Gelish Christmas Mani | Trees, Snowmen, and More!

Merry Christmas!
I had planned on getting this up on Christmas Eve, but I was SO INSANELY BUSY I had no time. I'm currently writing this up 2,000 miles away from home, visiting the soon-to-be in-laws (Steak N Shake and Cracker Barrel, here I come!!). I've received so many incredible Gelish and nail art gifts this Christmas (MoYou, omg MOYOU) - I can't WAIT to get home and start swatching and reviewing! As it is this will probably be my last post until the first or second week of January. :( But don't worry, I've got tons of stuff to write about in January!
While I've absolutely LOVED all the faire isle nail art I've been seeing, I knew I didn't have the time (or talent, omg) to create something so intricate. I decided on a simple, fun mani for Christmas that'd give me the opportunity for just a tiny bit of nail art. ;)

I also changed the shape of my nails (AGAIN) to a blunt almond/squaletto. I've seen that shape pop up a couple of times on Instagram and I loved how classy it looks. The corners of my nails are just TOO brittle to maintain a square shape (the corners chip even with gel polish on), but I thought this might be a nice way to have a square-ish shape while eliminating those pesky corners. The shape actually looked really severe and weird without polish, but once I got polish on and started capping the free edges it really softened up all the angles. I'm hoping with more practice I can make this shape work.

For the above manicure I did the following:

Thumb Nail:

1. • 1 coat Just What I Wanted, cure
2. • Scrub loose green craft store glitter into the tacky layer
3. • 1 coat Just What I Wanted, cure
4. • Wipe tacky layer. Paint on Sheek White until snowman shape is achieved, cure
5. • Add one more layer of Sheek White to achieve opacity, cure
6. • Add eyes and mouth with Black Shadow and buttons with silver Folk Art acrylic paint, cure
7. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Index Nail:

1. • 3 coats Sheek White, cure all coats
2. • Wipe tacky layer. Lay down two parallel pieces of striping tape, paint 2 coats of Red-Y And Waiting in a round shape, cure all coats
3. • 1 coat Life of the Party over the red polish, cure
4. • Using tweezers, slowy and carefully pull the striping tape off. Add dots and zig-zag pattern with Sheek White. Add ornament hook with silver Folk Art acrylic paint, cure
5. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Middle Nail:

1. • 3 coats Sheek White, cure all coats
2. • Paint design with 2 coats of Red-Y And Waiting and 2 coats of Just What I Wanted, cure all coats
3. • 1 coat Life of the Party over the red polish, cure
4. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Ring Nail:

1. • 3 coats Sheek White, cure all coats
2. • Wipe tacky layer. Lay down 3 pieces of striping tape in a zig-zag pattern
3. • 1 coat Just What I Wanted in triangle shape, cure
4. • Scrub loose green craft store glitter into the tacky layer of the green polish
5. • 1 coat Just What I Wanted, cure
6. • Using tweezers, slowy and carefully pull the striping tape off. Add dot of Structure to top of tree and place stud, cure
7. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Pinky Nail:

1. • 2 coats Red-Y And Waiting, cure all coats
2. • 2 coats Life of the Party, cure all coats
3. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

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White, Glitter, and Ice

I spent this weekend trying to get everyone's holiday nails done in time for Christmas (and yet I STILL haven't done my own! Those go on tonight!). We're leaving to go out of state and visit the in-laws in a few days, and my fiancée has decided to let her nails grow out a bit for our upcoming trip. Then, the day before I was set to do her nails... one of her nails ripped off straight down to the quick.
She was understandably upset and while she did NOT want to file all her nails down, she also didn't want one gross nubby nail and asked me if there was anything I could do. It got me thinking. Kim at Ten Little Canvasses just let me know about an "AcryGel" method on YouTube. I thought maybe I could combine that with a plastic tip. I picked up acrylic powder and plastic tips from Sallys. I cut the tip down and glued the tip on to her nail stump with nail glue (after filing down the well to help it blend into her nail bed), then did the Foundation/Acrylic powder application (shown in the previous link) twice over the top of the whole nail and tip. I then did one more coat of Foundation, cured, and applied 2 coats of Structure to make sure that baby had a ton of support. I applied TIO, cured, and then worked on filing the nail down into the proper shape. One I felt I had a good shape, I applied my color gel polish as normal. So far it seems really strong. If it works out well I'll do a more thorough, visual tutorial.
Can you guess which one is the AcrylGel false tip? The middle one. :) I went with full glitter on that nail to mask my unprofessional blend line. ;) She told me she wanted white nails with an "ice" theme, so she basically got a lot of silver glitter ;) The manicure uses 3 coats of Sheek White, loose craft store silver holo glitter, and Am I Making You Gelish?. The Middle and Thumb nails have alternating layers of loose craft store silver holo glitter and Am I Making You Gelish? to get a really dense glitter look. For the Pinky nail, I literally picked out large glitter pieces from Am I Making You Gelish? and placed them on the nail. The Ring finger is using foil from the Gelish Foil Nail Art Kit (you can check out my tutorial on that over here).

