Christmas Manicures

Posted on Feb 21, 2014 in Manicures |

In December I got a bit more daring with my manicures and decided to get nuts with the nail art.  I’d seen a lot of super cute Christmas manicures that I wanted to try.  I had some time off, and the hubs and I were driving up to Oregon (on Christmas eve, no less) to visit his family for a few days, so I wanted something special.  Something that would attract attention.  Since I was actually going to be outside of the house for days on end (I work at home), I want someone other than my husband to notice my nails!

Essie 'Toggle to the Top' Manicure

In November I’d seen Essie’s ‘Toggle to the Top’ featured on another nail blog and I fell in love with it.  It was released as part of Essie’s Winter 2013 Shearling Darling Collection.  This photo really doesn’t do it justice.  It’s a deep red with lighter red and some dark red sparkles.  I thought it would match the holiday dress I bought (that I never did get to wear) perfectly.  So in the beginning part of the month, when I was getting together with friends to exchange gifts and celebrate, I went with something simple yet festive for a pre-Christmas manicure.  In fact, aside from my Matte About You matte topcoat, this is the only Essie color I own so far.  I’d be interested in trying a solid color instead of one with glitter, but none have really jumped out at me as unique so far.  But I still have high hopes for Essie!

Christmas 2013 ManicureChristmas rolled around and I had time off and decided to try some things I’d seen on Pinterest.  Initially, my intention was to do something like this pin with all the uneven candy cane stripes.  I got too far into my head about it, staring at actual candy canes for hours, so it didn’t come out quite like I’d hoped.  Also, I need to work on my striping techniques.  So I gave up on that within a couple nails and decided on a very basic Christmas tree sort of like this pin, but without the “garland” stripes.  I got nuts and decided to do them kind of all.  The result was busy, but festive, and I got many compliments on it from our family in Oregon :).  So all in all, I’d say it was worth it.  I think the next time I want to do something like the candy cane stripe, I’ll enlist the hubs to lay the striping tape on for me so they’re even and parallel.  It’s one of those things that, even if no one else noticed, it would still bug me to no end.

For the Christmas tree I used Zoya PixieDust Chita to give it a nice texture.  I wish I’d have used my dotting tools to do the ornaments and star on the top, but instead I just used the thin brush tip in the bottle of nail art polishes.  I could have used a wider range of colors for the ornaments and maybe a different gold for the star if I hadn’t have been limited to the 2-3 nail art paints I had.  I think I used Julep Sharon for the red and I know I used Zoya Purity for the white.  I think by next year, when it’s time for another Christmas manicure or two, I’ll either have the striping technique down for the candy canes!

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