be me though haha. Don't forget to check out the other awesome 'food' manis in the inlinkz below and happy Thursday!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art 1-Presents

It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Today is the first of December which means it's also the first day of my Christmas Nail Art Challenge-hurrah! I've been really quite excited about this for a while now and now it's here-I'm really looking forward to seeing what people come up with!

For my first mani I've done some simple taping with some sumptuous metallic colours-Maybelline-Winner Takes It All for my base and then (from thumb to little finger on my right hand)-Barry M-Teal, Rimmel-Camouflage, Rimmel-Purple Addict, Rimmel-Red Carpet and Barry M-Navy. I added labels to my accents with my Barry M nail art pen.

I've also got Rara's submissions because she's doing the challenge too-yay! For these she used Barry M-Silver Multiglitter/Red Glitter and some Andrea Fulerton nail art pens in black/silver. Please note she did these whilst out of the house and so the pics were taken pre-clean up!

That's all from us for this first challenge, but make sure you check out all the other beautiful manis in the inlinkz! Here are the rest of the challenge prompts-keep an eye out for them in the coming weeks!

~Rara and Nail Art Novice~

Introducing-The Twelve Days Of Christmas Nail Art

I've finalised the list for my Christmas nail art link up, so I just thought I'd share it here too! If you're interested in joining in then visit the Facebook group here. There are 12 prompts running throughout December but you are free to do as many or as few as you like, and all are welcome whether you celebrate Christmas or not!

Here's the prompt list:

I'm quite excited now, my head is full of ideas already, haha!

See you there,

~Nail Art Novice~

A Christmas Nail Art Link Up?

Hey lovelies, no nails for you today but instead an idea. I was thinking to myself that it'd be cool to do '12 Manis of Xmas', posting throughout December-12 prompted manis on a Christmassy/Wintery theme. Then I thought what would be even cooler is if I had some friends to do it with so we could all share lots of awesome manis together. To this end, I have set up the Facebook group 'The 12 Days of Xmas Manis' (catchy title, huh?) and all I need now is some people to join me in it!

The way it would work is that there would be 12 prompts for 12 manis, posting every other day starting on the 1st December and finishing on the 23rd (leaving you Christmas Eve/Day free to enjoy!), hopefully with some inlinkz to join it all together. All are welcome, whether or not you celebrate Christmas itself! If you think you would be interested in this, please please please go and join the group here and help me choose the challenge prompts. Of course you can do as many or as few prompts as you like, I just thought it might be a bit of fun. Personally I'm going to aim for all 12, which will be a marathon effort for me!

Hope to see some of you joining me for festive frivolity!

~Nail Art Novice~