Update: Auld Lang Syne Sheet Music

You're gonna look at these pictures and think how terrible this polish was. Don't think that. I was not shy about saying how hard it was to work with the base on this but for all that it did last fairly well. I only had a small chip on my second to last day. Then on the very last day one whole polish shell fell off. What is it with me and bad New Years Eve manicures? And looking back at that post, the same darn thing happened to the exact same two nails! Chip on the left pointer, entire right middle finger's polish fell off whole.

What are the chances?

NailNation 3000 Mysterious

Hello, readers! Remember me? I'm Dana, the mostly absent but still caring other half of the Two Girls :) I've been terribly caught up in real life for the last few weeks, and then I had a blissful 11 days of time off work, which coincided nicely with Christmas. I had all these plans to do a bunch of pretty manicures and get a bunch of things organized and come up with a more workable nail polish making arrangement for DLC (the smell of the lacquer really bothers my husband--gives him migraines, in fact--but it's the dead of winter in the Midwest and I can't exactly fling open all the windows in my sun room without killing all the plants and giving myself pneumonia. How do the rest of you wonderful polish makers handle this, I ask!)

Auld Lang Syne Sheet Music Mani

Which, I'm just going to get right out there up front, I don't like. I mean, it's a great idea, I thought it was very creative. My execution was not the best, in my opinion, and that's the one that matters most, right. I'm sporting it anyhow.

My original idea for this was to do a line from We Wish You A Merry Christmas across my nails but I did all of those other Christmas ones and that didn't make it. The line I was going to choose was, "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" Which would have still made sense for a New Years manicure. Then my sister said you should do Auld Lang Syne.

Which made much more sense.

Update: Santa and Reindeer

Yet another short update.

The only real problem area I had was my left pointer.

Other than that, just the typical wear and tear.

Hope you all had a nice holiday!

Jess

Santa and His Reindeer

This one is another request by my mother to try. Another pic she posted on facebook, which I have since tracked down to here and here. The funny part of it was that she was upstairs saying how she wanted me to do this one next, I was downstairs about 50% through my last manicure.

Poor timing lol.

What she posted, if you haven't checked either of those links yet, is a very simple reindeer mani with one certain red-nosed reindeer thrown in on the accent nail. Since I then had a whole week to think about it, while listening to a lot of Christmas music, was that technically that should only cover nine of my nails. I need a tenth, right?

Remember Dana's Santa mani from last year?

Update: Christmas Hippos

The only down side to this manicure was that I had the song stuck in my head for the entire week.

I had to patch a few cracked teeth here and there but otherwise, marvelous.

Jess

Vivid Lacquer: Murdered by Pirates is Good

Sometime between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (I don't remember which day it was exactly) I ordered some stamping plates from Vivid Lacquer. You know, because I wasn't frustrated enough with the dozen plates I already had* and thought I'd add to the collection. When I got my package in the mail, I discovered an unexpected bonus: a bottle of gorgeous charcoal gray, seemingly holographic, but wait, that's blue sparkles in there, nail polish. I flipped the bottle over and found the name: Murdered by Pirates is Good. Now, I'm not always up on pop culture so if there's a reference I have no idea what it is--but the name, it's catchy! The name comes from The Princess Bride. (This is what I get for writing posts at 2 or 3 in the morning, ok??)

Elf Pants featuring I Love Nail Polish Very Ornamental & A Fresh Evergreen

I Love Nail Polish, along with every other nail polish in the world (including mine!) has recently released a Christmas line. ILNP's consisted of three polishes, a red/green/gold shift called Nostalgia, and a red and a green holographic. When I received these polishes, I was in the middle of rocking a gorgeous holographic polish I'd gotten from Too Cute-ical called American Beauty, but I had to try the ILNPs out right then. I grabbed up the red Very Ornamental, painted half of my thumbnail (I wanted a comparison to the American Beauty). Then I grabbed the green A Fresh Evergreen and painted the other half of the same nail. I took a quick pic and texted it to Jess.

 Her response?

 ELF PANTS!

I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas!

This one is almost entirely inspired by Dana, in a roundabout sort of way. A couple of months ago she linked me to an image of a DIY Hippo mani, which I downloaded for future reference. While looking for the source so I could credit it, I realized someone cut the credit off the original photo, so I've ditched that one in favor of the real thing.

It kept lurking at the back of my mind to try but as it's like, the season for nail art I put it off until a better time. Until a certain song came on the radio the other day...

