Last two holiday manicures.

I'm so behind on blogging! Lots going on here. We are moving to a new house in the next couple weeks so I won't be doing manicures with all the packing! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

Happy Holly-days!

I wanted to use some more Christmas stamps from my Konad and I loved the holly berries. In my head, I saw a light green base with dark green holly and red berries so that's what I tried. The green on green didn't show up well and the berries looked black. Without removing that, I painted a white base so I could try a light green holly and that turned out so much better. Even the berries looked healthier!

Candy cane tips.

Still feeling in the Christmas spirit, I did these candy cane inspired tips for the weekend. They were cute and really easy to do free hand.

Tis the season!

For holiday nails!

I had gotten this red glitter polish, Finger Paints Santa Kisses, awhile back at Sally's. It's a great glitter but it took a lot to get a thick coat because I didn't use a base coat.

Then, using a toothpick that I had cut to make a flat end, I dotted on some white polish to make the puffy cotton parts and voila! A Santa hat. Very festive.

Rainbows and butterflies...

Minus the butterflies. I'll paint those later!


I decided to do a rainbow manicure after my last striping one. I liked the different colors and I figured I could add a couple more and just make it as close to a rainbow as I could get with only five colors.

I went with the colors shown - red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I could have gotten a purple in there, too, but I like the different nails changing into the rainbow so I didn't have anywhere to add the purple.

This manicure turned out cute. I had a hard time getting equal sections of colors on my thumb, as you can see, but it didn't really ruin the rainbow effect for me. I still liked it!

Konad - red and gold.

Orly Luxe is a great gold for a Konad manicure. I went back and grabbed the similar silver Orly but I haven't tried it out yet. Maybe I'll do that tonight.

I liked this manicure although I'm not so good with stamping with my left hand. Too much pressure and the pattern smears and all runs together which is not a good look at all. Guess that just means I need to practice more!

Nicole holiday polish

I did my next manicure with the Nicole Brrr Brrr Burgundy. This is such a pretty red polish. I took a picture with and without flash so you can really see the color.


I had been experimenting for a friend who wanted a manicure to do on her daughter and came up with something that reminded me of a gift.

The black stripes look to me like ribbon on a box. I will probably do another version of this with gold or silver when it's closer to Christmas.

Red and black French

Sorry for the lack of posts. I was out of town, having a girls' weekend in Houston with some friends I met while we were in Okinawa. Crazy weekend. Too much fun, definitely.

Before I left, I did a fun French. My friend, Courtney, said it reminded her of a ladybug. I like that comparison.


I used a clear base coat and did the tips with Revlon Valentino topped with Seche Vite. I'm not sure what kind of Revlon it is. That bottle is old but I still love the shade.

I highlighted the tip with Kiss black and I really like the end result. It's a fun French that I will definitely do again with some other color combos.

Also wanted to give a shout out to my second follower! Hi Doni!

God bless Texas!

I'm heading to Houston for the weekend to visit two of my friends I met while we were living in Japan. In honor of going to the Lone Star State, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a Texas themed manicure.

I started out with a base coat and two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme White On followed by a coat of Seche Vite.

I did all this manicure free handed so I didn't have to wait for dry nails to tape them off. After the white, I added OPI Blue My Mind on a little less than half of my nail.



After the blue, I took Sally Hansen No Chip in Resilient Red in the bottom half of the white. I added a coat of Seche Vite.

After that dried, I used Kiss Nail Art Paint in white for the stars. The Texas flag is fairly simple and I experimented with the star a few times before I found the easiest way to make it.

I couldn't take pictures while doing the stars because I didn't want the polish to dry too fast in case I needed to manipulate it so I did a how to on an envelope.

The brush in the white is long and skinny so I started with a small dash straight up and down. The made one to the upper right, upper left, lower right and lower left. When the paint is wet, it's much easier to fix any place you don't like.



Overall, I like the manicure. It turned out better than I hoped especially since I wasn't using tape. With the white base coat, it was easy to add any additional white to correct any mistakes with the nail art brush.

In the beginning...

These are some of my earlier manicures. I don't have the bottles to tell you the colors but the first is a deep maroon/red over silver and the second is a dark plum/purple over silver. I guess I can't really call them "French" since the French manicure is white with pink. They need a new name. Not so formal French? Formally French?


I'm not too excited about posting pictures of my toes because, well, they're toes.

This was my first try at a not so ordinary pedicure. I did it all by hand which would be why the halves aren't equal but I still liked it and was pretty proud. This is actually the same dark plum/purple from my fingers with the same silver and then the white highlight.