Peppermint Candy mani update

Hi everyone! Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it! Most of our family is not Christian but my husband's family here has always had the tradition of celebrating it with a tree and presents and food so we did all that last night. Christian or not, I think this is a fun time of year. I guess I had another Christmas mani in me too! This is kinda cheating though...I just updated that last one. I really really couldn't let this season go by without taking advantage of my striping tape and creating a candy cane accent. This may not have been the perfect mani to do it with but I had just enough time to do the accent without doing all my nails over.

So, that's pretty much it. I used Nanacoco Irresistible Charm (previously seen here and here) for the accent nails. For the wider stripes, I doubled up on the striping tape by placing them side by side.

What do you guys think? Awkward accent nail or just right?

Deconstructed Christmas Tree

Hello folks! So, I used to love watching cooking shows, especially the ones that are a competition and all these brand new chefs are trying to outdo each with the trendiness and uniqueness of their dishes. Invariably, some classic dish or another got "deconstructed". I loved that part. An apple pie would get broken down into it's individual components and strewn about a plate, altered into a new texture or shape, until the whole thing looked like a piece of modern art with minimal resemblance to it's origin. Somehow, apparently when you put the pieces together in your mouth, voila, apple pie!

Today's mani reminded me of something deconstructed. This may be a stretch but I'm calling this my deconstructed Christmas tree.

There's the green for the tree, the white for the fake snow, the gold glitter for tinsel and the multicolored ornaments!  The polishes used in this mani are Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, again, Wet n Wild Break the Ice and a Love and Beauty gold glitter. For the ornaments, the blue and red were Nanacoco polishes, the green is China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald. The stamp is from the Bundle Monster plate, BM 206.

Fun, huh? Well, Christmas is almost here. I probably will have a couple more Christmas oriented manis to show you and then back to regularly scheduled programming!!

Nanacoco Irresistible Charm Holly-Day Mani

As many other bloggers have done now, I want to take a moment to comment on how heartbreaking and cruel the recent shooting in Newtown, CT has been. I am not a parent yet myself but I can just imagine how horrifying a seemingly normal holiday season has become for those families and friends of the children killed. I feel like as a nation we seem to stumbling from one tragedy after another, grief piling upon grief, more so in these last few years than I can remember. I'm not sure what we're headed towards.

In the grand scheme of things, polishing your nails sounds about as trivial as it can get. It is still, however, something that brings me a measure of happiness and pride and so I continue to turn towards it for comfort and distraction. I have been made to realize, however, that we all need a certain balance in life and that's my goal every day.

I'm sorry about the pun in the title. I drafted this post a long time ago and I thought myself somewhat clever for coming up with that name, only to realize that now that it's closer to the holidays, I'm going to see that pun done over and over...  For this holiday mani I used Nanacoco Irresistible Charm and NOPI Not a Gold Digger again, just like I did this mani. Just like the name says, this color really is irresistible!

The holly on the accent nail was done with Revlon Emerald City and Irresistible Charm and a toothpick! 

I have yet to use Emerald City as a full mani but I can see that it would be really beautiful. 

Nanacoco Irresistible Charm with Gold tips

It's December and it's that season...when all you can see are holiday manicures on the internet. I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and show a couple throughout this month. I actually do love the holiday manis because it's a great way to use those deep jewel toned colors, the golds and silvers and glitters. I love those colors. 

For this mani, I used Nanacoco Irresistible Charm. I find this brand in a lot of the local beauty supply stores. Believe it or not, this is one coat!! Yeah. I sponged a gold gradient with NOPI Not a Gold Bigger and the gold glitter is from the Sally Beauty Supply brand.

Festive, huh?