12 Days of Christmas: Day 12: Santa Claus!

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays my little rose petals!!

I hope that you all get some good presents and that you eat and eat until you are stuffed! It isn't Christmas until you've eaten so much that you genuinely need to lay down! At least in my house anyway! This year I'm going to a restaurant for a 5 course dinner, that should be fun!

Anyway onto the manicure, so today's theme is Santa Claus! Originally I was going to paint his jacket on all of my nails, and then I bought this polish from Claudia at Holographic Hussy in her blog sale, and I completely changed my idea. Here they are:

They are supposed to be Santa in the snow! I used Barry M Blue Moon as a base and then my white Saffron polish to paint the snow on the ground. Then using a dotting tool I painted santa with red, black and ivory polishes. Finishing it off with a healthy coat of Glitzology Snow Day to make it look like Santa is in a snow storm! I really love this glitter polish, it really looks like the snow and is perfect for Christmas, it's a shame I didn't have it sooner for some of the other challenges.

So what do you think? 

I've had so much fun with these challenges and they've certainly helped my to improve over this month! I just wanted to thank the ladies over at Overpolished and Pink and Polished for creating this wonderful Christmas challenge and making me more confident in my nail art!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas! Let me know what presents you get in the comments!!!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 11: Tinsel!

Hello my little rose petals! Happy Christmas Eve to you all!

This is the penultimate challenge in the 12 Days of Christmas challenge, and on to my least Christmassy manicure of the entire challenge!

It's pink and sparkly!!! It's so girly and pretty, I feel like a Barbie doll wearing this polish! Now you may be wondering why I chose pink when it's the least christmas colour and I could have gone with Gold, or Red, or Silver. However the tinsel that we've hung in our house here at Uni (at least over our fireplace) is a bright pink, and I wanted to replicate it. I originally wanted to cut some of the tinsel off and actually stick it onto my nails, but I didn't think my housemate would be too keen. So instead I found my most glitter packed polish and used that instead! It's one of the Boots special edition Barry M 2012 Christmas Polishes and it's the only Barry M 2012 polish that I managed to get my hands on. I'm pretty sure that Boots had a gold one too, but when I got there all that was left was pink, seeing as I didn't own a pink glittery polish I snapped it up! Although the Barry M polish was very sparkly on it's own I wanted to add another dimension of glitter, so I used 2 True's Glitterati polish in Shade 2 which is clear polish with larger pink glitters in it! 

I love this manicure it's so simple and is as sparkly as tinsel, it's the perfect tribute to my final Christmas at university with my friends!

Let me know what you think in the comments! Also tell me if you've ever gone for a non-Christmas colour scheme at Christmas! 

Until next time...

12 Day's of Christmas: Day 10: Elves!

Hello again my little rose petals!

The challenge is almost done :') I've has so much fun and I'm definitely going to be joining more challenges in the future! Please let me know in the comments if you've enjoyed what I've been doing!

I wanted to make cute little elves on my nails, and I knew that I wanted to use my Green Envy by Saffron as I love the colour so much! I used dotting tools and nail art brushes to paint these cute little fellows! I know they aren't perfect, I didn't have a lot of time this morning to paint them!  

I hope you like them! Sorry for the short post today but a post is better than no post at all!

Let me know what you think in the comments, I love reading them!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 9: Wreath!

Hello my little rose petals!

Oh my goodness It's the 9th challenge today, AND it's only 4 days until Christmas! Today's theme is Christmas Wreath! I've never had a Christmas wreath before although I have an idea of what they are supposed to look like and I am so pleased with how they turned out:

Apologies for the poor pictures, I ran out of sunlight and had to take these under a lamp :-(

Again I used the NYC Full Metal Jacket as a base but I also used Rimmel's Your Majesty on alternating fingernails, but you can't really tell in the pictures above. Then I used my Saffron Green Envy and a dotting tool to make the wreath, and then I went around with a nail art brush to make the edges look more like the leaves.  Next I used Barry M Red Glitter to make the bows at the bottom of the wreaths and finished it off with dots of gold and brown to decorate the wreath.

I'm so glad with how these turned out, alongside my Ruldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer nails this is one of my favourites! I'm thinking of wearing these throughout Christmas and if I don't I'll make sure that I recreate them on someone else!

Let me know what you think, and tell me what you want for Christmas in the comments!!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 8: Christmas Ornaments!

Hello there my little rose petals!

Today is the 8th day in the Christmas challenge! I can't believe how quickly time is going!

