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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Halloween Pumpkins

You know how when you're working on something, trying something new that you're not sure is going to work for whatever reason, and as you're working on it you start smiling and giggling because it's going so much better than you had expected and you're just so ridiculously proud of yourself for pulling it off anywhere near as close as you were hoping much less even better than that?

That was all one sentence.

Considering last year's Halloween mani, and my lack of skill and procrastination on practice, I was that person up there. Because this turned out so much better than I thought it would.

A-England Bridal Veil and Princess Sabra

Sort of a Halloweenish mani, I guess. I just really wanted to wear Tristam's eyes, I love that cat.

Fing'rs Heart 2 Art

The Fing'rs Heart 2 Art collection has been out since the end of July, from what I've been able to find on the Interwebs, but it just showed up in my local Wal-Mart this week. Of course I went a little bit overboard and bought 3 or 4 of the nail tattoos, a couple of sets of the nail art stickers, and the Stamp It kit.

Although I have yet to complete a full manicure using any one of the things I bought, I have done a bit of experimentation. What I've learned so far:

1. Use a WHITE base coat under the nail tattoos!
2. When you dip your basically trimmed to size nail tattoo in the water, expect the backing paper to soften and bow immediately. There is no wait time here, y'all. 
3. If you think the nail sticker is too wide for your nail (London Bridge), don't even try it. Because it will look stupid if you point the bridge up-and-down. 
4. Stamping requires patience. Develop some. 

I'll let you all know how it goes from here!

Update: OPI I Think in Pink (and stickers)

Okay, the stickers were a pain to remove. Right up there with getting glitter all over the place. The Kiss package doesn't come with removal instructions so I just used acetone and a cotton ball like always. Despite the fact that several of them started lifting before the week was up even with all the top coat I slathered on 'em, it was like the acetone glued 'em back down and then they smeared all over the place before they started breaking up. I had little chunks of sticker all over. Ick.

The polish itself was...well, it's OPI, there isn't too much that needs to be said there. It was still pretty pristine. I had some edges that were just about to chip but nothing at all obvious.

OPI I Think in Pink (and stickers)

For some strange reason I was feeling very girly and pink this weekend. No idea why, I don't usually do such things lol.  Darker colors are where my heart lies. I had just put away a bunch of colors and saw OPI's I Think in Pink during the process and it got stuck in my head so I decided to give it a try.

Application on was...meh. It's very thin and since it's such a light pink and I have something against visible nail line, it took four coats. Seriously, that's like two or three coats beyond my patience limits.

Update: OPI Easter Eggs

Another very short post. No issues at all here.

Jess

OPI Easter Eggs

For about three weeks now I've been operating under the delusion that Easter is this Sunday. Just so you know, it's not. Really. I've got almost two whole weeks left. -_-

What that means though is that I have busted out my Easter mani early. Whoops.

I was trying to keep it mostly simple, just some nice pastel egg paints. I have since found out that apparently I'm not really a pastels girl because I don't own that many. I also can't keep it simple most of the time. But I already knew that.

Update: Sally Hansen Heart Breaker

One day. Actually not even one day, this was about 12-14 hours after applying.