Christmas Penguins

Evening! I have my final Christmas design for you today. I wore this to my work's Christmas lunch last week because it matched my jumper, which is this cute one from ASOS (that is obviously not me wearing it. I only wish I was that slim):

Before painting the design on my nails I did some Googling to see how other people had done penguin manicures. To be honest I wasn't overly impressed with most of them, so in the end I blagged it and just tried to loosely copy my jumper. And here's the result:

The black and white are Barry M polishes, the beak and feet are Topshop Louder, the gold bow tie is China Glaze Angel Wings, and the red bow tie plus red nails are China Glaze Ruby Pumps.

Aren't the penguins super cute?! I absolutely love how this turned out, and I received so many compliments from co-workers at our lunch. Yay for penguins!

This will probably be my last post before Christmas. I'm having a quiet one at home with my family and hamster Claude, what about you? So yeah... Merry Christmas!

Christmas Snowflakes

Happy end of the world! I celebrated the fact I'm still alive by going shopping and buying myself lots of clothes I don't need. It's my birthday in a week and my friends and I are going on a night out, so obviously I had to get some new shoes. I bought the most ridiculous/amazing black studded wedge boots from Primark...I might break my ankle but at least I'll look awesome doing it. How have you spent the non-apocalypse?

Anyway. Today I have a Christmas snowflake designed inspired by one I saw on AbbieNail last week (you can find it here). Abbie is really talented at freehand nail art and I am so envious of how long her nails are - how does she not break them all the time?!

I didn't have the same polishes as her so I had to improvise. The purple base is OPI Ink and the silver glitter is China Glaze Fairy Dust. I used a Models Own nail art pen for the snowflakes, which took forever to draw. I tried to make them all look a bit different, as everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike. Finally, I stuck a rhinestone in the middle of the larger ones and disco glitter around the edges of the smaller ones.

I also drew them on my right hand and they didn't turn out completely terrible! Hurrah! I actually loved wearing this design - unfortunately it chipped quite badly on the third day, otherwise I'd probably still be wearing it!

Christmas Trees

I have my first Christmas nail art to show you today, and as should be obvious from the title, it features a Christmas tree!

Christmas trees are one of my favourite things about this time of year. Every year my parents and I go to our local tree farm to pick one - my mum and I are really particular about what tree we get so we often spend over an hour choosing. I remember one year my dad had to work at the weekend so my mum and I went together, found a tree, and had a hell of a time squeezing it into her VW Polo to take it home!

I wanted to try this design by Nailside but was short on time, so I simply used a striper and China Glaze Holly-day to make a green triangle on my thumb and ring finger. I filled it in with China Glaze Golden Enchantment and then added some loose disco glitter to represent baubles. Finally I topped the tree with a gold rhinestone and covered with top coat. On my other nails I did two coats of OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons and one of China Glaze Golden Enchantment.

Polished Nail Bar

Last weekend we had a Christmas Fair at work, and I was lucky enough to be one of the stallholders. My colleague in charge of the Fair asked the staff if any of us had anything we wanted to sell and so I suggested a nail bar. To my surprise she loved the idea - the Polished Nail Bar was born!

I had so much fun painting nails. I was there both days and although the weather was rubbish we still had a fantastic turnout (the final figure for the weekend was over 3000 people!). On Saturday I only had six customers, but I was much more popular on Sunday and had a steady stream of people who wanted their nails painted. As it's only a hobby I don't have any professional equipment, but I think I managed to make my stall look pretty good anyway.

The base coat I used on everyone was Nubar Foundation Base Coat, and the top coat was Poshe Super-Fast Drying Top Coat because it dries really quickly and isn't toxic like Seche Vite. Interestingly, although the Christmas-inspired nail wheel I created for the occasion was much admired, everyone went for standard nail painting rather than art or rhinestones. Two of the most popular colours were a-england Avalon and Perceval, which I showed in my previous post.

Finally, here were my own nails for the occasion. On Saturday I wore China Glaze Poinsettia with OPI The Man With the Golden Gun (not my favourite gold leaf combo, it turns out) but I forgot to photograph it, and on Sunday I wore Nails Inc Baker Street with China Glaze Glistening Snow as a French manicure, plus a line of rhinestones.

People keep asking me since if I would do the Christmas Fair again if given the chance, and the answer is: in a heartbeat. I wouldn't want to make a career of it, but if I could spend a couple of days a year painting nails and discussing nail polish...how could I resist?!

Frontcover Finger Print

I was in my local Boots the other day and stumbled across Frontcover Finger Print, a pretty boxed collection of seven metallic nail polishes, plus a buffer and a nail file. The colours looked intriguing, so I bought it as an early Christmas to myself. I'd just like to say how happy I am that I did!

The polishes come in a box with a magazine-style cover. When you open the flap you can see the polishes on one side, and some advice about applying nail polish on the other. It also gives you some ideas for being more creative with your polishes, such as a funky French and whatnot, which is great for people who perhaps normally just do a standard manicure but want to branch out.

No matter how cool the packaging is, what really counts are the nail polishes themselves. There are seven colours, including a glittery gold top coat that can also be worn alone.

Cadet Blue, Beetroot, Cupric, Palevioletred, Sloe Berry, Moonrock & Gold Glitter Top Coat

Cadet Blue, Beetroot, Cupric & Palevioletred

Sloe Berry, Moonrock & Gold Glitter Top

The colours are simply stunning. My photos don't do them justice. I used two coats for the swatches, except for Gold Glitter Top Coat, which was three. The standouts for me are Cadet Blue (a bright blue shimmer), Sloe Berry (a vivid purple shimmer), and Moonrock (this one is difficult to define, but it's kind of a lilac/gold duochrome shimmer). I also tried one coat of Gold Glitter Top Coat over them all:

Cadet Blue, Beetroot, Cupric, Palevioletred, Sloe Berry, Moonrock & Gold Glitter Top Coat

The formula on these was very good, I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't used them on my nails yet but I imagine with a decent top coat they should last a good few days. My only complaint is that because the bottles of polish are quite small, the brushes are really short and it makes them a little difficult to wield.

Best of all about this set is the price - it's £14, which translates as only £2 per nail polish. For such lovely and unusual colours, I think that's a bit of a bargain. It's perfect as a Christmas present - to yourself or someone else! I really can't recommend it enough.