Today's theme was ornaments! When I think of ornaments I immediately think of Baubles! They come in all different colours, some are shiny, some are glittery, and they seem to be on every single tree! So here's my manicure:

It's not my most favourite of all the manicures I have done but I absolutely LOVE the gold base colour that I used. It's NYC's Full Metal Jacket and I think it's so beautiful, in fact I can see myself using it in some of the remaining Christmas challenges! Then I used several different colour glitters to create the baubles, although my favourite is the green one in the middle, it's an indie polish that I got in a Grab Bag! I've worn it a good 6 times since I got it and I'm still thinking of mani's to put it into! I can't believe that there are only four challenges left! I've had such a good time doing all of these and I've really loved looking at the work that the others have been putting in too! I'm so glad I've joined such a lovely online community and that I've been welcomed, it definitely makes me feel as though starting my blog was a good idea!

Let me know what you think in the comments, and tell me what your favourite Christmas ornament is!

12 Days of Christmas! Day 7: Snowflake!

Hello my little rose petals!

I am aware that I am a day late for this challenge, I had a seriously busy day yesterday and I just didn't have time to paint my nails! Today however I will be painting my nails lots! I'm trying to get all my 12 Days of Christmas challenges photos done as I am working from the 21st-24th and I won't have any time for my nails :-(

Anyway on with today's manicure:

I'm really happy with how these turned out! I used to fear free hand painting but now I just get on with it! I used Rimmel's Lasting Finish in Your Majesty and then painting the snowflakes on with my White Saffron polish and a nail art brush! I love how simple they turned out and I think they are really pretty! I'll definitely be wearing snowflakes again!

Let me know what you think!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 6: Gifts!

Hello my little rose petals!

I completely forgot we had a challenge today until I got the email so I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was going to do. Fortunately I have managed to come up with something fairly decent! Also apologies for my horribly stubby nails, I really couldn't be bothered to wear falsies today! Here they are:

Sorry for the poor quality pictures, the auto focus on my camera is totally screwed and it won't take decent pictures. Hopefully Santa will bring me a new one (doubtful). I used the Barry M Magnetic that I got from a friend yesterday for Christmas! I've been wanting a magnetic for so long, and I finally have one! Then I used my konad white polish and Cheeky plate #16 to create a swirly pattern on top so it looked like wrapping paper. I then used red striping tape across my nails and finished it off by drawing a red bow with red polish and a dotting tool. I'm really happy with how these turned out overall but I'm kind of gutted that the red bows aren't more opaque!

Sorry this was a quick one guys! Hope you enjoy :) Let me know in the comments what the worst and best presents you've ever gotten for Christmas are!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 5: Holiday Movie

Good evening my little rose petals!

I cannot believe how quickly these challenges are going! It's completely unreal. My nails are still to stumpy to be bare so once again I am adorning the falsies. It seems every time that I put them on they get a little longer, although in the photos they still look stubby on my hands...

Today's prompt was 'Holiday Movie' and I don't know about you but my all time favourite film to watch at Christmas is Home Alone!

It's so funny, it's jam packed with good Christmas songs, and full of all the brilliant Christmas morals that we are all bombarded with every year! I really REALLY wanted to put Macaulay's face on my nails and I tried, but my idea failed so you have to settle for this:

I kind of drew the house from the DVD box and then I made Christmas lights which are obviously very prominent in Home Alone, and a Bauble, which reminds me of the scene when he's booby trapped the house and Marv stands on the baubles... Best. Scene. Ever! I also managed to find Gosh Holographic in Superdrug! So despite my ban on buying polish I had to grab it, and I used it as a base, I really think it sets the whole thing off! 

Anyway I hope you like them, and I hope you are enjoying these challenges as much as I am :-)

Let me know in the comments if you've seen Home Alone, and what your favourite scene is!

12 Days of Christmas Day 4! Snowmen Nails!

Hello there my little rose petals! I'm posting this one a day early because I'm busy all day tomorrow! Today is the fourth in the 12 days of Christmas challenge, I can't believe how quickly it is going! I'm really having fun with this challenge and I hope you are too. So to my manicure!

One thing I'm noticing throughout these challenges is how much better I am getting a free hand painting. I'm not perfect but I'm certainly beginning to impress myself! I love snowmen so I wanted to focus on just them but to spice it up each nail has a different background colour! I also gave them little scarves just to add a little more colour so that the manicure didn't end up being too black and white! I think they turned out ok, I'd have liked them to be a little more perfectly polished but I'm so new to this polishing thing I kind of have to give myself a hearty pat on the back :-)

Let me know what you think? And in the comments write your best Snowman memory :-)

12 Days of Christmas Day 3! Candy Canes!

Hello my little rose petals!