Update: Santa Hats

Boy did I bubble the heck out of these. It annoyed me all week. I was tempted to take 'em off several times and redo them. Other than that, they were pretty much perfect.

A few edges are lifting, the right middle finger was just about to give. But that's really all. :)

Jess

Santa Hats

I got the idea for these from my mother, who posted this photo to my timeline on facebook way back at the beginning of November.

She loved them. She posts a lot of nail art at me but this is one she went on about in real life afterwards. I've done a brief Google image search for them and can't seem to immediately find to whom it belongs so if you know or it's yours and would like me to slap a credit on there, get in touch and I shall do so pronto.

Update: Turkeys Again

I painted these late in the week so by the time the week was up there were so many exciting things going on around here that I held off a few extra days and then plumb forgot!

Nothing to report on anyhow. There's that little inset of my right thumb in the middle there that shows sort of a ripple effect going on, but I'm certain I did that to myself trying to remove a sticker or a price tag or something similar before it was completely dry.

Multi-Blogger/Indie Polish Maker giveaway!!

Good news, kids! Lacquer: The Best Medicine is hosting a huge holiday giveaway and Dreamy Lacquer Company is lucky enough to be included! The contest opens today and runs through 12/31/13. I'm putting this same info over on our Giveaway page so it's not so hard to find after a few posts here on the main page. And now, here's all the info, straight from Ariel at Lacquer: The Best Medicine:

It's that time of year, ladies & germs! We're bundling up, gettin' toasty by the fire, and best of all, we're wearing our HOLIDAY polishes! And, since we can never have enough holiday ANYTHING, here's a giveaway for you to enter with LOADS of prizes up for grabs to keep your nails nice and festive this holiday season!

The giveaway is open internationally, so feel free to enter no matter where you're from! <3

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Luck! =)

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Spellbound Nails: All of Time & Space

I recently purchased this nail polish from Spellbound Nails, at her Storenvy shop. She's got some gorgeous polishes, but I'd had my eye on All of Time & Space for a fair bit of time now, and with the recent Dr. Who 50th Anniversary episode on tap, I snatched this little beauty up and celebrated the return of Ten and Eleven in style :)

Thanksgiving Turkeys Round 2

And a bit differently this time. Although this one is the main one you see when you Google image "Thanksgiving nail art." I was trying to keep it simple as I waited too long and had a lot to do already. It's something about me and Thanksgiving where I decide to wait until the last minute to do these.

Update: ILNP Cygnus Loop (H)

As much as I loved this look it was a real pain to keep. The CL(H) started chipping the very first day and refused to give up. It was a constant battle to keep it looking nice. On the very last day, I lost two of them. Whole.

Lots of compliments on it. And it still mostly looks good. It was effort. I didn't have a base coat on so that may be part of it.

Jess

The Thin Blue Line: WnW Fast Dry Saved by the Blue & SHSM Midnight in NY

I may or may not have mentioned here that I work for a police department. I'm not an officer, and I have no desire to be, but I have a great appreciation and respect for the job those good people do every day. I see, on a lesser scale, the kinds of situations they confront and the people they deal with, both good and bad, every day. I know what it means when someone says "family, blood and blue". I see the thin blue line. And I know what it feels like to be a member of the big blue police family.

ILNP Cygnus Loop (H) French Manicure

ILNP is my new favorite place. I could seriously throw all of my money at that website and not eat for the rest of the month. I would at least die happy and with beautifully painted nails.

Dana's the one that found 'em first and then pointed me at them when the Ultra Chromes were on pre-sale. Which I totally forgot to purchase so I had to sit through the release. I freaking hate releases and restocks and I will avoid them like the plague but I really wanted to make sure I got these.

Dear rest of the polish world,

If you would so kindly handle your releases and restocks the way ILNP does, we would all have such easier lives. It may even ignite world peace.

Sincerely,

Every Polish Addict Anywhere Ever

Update: JulieG Holiday Frosted Gumdrops

These are great polishes. For the durability at this price point they're a steal. No chips, no peeling, no weirdness with the growth at the cuticles, hardly even any tip wear.

See that? Considering the last texture I wore, which chipped pretty badly by comparison to these and cost me twice the price, I very much recommend these.

With one word of caution.

A really awesome manicure and then the one I actually wore.

I was sitting around a few weeks ago, trying to think of a good fall manicure to do. After the pumpkins I wanted to try something else artsy so I started looking up other ideas online. I didn't know what I wanted though. I finally settled on leaves of some sort because hey, what says Autumn more than the changing leaves on the trees?

And then I thought...well why can't I just use leaves? I totally went there.