And here's a bonus Christmas/Gryffindor nail set I did for my roommate this weekend:
I used 3 coats of Red-Y And Waiting and scrubbed a gradient with loose craft store glitter across all nails except the Ring finger. I also topped those nails with a coat of All That Glitters Is Gold. In the Ring finger I scrubbed loose craft store glitter into the Foundation layer, added a layer of All That Glitters Is Gold, then scrubbed loose craft store glitter into the polish layer, and added another layer of All That Glitters Is Gold. All the holo glitter in the All That Glitters Is Gold polish made it difficult for the camera to focus, but man her nails are mega-glitzy when they catch the light!

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Red Reindeer Nails

Today I was happy to have a new person over for a Gelish mani! The owner of the dance/fitness studio we go to has been bugging me for MONTHS to have me do her nails, and we were FINALLY able to make that happen! She showed me a few manis she had pinned and one thing was clear: she needed a cute Christmas-y animal.
It turned out so cute! I decided I wanted to do a reindeer, but I didn't want the googly-eyed reindeer I've been seeing all over Instagram. I wanted cute, chibi reindeer! I found an an image on google that I was easily able to translate into a nail design.

All of her nails (except her ring finger) are 2 coats of Red-y And Waiting with 2 coats of Life of the Party to make a nice sparkle gradient. The snowflake is hand-painted with white Folk Art acrylic paint. On her ring finger, I used 2 coats of Sheek White, 3 coats of Double Shot Espresso, and 2 coats of Skinny Vanilla Latte. I used Black Shadow and Sheek White for the eyes, You're So Sweet You're Giving Me A Toothache for the cheeks, a dot of Red-Y and Waiting for the nose and topped the nose off with a dab of glitter from Life of the Party. Whew!

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Simple White And Candy Cane

For my second holiday mani this month I went really simple. I feel in LOVE with the white nails from this manicure and decided to go all white! But, of course, I couldn't leave it that simple... so I added a candy cane nail with a matte top coat ;)
I used Sheek White and Red-y And Waiting for the candy cane, and added the Matte Top It Off over the accent nail to give it a nice, chalky, candy cane appearance. I'm actually almost completely out of Sheek White, and I'm asking for Arctic Freeze for Christmas - I'm hoping Arctic Freeze will be more opaque than Sheek White. I also went with a completely rounded shape on my nails. I think this might be a really flattering shape for my fingers, but I have noticed the nails are more "bendy" then usual. Either way I think I'm gonna keep the shape for a while. :)

Also, I got to use my new Ottlite for this picture (50% off at Michaels on Black Friday. Oh yeah)! I combined it with my old light and I LOVE how bright and crisp it is! Can't wait to take more nail pics with it.

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge | Day 1: Red

So, in an effort to help me get my creative juices flowing, I've decided to take on the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge - with a Gelish twist.
I'm not going to do my nails everyday for 31 days, but instead I'm going to do a 3-5 nail set on one of my nail wheels a couple times a week. I love the "every nail is different but similar" look, or when people have 3 nails that are the same and two accent nails, so I really want to practice variety and tying nails together with a theme or color. A couple rules I'm setting for myself are:

1. I have 1 hour from design conception to complete the design. I spend waaaay too much time drawing up designs, looking at nail art pics for ideas, ect. I want to practice creativity under pressure ;)
2. No looking at nails on Instagram, Pinterest, ect for ideas. I want to try to be as original as possible.

I'm hoping this'll be a good chance to improve my skills, learn new ones, and flex my artsy muscles!
Now... on to Day 1!
So my brain went all Valentine's day on this - and I love it! I used Sheek White, Red-Y And Waiting, and Life Of the Party from the Gelish Trends collection. I also added the Matte Top It Off to the white parts of the manicure. The consensus in my house was that at least one of us of at will have these nails next February. ;)

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Gelish Matte Top It Off And Trends Polish

Guys.

GUYS.

I got the Gelish Matte Top It Off AND one of the new Trends colors, Life of the Party!!
I went by Sally's tonight and, lo and behold, they had the Trends and Matte polishes!! They didn't have any of the display bottles out, but I asked them and they pulled them out from behind the counter. Even better? They're having a deal: buy 2 Gelish mini polishes, get a free Top It Off mini, which is PERFECT cuz I'm almost out!!

So, I kinda got overwhelmed in the store and geeked out so hard I gave myself a headache. I think the girl behind the counter was slightly amused, but because I was geeking out I didn't think to ask her to have a look at ALL the colors in-person. I just looked at the display pictures of the polish colors and picked one. I'm definitely going back this weekend for more colors. MOAR.

In the meantime, here are a couple swatches for comparison!

1. (2 coats) Black Shadow, (1 coat) Top It Off 2. (2 coats) Black Shadow, (1 coat) Gelish Matte Top It Off 3. (2 coats) Black Shadow, (2 coats) Orly Matte Top Coat

4. (2 coats) Red-Y And Waiting, (2 coats) Life Of The Party 5. (3 coats) Life Of The Party 6. (3 coats) Tumberline Violet

I personally LOVE the Gelish Matte Top It Off. The Orly Matte has a bit of a cloudy quality to it compared to the Gelish Matte. Also, the matte effect isn't apparent until you cure and wipe with Cleanser. And Life of the Party has a nice, thick consistency and is LOADED with glitter. Love!! I can't wait to pick up more!!

Check out more Trends and Matte Top It Off swatches over here!

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