Today is the 3rd challenge in the 12 days of Christmas challenge that I am participating in this year. I had a lot of positive comments about my reindeer manicure from challenge 2 which made me smile so I hope I'll get a few more comments this time!

My Cheeky plates finally arrived this morning and i was delighted to see that there were some candy canes on one of the plates. I also managed to find some lollipops and decided I would go with a manicure of sweet treats! Here it is:

It isn't my favourite manicure ever and I'm sure that the million other ideas I had would have looked much better than this, but I'm going to stick to my guns! The little pink splodge is supposed to be wrapped candy but you can't see it very well in the photos. 

I started off with the Green base and decided to use two coats just to make sure the polish would really pop. Then I stamped the Lollipop and Candy Cane onto each nail. Finally I added detail onto the Candy Cane and the lollipop with a dotting tool, and then created my little candy wrapper at the top of each nail.

Hope you enjoy it!

Check out what the others doing the challenge have created below:

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge Number 2! Inspired by a Christmas Song!

Hello my little rose petals a late post for you this evening!

I have bee a very busy bee today meaning I have only just managed to finish my nails for today!

Once again I am wearing false nails. Three of my nails broke off and I had to chop them all right down :( Luckily my new false nails had arrived so I didn't have to paint on my severely stubby nails!

Today is the second day of the 12 Days of Christmas challenge and the theme is 'Christmas Song'. Originally I did want to go with 'Merry Xmas' by Slade (seeing as my surname is Slade). However the only idea I could think of then was to write Merry Christmas on my nails and I thought that would be pretty boring. So I decided on Ruldolph the red nosed Reindeer! I based my look on this post by Coleyyyful! And here they are:

The cleanup looks a little bad as I had to put false nails on and the glue made the white polish cling a little more but overall I a really REALLY pleased with how these turned out! Here are the polishes I used:

From left to right: Saffron #21: Gold Shimmer, Saffron #25: Chocolate, Saffron #11: White, Saffron #29 Pillar-box Red, NYC: Black

I painted my nails with the white then used different sized dotting tools to paint on my little reindeer friends! Then I finished it off with a top coat to seal it in! I'm so pleased with how my blog is shaping up and I'm really enjoying this Christmas challenge, it's certainly getting me into the Christmas spirit!

Hope you enjoy them! What's your favourite Christmas song?

Check out what the others participating in the challenge came up with here:

12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge! Day 1: Christmas Tree!

 I am so excited to be sharing my first EVER Christmas Challenge Manicure! Today's Challenge was Christmas tree and I immediately had an idea! Here it is:

Basically I knew that there was no way that I'd be able to paint Christmas trees on every single nail as my skills aren't that great right now. So instead I decided that I would create a tree on one nail and then make the other nails look like close up's of the tree, with tinsel and baubles. I'm pretty impressed with how good I am getting at painting my nails, I hardly had any cleanup this morning. Here are the polishes I have used:

From left to right: Saffron #15: Green Envy, Saffron #11: White, Saffron #29: Pillar-box Red, Saffron #21: Gold Shimmer, Saffron # 07: Silver Glitter Specks, Saffron #08: Gold Glitter Specks

Yes I used all Saffron Nail Polishes again! I just have so many colours that are perfect for these challenges, I promise that soon this blog will stop being a Saffron fangirl blog. Anyway I started by painting all the fingers, except the ring finger, with the #15 Green Envy. Then painting both ring fingers with #11 White. Then I focused on creating my tree. I used the Green Envy and a small brush to paint the tree carefully. Then I used a dotting tool and #08 Gold Glitter Specks to add a large piece of glitter on top of the tree (like a star), and adding smaller pieces of glitter onto the tree as baubles. Finishing it off with #29 Pillar-box Red and a dotting tool to add a few more 'baubles' onto my tree. Then I turned my attention to my other nails. I chose a slightly larger dotting tool and #21 Gold Shimmer (which as a side note is a really nice colour on its own), to create my tinsel. To do this I just dotted the colour on carefully making sure each dot was connected. Then I used the #29 Pillar-box red and the #07 Silver Glitter Specks to dot onto my nails to look like the Baubles on the tree! I'm so happy with how this turned out and I'm proud to be part of this challenge!

Let me know what you think, and email me pictures of your Christmas Manicures, I love to look at them all!

Check out what the others taking the challenge have done below: