Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a fun New Year's Eve, I know I did!  I have a quick post right now with yesterday's mani,  but as of this afternoon, I'll be starting my full month of indie-only posts!  More on that at the end of this post.  

I spent most of yesterday watching movies with my friend so I didn't want to do anything too fancy that I wouldn't be able to appreciate while sitting in a dark room curled up in a blanket, but I still wanted something festive and glittery.  I saw my untried bottle of Zoya Electra sitting on my desk, and knew it would be perfect!

Because I wanted absolute full coverage, I layered three coats of Zoya Electra over two coats of China Glaze Silver Lining.  The super-fine silver glitter was a perfect base for the bar glitter, giving me full coverage without the appearance of layering.  I was extremely surprised by how easily Electra applied, fantastic!  Two coats of Seche Vite for a smooth finish. 

I enjoyed wearing Electra a lot more than I thought I would, all the holographic bar glitter is absolutely gorgeous when the light hits it!

Now as for my month of indie posts... I've got a ton of untried indie polishes, so each day I'll have a post featuring one new indie polish.  Posting every day will be a challenge for me (and require more planning than my usual  "I'll post when I have something new") but I'm really looking forward to it!  I hope you'll join me on my blog this month, though your wallets will probably hate me by the end of it!  :)

Guest Post at Nailed It

Today I'm posting over on Nailed It while Katy's away on vacation.  Click the picture to be taken to her blog for more pictures and the full post!  :)

Candy Canes

I'm back after a (long-than-anticipated) Christmas hiatus to show you my Christmas day nail art, and I've included a quick tutorial at the end of the post!  :)

I started with 2 coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying.  After taping off stripes, I used Essie Macks for the red and topped the whole look off with two more coats of Seche Vite to smooth out the stripes.  

I say that this was my Christmas day mani, when in reality it only lasted the first part of the day.  Of course, thanks to Christmas and review packages arriving, I now have an obscene amount of untried polishes (and a storage rack!) so I had to paint my nails on Christmas day! 

Here's a quick picture tutorial for this look; it's pretty self-explanatory since I mainly made it to post on Instagram, but if you have any questions just leave a comment! 

My pile of untried and to-review indies has grown to the size of Mount Doom, so I'm planning to do a month of everyday indie polish posts.  I usually post sporadically so posting every day will be a challenge, but I'm really looking forward to it!  I hope you'll follow me along the way!  :) 

Silver Snowflakes

Another Christmas-y manicure today!  Christmas is less than a week away (*gasp*) and time for Christmas nails is is running out, so let's get right to it!  :)

I started with two coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me and one coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying before stamping the snowflake design from BM-323 with Essie No Place Like Chrome.  I finished the look by placing silver holographic glequins from the Born Pretty Store in the centers of the larger snowflakes, and applying one last coat of Seche Vite

. 

OPI The Spy  Who Loved Me is a gorgeous bright red with a goldish-red glass fleck/shimmer.  It applied so perfectly, and is a great holiday polish! 

I really liked this look and was planning on wearing it for two days, but I got a huge dump of indie nail mail the next day, so off it came!  :P  

Christmas seems to have come so quickly this year, and I'm going to try to get in as much Christmas nail art as I can!  I'm still stuck on what polish to wear on Christmas, but I'm not really sure how much it matters since I'm pretty sure I'll be getting some polish for Christmas and will probably do my nails multiple times that day anyways, haha!  

Have you decided what your Christmas manicure will be?  A favourite polish or nail art?  :)

Goldeneye Stripe

A quick post today with a mani I did a couple weeks ago using OPI Goldeneye and black striping tape from the Born Pretty Store.

I used 3 coats of Goldeneye, followed by the striping tape and one coat of Seche Vite.  The formula on Goldeneye is pretty easy to apply, but is such a pain to clean up and remove due to the foil finish.  

I really like this polish, the shade of gold is very flattering and I love the foil finish!  

We've seen a few similar polishes in other holiday collections this year; do you have any?  Which one is your favourite?  :)

Christmas Skittlette

Skitt * lette : a manicure consisting of two, or three, different accent nails on each hand. 

I just did my first skittlette manicure for a contest being hosted by Marta at ChitChatNails.  I've never tried one, and I decided to give it a go for the contest!  Take a look!

I used my three new Butter London polishes (thanks mom!) to create this nail art.  The magenta-plum creme is Queen Vic, the deep pink microglitter is Fiddlesticks, and the green is Jack The Lad.  The gold glequins are from the BornPrettyStore (code for 10% off: PPJ61) and the gold microglitter on my index finger is Orly Prisma Gloss Gold.  Sealed with two coats of Seche Vite (Fiddlesticks is a hungry one.)

I'm not really a pink person, but without question I'll make an exception for Fiddlesticks!  A rich-toned base with dark flecks and glowing microglitter?  Yes, please!  Queen Vic is an absolutely perfect two-coat creme, and Jack The Lad is such a stunner, although the gold glequins don't let the true beauty of this polish shine through.

I'm obviously not as talented at artsy pictures as Marta, haha!  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to come up with multiple different nails that would all look good together and form a cohesive look.  I have so much respect for Marta who constantly comes up with stunning combinations for her manicures! 

I'm looking forward to wearing all of these polishes alone, but I also really enjoyed wearing them together!  What do you think of my first skittlette?  :)

One Ring

The first installment of The Hobbit is coming out this weekend; who's as excited as I am?  :)  I got really into The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in the spring when I decided to read all the books, and I've been in love with Middle-Earth ever since.  Prepare yourselves for an awesome Lord of the Rings post!

This is hardly original in terms of nail art, but I'm really proud of it!  I used two coats of Essie Good As Gold for the base, and painted the script with black acrylic paint.  

This is the rhyme from which I took the line to write on my nails.  In the book it's written in the Common Speech, but I painted it on my nails as it appears on the One Ring itself: written in the Black Speech using the Elvish form of script as invented by the Elf Fëanor, Tengwar. 

The script on my nails should say "One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them," though it's probably missing the last two words because of my lack of ability to space words properly.  Cue artsy picture with a book. 

I could get all into the history of the One Ring but that isn't exactly relevant to a nail polish blog, so if you're interested, you can read more about it here.   

I'm not seeing the movie when it comes out on Friday; as much as I'd like to I have a dress rehearsal that night and a show on Saturday night.  However, I'm super excited for Sunday because I'm going to my friend's house at the crack of dawn to have a Lord of the Rings movie marathon (yes, all 10 hours) followed by going to see The Hobbit!  :) 

Are you planning on seeing The Hobbit?  Anyone as excited as I am and willing to geek out with me?  :)