40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone! My postings are a bit sporadic this month, but you can always count on my end of the week Crumpet's Nail Art Challenge posts!



First off I'll talk about the base of this art, because hello, are these not the perfect Christmas glitter combo?!



The red is Smitten Polish Buy Me a Boa and Drive Me to Reno, part of the awesome Christmas in Stars Hollow Gilmore Girls collection released earlier this month! This cranberry microglitter beauty is opaque in two coats and is not top coat hungry, only needs one coat for super sparkly shine! :)

The green is Literary Lacquers Leaves of Grass, a beautiful grass green, perfect for Christmas but also any other time of the year too (I see this as a year-round green). This is a linear holo polish with matching microglitter!



For the stamping I broke out one of my Bundle Monster Holiday Plates, BM-S2014, to stamp the images, which are all fun and holiday esque! I used KBShimmer Eyes White Open for the stamping polish, my go-to white!



So what are you rocking on your nails for Christmas, I have one  more holiday themed nails to share with you but I am starting to feel pretty holiday'ed out when it comes to nail art! Time to do some fun NYE party nails!

Make sure you check out all the other wonderful Crumpet Nail Tarts ideas for Christmas in the inlinkz below!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

40 Great Nail Art Ideas – Black and White

Happy Friday everyone, time for another great edition of Crumpet's Nail Tarts presents 40 Great Nail Art Ideas! Today's prompt was Black and White and my specific prompt to do for this one was gradient.



Well my inspiration for this mani came a few days ago when I saw Paulina's Passions Geometric Nails, I knew I needed to replicate it, and since gradient was my prompt for this week I figured it would be a good time to do try and do so!



To start this look I knew I wanted a base of a super vibrant holo to offset the neutral black and white so I broke out Cupcake Polish Berry Good Looking. Berry Good Looking is a vibrant royal purple holo polish with a gorgeous blue flash. This polish is almost a one coater, which is why I thought it would make a great base for this look.



For the accent nails I used chevron nail vinyls to create cute simple chevrons that tie in the black and white perfectly.





Now for the gradient nails, I used straight nail vinyls to create a similar design that Paulina inspired! My guess is she used nail tape, which I've never used before. After doing this checkered look, I put a stripe of KBShimmer Eyes White Open and B Polished Midnight in Death Valley and moved in an up and down motion to create the gradient look. Both Eyes White Open and Midnight in Death Valley are my go to one coaters that are perfect for nail stamping and a ton of different nail art looks.





I'll be wearing this look at least through Sunday and I have to say today it brought me much joy as I slugged through a rather busy work week! It was cloudy for a decent portion of the day, but I did manage to snap a sun shot during a sunny moment while running an errand on my lunch break.

So what do you think of my look?! I am in absolute love with it. I stayed up waaaaaay too late on Wednesday night working on them, but I do love the final result so much!

Don't forget to check out the rest of Crumpet's Nail Tart's Black and White nails in the inlinkz below. Word on the street is a lot of ladies really loved their manis in this prompt.


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

My Vacation Nails

Hey guys I'm back! Thanks so much for not minding my hiatus, I had a wonderful week off and it was a great break and a wonderful reset. Unfortunately, I ended the trip on a rather awful note when I dropped my iPhone 5 in salt water and it totally died. My wonderful photo taking device, which somewhat cripples my blog.

But onto brighter things, I had several nail art pieces stored in the cloud, so I'll be updating my blog with that in the meantime while I wait to get my hands on another used iPhone 5. Because let's face it, my iPhone 4 (I switched back to) just won't cut if photo quality wise, and using my husband's iPhone 6 somehow distorts the colors a bit. Oh geeze, the trials and tribulations of a nail blogger are so silly. I'll hopefully get this sorted out soon!

Here are my lovely vacation nails! I wore these for the majority of my vacation until I spent a day in the beach and the sand and saltwater just ruined the mani and made it chip like crazy!



I showed you guys a sneak preview of these awesome nails before I left, but I thought it was only proper if I showed them to you in the full. On the thumb, middle and pinkie nail I have a gradient of Indigo Bananas The Uranium Evil (neon yellow), Diva Plumbum (teal) and Carbon Dallas (blue), which were all sent as a press samples, and then did a holo top coat of Spectraflair 35 Top Coat by Spectraflair4U. Then using my new favorite nail stamping plate, MoYou London Doodles 07, I stamped fun sea creatures using KBShimmer Eyes White Open (my favorite white stamping polish)! And no vacation is complete without a bit of holo in your face courtesy of Painted Polish's Drunk on Holo, which I applied with a makeup sponge for that extra glittery holo look!



The nails were perfect on the dolphin cruise I took around Hilton Head Island in South Carolina (where I took my vacation). I had so much fun on my trip. It was a true girl's weekend which I spent with my mom and one of her closet friends!

So I hope that you enjoyed these nails as much as I did! They were the perfect accessory for my vacation!

Moving forward just understand I'll be a little crippled in the photo quality department as I try to figure out how to properly adjust to having unfamiliar photo equipment! I have a ton to review in the next few weeks, but I might wait on that until I can properly get my hands on an iPhone 5 again.

Different Dimension Aquila and Lyra with Born Pretty accents

I don't typically post on Sundays, but I had some time to show off some amazing limited edition polishes I recently purchased from Different Dimension and I wanted my readers to have a chance to snag them while they are still listed in the shop (and I don't know how much longer that will be since these polishes are just super spectacular!



Aquila and Lyra are part of Different Dimension's Shooting Stars series, which are limited edition polishes that are typically offered one time a month and then they are unable to purchase again. The maker made extras after the preorder for this set of Shooting Stars, and they are currently available in the shop, so I thought I'd hop to it and get this post up!









First up we have Lyra which is a gorgeous holographic polish with cooler multichrome flakies dispersed among silver flakies, it is gorgeous inside and out. It is such a complex flakie, very different from what I've seen on the flakie market so far. Which is why I wanted to share before the sell out and are never seen again! Lyra retails for $13.

For the nail art, I broke some Born Pretty Store Butterfly Water Decal, which was perfectly complimentary to the flakie nail art. And application was a breeze too! Just cut out the decal you want, remove the plastic topper, use tweezers to hold in warm water for 20 seconds. Then use the tweezers again to remove the image from the paper, place on the manicure (which should be fully dry) and use a tissue to absorb any remaining water off the nail and decal. Then top coat and you are good to go!









Next up is Different Dimension Aquila, which is another holographic polish with teal leaning multichrome flakies and what I think are some teal holographic microglitters. This one feels very aquatic to me and I definitely see myself using it in an ocean themed mani or two in the future. Aquila also retails for $13.

For the nail art here I used one of the new Born Pretty Store plates I was provided for review, BP-L 005, which is currently out of stock, but I'm sure they'll restock soon. I've been very impressed with the Born Pretty Store plates I've tried out so far and the images on this plate are super fun and varied. I can see myself using this for quite a few looks in the future! And to stamp I used KBShimmer Eyes White Open to stamp the image – this white is my holy grail white. I'm so happy I found it, you'll be seeing much much more of this coming up I promise!

Now to give you even more incentive! Pointless Cafe has a Four Year celebratory post up which may have a Different Dimension discount code in it (expires tomorrow so you better hop to it!). Also KBShimmer is celebrating a milestone as well and there may be a good code for you to use to save 20 percent on your order – and if you stamp, you NEED Eyes White Open. And for all your Born Pretty Store needs, feel free to use my personalized discount code TRAH10, for ten percent off!

Now go and take advantage of the discounts and the limited editions before they are not available anymore!