Christmas Pudding

Ever since I have seen Christmas Pudding manicure designs, I have waited for Christmas to arrive so that I can finally do one. With the work Christmas Party, I thought it was a brilliant opportunity to be able to do a Christmas Pudding design earlier.

For the cake part of the pudding I started with OPI Who Comes Up With These Names? Two coats later I left it overnight. In the morning I applied L.A. Girl Uninhibited to represent the fruit in the pudding. It would be great if I had a polish with the small black glitter for the sultanas and raisins and the larger glitter was red for glace cherries.

Excuse the very early morning light for the picture. I was up and making cupcakes for the party that night at 4:30 in the morning. The glitter dried quickly and that allowed me to paint the sauce on using Ulta3 Lily White with a nail art brush. I always envisaged having this manicure with holly on it but I didn't have anything I could use and my nails are too small for any stamping images.

I managed to get the cakes cooked, frosted and decorated before I left for work that morning. A load of washing was done for the children with their school uniforms for the day. Phew! The party went well and we scored plenty of things. I won a bottle of wine with my raffle ticket and another two bottles through auctions with play money. Mr R spent the rest of my money and was very proud of himself. He won a hamper stuffed with sweet and savoury food. Only about half of the items can be seen here.

Nail Fail - Glitter and Gradient Stamping

Today I bring to you a nail fail. It does not look overly terrible except for the fact that I did not clean up at all in the end because I knew it was not working out. The manicure does not work like it is supposed to do.

Early in the days of this blog I posted a haul post. This is one of my most successful posts even though it only consists of pictures of nail polish bottles I bought... Two of these polishes are Nicole by OPI polishes called Virtuous Violet and One Less Lonely Glitter. This is the first time I have ever used them.

Virtuous Violet is a nice colour. In the bottle the shimmer seems almost duochromatic. To get enough coverage on your nail you need four coats. I used three here because I knew the glitter would work fine with only three coats.

I seems it would take too many coats to make One Less Lonely Glitter opaque. On other blogs I saw that most people seem to still have some nail visible at three coats. It has pretty mauve small and microglitter in a clear base. The brush seemed rather clunky but I applied the polish without problems.

Onto the fail part of the manicure. Miss L decided she wanted both Kleancolor Metallic Pink and Metallic Aqua "side by side". I sponged a gradient on for her and she was mightily pleased. Her nails are very small and the ridges around the cuticle and the sides of her fingernails are deep. It makes it difficult to get the sponge into the area to dab the polish on.

I decided that these two colours would go well with the purples. Since I already did a sponged gradient, I thought I would stamp one onto my fingernails. The plate I used was an MJ plate but you can not see the full nail heart design. Part of the problem is that I used the double sided stamper from Lightinthebox.com. It was TERRIBLE as the silicone part of the stamper is much harder than the Konad one I adore. I switched over to the Konad double stamper after doing my thumb and index finger.

This one will come off soon. Thank goodness I used PVA glue as a base.

Movember and International Men's Day

Today is International Men's Day and about two thirds of the way through for those growing their (hopefully) spectacular moustaches for Movember. I am proud to admit that Movember was started in Australia and has grown from there. It seems we have a lot to do to catch up to those Canadians but at least we are giving our men some support for men's issues.

Visit the Australian Movember website has lots of information, merchandise and ways to connect to other Mo Bros. Most importantly you can donate to the foundation for the funds to be used for men's health initiatives such as prostate cancer and mental health.

The theme for International Men's Day for 2012 is health to tie this post in nicely with the aims of Movember. Helping men to be aware of their own bodies and minds will help them to live longer and happier lives. That is something to want for every special man and man-to-be in our lives.

Don't Feed the Hand Models from Sephora by OPI tends to be my go to nude base colour. I have used it here in two coats to represent skin. I would have done different skin colours but I did not have the polishes to represent that.

On the new MJ VIII image plate there is a full nail image of different moustache styles. These are perfect for Movember. Different shades of Kleancolor Metallics were used to represent different whisker colours for the moustaches. We have Metallic Black for black whiskers, Metallic Mango for the ginger whiskers, Metallic Yellow for the blond whiskers and Coffee Addict for the brown whiskers.

OPI Glow Up Already! Butterfly Wings

This is not the best manicure. I piled on two coats of OPI Glow Up Already! over an existing manicure.

Then I stamped with Vivid Lacquer's VL002 image plate in Konad Black. In many ways I can not wait to use up all of my Konad Black because it is horrendous to clean up. In other ways it would be a bad thing because I do not have another great black stamping polish to go to!

This image is not really designed for stubby nubbins like mine. I still think it looks ok and it is much better than I could ever do freehand. The white dots are made with Rimmel French White Tip. After I took these pictures I did the washing up and removed it all. Yes! Easy removal with my PVA glue base.

Daily Manicure Week - Sunday Dots

Finally, Sunday.

Sunday is a day to sleep in and recover from Saturday. If you feel up to it you might have a while to spend on your nails. Then again you might not feel all that great so something simple is called for. What could be more simple than a dot manicure? By now you are probably feeling dotty for doing your nails so much. Especially if you have been using the same two colours.

The only reason why I used Red Velvet as the base colour for this manicure is because of Wednesday's post. I thought it would look too similar as the stamping plate image used was of dots.

I simply started with a large dot at the corner of my nail and then did a row of small dots. Large and small dots were alternated until the nail was filled. After the polish had dried a bit, I placed a small dot in the middle of the large dots. Dot manicures are very simple and effective. People always marvel at them and do not seem to realise how quick and easy they are.

Daily Manicure Week - Saturday Spun Sugar

Hurray! It is finally the weekend!

Today you want to wear something special and different on your nails. You prepare yet another base of Don't Feed the Hand Models and then plop some Red Velvet on a plate and wait. And wait. Then wait some more until you can draw strands of polish much like the spun sugar of fairy/candy floss. Drape these strands across your nails. Done.

This manicure does take longer to dry. The thinner you can get the strands the better because you get less dry time. To be able to form the strands the polish needs to be on the way to drying. I used the tutorial by Nails from a Fairy Tale to create this manicure.

This is ok for my first effort but I would like to try it again with a different polish to see if I can get finer strands out of the polish.

Daily Manicure Week - Friday Freehand

Thank Goodness It's Friday!

You have upgraded your current manicure twice. If you add something else to it, that might be overkill. And you can't seem to find anything else but Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models and Mode Red Velvet.

Paint whatever you want. I thought it was simplest to paint on a smile. My artistic skills are pretty dismal. Look at my lettering there...

I tried again and ended up with another mess. There were some hearts and then I did these tulip like designs. Maybe freehand was not such a good idea. I guess these could have looked ok if I had done them on all of my fingers.

It's ok. It is nearly the weekend!

Daily Manicure Week - Thursday Tape

Good Morning Thursday. Just one more day after this until the weekend!

You liked the stamping manicure from yesterday and you don't really want to start over again with another manicure. Yes, another upgrade sounds like a brilliant idea. Out comes the tape and with some careful scissor cutting and removing some of the tackiness of the sticky tape, a new manicure is born.

Of course you can also do this manicure without having the stamping underneath. My tape skills are no where near the league of Erica from Chloe's Nails.

Below is a step by step pictorial of how I cut the tape for the manicure. For this demonstration I used masking tape as it is opaque and easier to photograph.

Daily Manicure Week - Wednesday Stamping

Oh here it is, Hump Day.

Now that you have removed the horrible manicure that looked like you went on a murder spree...

Out comes Don't Feed the Hand Models and Red Velvet because they are the only two polishes you can find. URGH! Hump Day. You apply Don't Feed the Hand Models as a base colour and then quickly stamp over it with Red Velvet.

I used an image from Bundle Monster's BM-322. Now this looks a lot better than the blood caked manicure from Tuesday. Red Velvet may not be the best polish for stamping with but it still looks pretty good. There is not a top coat in these pictures and this enhances the appearance.

Daily Manicure Week - Tuesday Cling Wrap

Hello Tuesday.

You started off with a plain manicure because you did not have much time to work on a manicure on Monday. It was that hard weekend you had. Now it is Tuesday and we get to introduce the second colour that we can use in our manicures. The polish I chose is the gloriously almost rusty coloured Mode Red Velvet. I had promised a featured spot on Red Velvet and I still have not done it yet. This colour was not the best choice as you will soon see why.

