Winter Holiday Challenge: Festival of Lights

Quick post for the third and bright day of the Winter Holiday Challenge: Festival of Lights!

I chose to keep it simple, but colourful. One coat of Date in the Moonlight (Essence) composed the perfect dark night sky. The silver thread connecting all the lights was striped with Bring On The Snowflakes (Sephora by O.P.I.).

The colourful bulbs were dotted using several different polishes. Red (011), green (067), and orange (028) were Milano, that my grandma bought me in France. Blue was also Essence: Gleam In Blue. Yellow was a no name neon from Salomé on top of Amarelo Pop Art (Colorama). New Lilac (Pure Ice) was imposed chosen by my sister. Also upon her request were Bronze Sculpture (Finger Paints) and Morgan Le Fay (a england). The last touch of sparkly was Na Mira 3D (Impala).

I loved doing this mani. It was probably the quickest I've done in a long time, and it turned out so cute and cheerful! :-)


xoxo

PRIS

"This Is Halloween" - Trick or Treat!

After a spooky and adventurous month of October, the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge comes to an end. I'm proud of taking on this challenge and fulfilling it to (almost) completion! Got lots of praises for the crazy designs! :-)

I would like to thank Bec from Lacquer Dreams for coming up with the prompts and for keeping us all connected throughout the challenge. Well done!!

But wait, 'Trick or Treat!' is not the last day of the challenge! Yeah, I know. As noted before, I'm anal and will only publish on Tuesdays and Fridays. I'm already late enough with this prompt, it makes no sense posting Halloween stuff the second week of November. Plus, there's no better way of ending this challenge than with lots of sweets! ;-)

OK, enough babbling and onto the treats!

What a better way to start than with a blank canvas? Two coats of Pétala Branca (Colorama) prepped all my nails to the sugary work ahead! When I first started thinking about this challenge, two things came to mind: Candy Corn and Jawbreaker. But I didn't wanna do just that. I wanted to represent different Halloween candies, or even candies in general.

What do we give out when trick or treaters knock on our door? M&M's!! A dotting tool placed Orange (028 - Milano), Red (Sample Sale - Sephora by O.P.I.), Brown (Café - Colorama), Green (High Line Green - New York Color), Yellow (Lexington Yellow - NYC), and Blue (Water Street Blue - NYC) chocolate coated candies on my nail, and Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) branded them with their famous m! :-)

Taking it a step further, my all-time favourite M&M's are the Premium Mint Thrills. But they are quite hard to find, so I make do with the regular Mint ones, which are a bit easier to get my hands on, although they seem to be a limited edition. High Line Green (NYC) was once again used for the darker green, then mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) for the lighter shade of green. Miss Minty (Gosh) mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) achieved the minty candy coating.

One of Patty's favourite candies are Skittles, which used the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes, plus a mix of Açaí and Eterno (both from Colorama) for the Purple candy. These were also branded with Snow Me White (Sinful Colors).






Another favourite candy of ours (both little sis', my mom's, and mine) is gum drops! For the white candy, I used Geada (Colorama) and mixed this polish with all other colours before dotting them to the nails. Purple candies were I Don't Bite (Sephora by O.P.I.) and the same Orange, Red, Yellow, and Green polishes were used. A coat of Morgan Le Fay (a england) was used over all gumdrops, giving that shimmery and sugary look.

Two coats of Jawbreaker (Pretty & Polished) conferred the perfect jawbreaker look on the thumb.

Sponging the Candy Corn was a nightmare!! I got the technique right on Patty, but after 4 failed attempts, I gave up and just free-handed a striped candy-corn-inspired nail. Polishes were the same Yellow and Orange as used before, and same White as the base colour.

As noted by the Mint M&M's, I LOVE anything minty! Therefore, my candy manicure couldn't miss starlight mints! I drew both red stripped and green stripped mints, using the same Red as before, and the same mixture of Green and Mint, with a higher percentage of mint this time around. Striped were made with a striping brush.