So what do you do when you have to get to work and you already have a plain base (Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models) to work with? You can upgrade that manicure. After making those lunches and wrapping everything in cling wrap, take a little piece and bundle it up. Put a coat of polish onto your nails and dab it off with the cling wrap. I chose this way rather than using the cling wrap to apply the polish like a sponge because I had always liked the manicures from other bloggers using this method.

I think Red Velvet is the wrong colour to do this with as it looks as though I have dried blood splodged all over my nails! Then I tried to rescue the manicure. The below picture is outside of the rules I am trying to set for myself in Daily Manicure Week. I had to try to make it look better. It looks worse with China Glaze 2030 cling wrap sponged over the top. In real life my clean up does not look so bad but on macro... Blech. :(

I hope Hump Day Wednesday turns out better. This manicure would work better depending on the colours you choose. Use this as a lesson in not to use together.

Daily Manicure Week - Monday

I really liked Shatter Me Claire's 7 Days 7 Ways posts. Her last post left off in the middle of her second edition. I would love to see her finish this one off. This is such a great idea that I thought I would try my own version but with two polishes. One will be the base colour and the other can be used as the accent. I am not sure how well it will work but I can try.

So it is Monday and you had a really hard weekend. You don't feel like doing much so you just paint your fingernails with the first available colour that you lay your hands on.

For the base colour I chose the work appropriate Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models. I could have used three coats for this but on a Monday morning you really need to get out of the door!

Overload! Nail Polish everywhere. (Picture Heavy)

A trip to the city! Hurray! I had a wonderful trip away and I managed to steal some time to oggle nail polish. There is not much available locally and I went into overload when I saw what one Target had. Sadly, I did not get a good look because I had to take someone to the toilet before heading off again.

Finally, I was able to bash my credit card around at Target, Priceline and Terry White Chemist. There was also a side trip to browse at Myer. Sadly, none of the assistants were interested in helping me there. That is probably a good thing because I may have caused my credit card to commit suicide with Illamasqua. I did have trouble deciding what to get because I think I already have a lot of polish. Admittedly I do not have as much as some people out there but... I need to remember that I have to store it somewhere. Miss L had to take her own picture of the haul.

I was thrilled with finally seeing essence branded polish. Although the bottle is small at 5 ml, I did not realise that it would be cheap as well at $2.55. Some time soon I think I will have to try Absolutely Blue to see what it is like. There was also a "Gel Look" top coat that I grabbed. I have since tried essence gel-look and it did not seem any different to the shine of the Seche Vite on my other hand.

There were a few deals in Priceline and one enabled me to finally get some of Revlon's Quick Dry Top Coat. I had read a good review on this and thought that it was worth trying since it was something I could buy in a hurry if I ran out until I could get other top coats. While I was there I also bought a Colorstay Base Coat.

Also at Priceline, I bought two L'Oreal polishes. Normally I do not buy L'Oreal but Miss L and I liked 613 Blue Reef and 211 Opulent Pink. Blue Reef is more teal than blue and a good addition since all of my teal polishes tend to have some kind of shimmer and are not a creme finish. Opulent Pink was chosen because I want to try a manicure idea with that type of shade. It is not quite the strawberry pink-red shade I wanted but close enough.

Miss L chose two Nicole of by OPI polishes in purple. I adore purple and so does Miss L. These are One Less Lonely Glitter and Virtuous Violet.

Almost there! We have two Chi Chi polishes next. My friend asked me if I was trying to tell her something when I showed her the name of the polishes I chose - Gimme Gimme a Man and Cradle Snatcher. Should I admit I had a giggle over the names and bought them in part because of this? I have an orchid pink in the same colour family as Cradle Snatcher and I hoped for a better formula than the Models Prefer one I have. I am very happy to report that the brush from Chi Chi is much better and the polish stays better.

Finally...

These came from Daring Digits when she had a sale in July. The bottles are 12 ml each and are very elegant. I bought Robin because I thought he would make a good Christmas polish. The other two have hearts in them. Awww, how sweet. The level in First Love is lower because I had to re-take the pictures when I had already used it.

Phew! Done!