The Gummy Bear was inspired by those giant colourful ones, rather than the small one-coloured candies. I followed I Have a Cupcake's tutorial, using the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes as before. We didn't have Gummy Bears growing up, so both my sister and I are making up for the lost time as adults! ;-)





Hubby couldn't be left out of this, could he? Although he's not a candy fan, one of his favourite candy bars are (frozen) Twix. He did ask me to draw a bitten Twix, showing the layers of chocolate, cookie, and caramel, but I didn't have a cookie or a caramel colour (see? I need more polish!! :-p). I recently received my old version of Holy Grail (a england) and the candy bar wrapping was the perfect opportunity to wear it! The chocolate itself was a bottom layer of Café (Colorama) as used before for the M&M's, topped by a layer of Cop an Attitude (Finger Paints), a magnetic polish. The magnet gave the wavy effect of the top of the candy bar. I was happy with the results!

This was probably the challenge I had the most fun with. Not only when doing the nails, but when taking the pictures, and eating the props!!

Thanks for joining me in this adventure! There might be another one soon, you never know! ;-)


xoxo

PRIS




PS: I know this is incredibly late, but I'm backdating the post to follow the original date it should've been posted. Remember, I'm anal! :-p

"This Is Halloween" - Gradient

Here I am, cheating once again... :p

For the 'Gradient' edition of Bec's "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge, I'm showing a mani I made on Patty, my 'little' sister. She has really beautiful nails, by the way!

It all began when she posted an ombré nails tutorial on my facebook wall, saying I should make one of those. I'd already tried it before (twice!), and wasn't successful. But I said she could be my guinea pig this time around!



She asked for a blue gradient, but with the challenge in mind I said it had to be Halloween-ie colours. I wanted black and orange, but all she'd let me do was a purple-ish nail art. Coming from a person who doesn't like flashy, different, it was good enough!

I used the sponging technique, without any base colour, just the base coat. The lightest lilac, which barely shows on most nails, was a Milano with no name, only a number (007). Another of the Italian polishes my grandma sent me from Paris... The darker lilac was Audrey (Impala), followed by a grey-ish violet, Violeta Acinzentado (Risqué), and completed by a dark starry night Chão de Estrelas (Risqué).

When Patty accepted the purple gradient, she had an agenda! As an exchange student at Bishop's University, she was showing some school pride by wearing a purple mani! :-)

Purple and school pride have really made her dive deep into the bright and colourful world of nail polish. I'm dragging her to the dark side!! ;-)


As I'm posting a day late, I've already seen some of the other ladies' designs. Amazing!! :-)


xoxo

PRIS

"This Is Halloween" - Zombies

Onto the third week of the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge, I wasn't that excited. Zombies are not my thing, and my mind was blank...

...suddenly, I had that lightbulb moment: Zombie Farm!! Hubby plays that on his iPhone, and I started looking for pictures to see if they were doable. Guess what? They were!!

Green was the base colour for my zombies. Not being a big fan of green, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try all my light greens!

Right hand was from an Italian brand, Milano, that my grandma bought for me in Paris, earlier this year. It seems to be a drugstore brand, and it has no name, only a number: 067. Application was easy, no problem with clean up, and it was a one-coater!! Looks like a good stamping polish. I can envision some interesting Christmas designs! :-)


For the left hand, I used High Line Green (New York Colour) and on the non-zombie nails I topped it off with Ivy League (Sally Hansen), which I had already used for the St. Paddy's mani. 

Totally Cool Nails's Zombie Tutorial taught me how to draw the zombies. I followed the same technique for the Zombie Farm zombie on my thumb. Hubby didn't recognize it at first, but he was all proud when I showed the picture that inspired me... ;-)

Black details were either with Black Expressionism (Finger Paints) or Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black. If you ever use the pen, careful with your skin. It stains and there's no polish remover that will get rid of it. It only goes away after a shower...  Roguish Red (China Glaze), Snow Me White (Sinful Colors), and Amarelo Pop Art (Colorama) were also used for the red, white, and yellow details.

As ugly as Zombies can be, it turned out to be a very cute design! :-)

What will we come up with next??


xoxo

PRIS