Christmas

The One With Buddy the Elf Nail Art!

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose 


Good morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing on this fine Wednesday?  Can you believe we are a week away from Christmas?  Seriously where did December go?  I still have more manicures to share so I really need to get my booty moving and edit the photos.  Actually, I think I have two posts and two others planned.  It seems I'm overthinking when it comes to the time frame.  I have more than enough....maybe.

Anyways, today's manicure is going down in the history books of The Little Canvas. It is inspired by one of my favorite Christmas movies; Elf!  For years I've seen other nail artists create Buddy the Elf nail art designs, I just never had the guts to go through with it on my own.  What better year to attempt it than 2020 where I have been on a major nail art hiatus and am just trying to get back into the swing of it all.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • INM - Survival of Earth
  • China Glaze - Grinchworthy
  • OPI - Exotic Birds Do Not Tweet
  • ORLY - White Tips
Isn't.this.amazing?!  I'm so proud of this nail art, and I did it all with nail polish!!!  Do you know how long it has been since I've used only nail polish to create a design?  I'm not going to lie, I was so nervous when I started this manicure, but as soon as I grabbed my tools, it was like riding a bike.  My confidence in my art came flowing right back to me.  Sure, I'm a perfectionist and I still see things looking at the photos I would have done differently, but overall I'm so proud of myself.


INM - Survival of Earth and China Glaze - Grinchworthy are the PERFECT Elf green.  I debated on leaving my pinkie finger a swatch of the INM, but I craved that little bit of glittery bling.  I'm happy I did it because I think it rounded off the manicure quite nicely.

What do you think?  Fan of this look?  Think I need to do more crazy nail art again?

Until next time, <3.  


Christmas

The One With the Christmas Holly Manicure

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose Press Sample Affiliate Link


Good Morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing on this wonderful Sunday?  Last night I did some crazy nail art which is something I haven't done in awhile and I'm so proud of it.  I cannot wait to share it with you hopefully later this week.  It felt so good to sit down and do something a little more intricate than the normal dots or flowers.  Of course it's Christmas themed, so it fits in perfectly for the month.

Anyways, enough about that manicure, onto today's design! Not going to lie, I'm super happy with how this design turned out.  Every year I do a holly design, but this year I wanted to add a little spice to it.  In my mind, spice was adding a little glitter gradient to index and pinkie finger.  I think it worked.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • Zoya - Hunter
  • Zoya - Tomoko
  • Morgan Taylor - All Tango-ed Up
  • ORLY - White Tips
It's nice doing nail art with all nail polish and no acrylics.  I think that my holly are a tad messy, but hey give a girl a break.  I've been on a hiatus for the past year almost and now am just slowly sliding back into this.  If I were to re-create this design, I would have probably made the holly a tad larger and put it on the bottom corner of the nail.  There's always next year!


Tomoko worked wonderfully for a glitter gradient.  If you have been following me awhile, then you know how much I love my OG Zoya Pixie Dust polishes.  Tomoko is by far my all time favorite.  In all the years that I've owned them, it's never crossed my mind to utilize one of them for a glitter gradient over a cream polish.  Let me tell you, it worked WONDERFULLY!  I was super impressed.  Literally one dab on the nail with the makeup sponge and it was perfect.  The photos don't do it justice.

What do you think?  Fan of the simple Christmas design?

Cannot wait to keep sharing more Christmas manicures!! 

Until next time, <3


Christmas

The One With the Minimalist Rudolph Manicure

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose Press Sample Affiliate Link

Good morning, Polished World! How are you all doing today?  It's Wednesday which means....UGHHH the middle of the week.  You know, that day that feels like a Thursday but in reality you still have two more days left in the work week.  Actually, with my job, there really is no end to the work week, but whatever. I like to dream that my weekends are 100% work free.

Well, regardless of a crazy work schedule, I've still managed to start my Christmas manicures!  The trick is just getting the photos edited and up on the blog and Instagram.  So far, I have created three.  It would have been four, but I wore a swatch of Christmas Cookie by ILNP for a few days and it was too pretty to take off.

Anyways, today's manicure is a cute little simplistic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer design that I found while surfing Pinterest.  I fell in love with the simplicity of it.  The original design that I found had a white three dimensional snowflake on the accent nail, but I of course opted for glitter.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • Sally Hansen - Bordeaux Glow
  • China Glaze - Big Hair and Bubbly
  • ORLY - White Tips
  • Black Acrylic 
Sally Hansen Bordeau Glow is the PERFECT Christmas red polish.  I don't know why I haven't used it until this year because I'm pretty sure I've owned this polish for awhile now.  I normally don't gravitate towards red, so when I have a few reds that I like I stick to them.  I think when I got this one, I avoided it because it looked like a frosty finish which I typically don't like.  When I found it in my drawer, I just thought it looked like the perfect Rudolph red.

After one coat of this, I fell in love.  It applied perfectly in two coats.  It had a gorgeous finish - it wasn't so much as frosted but a weird mixture of frosted and foiled....if that makes sense.  It just has such wonderful dimension and is beyond shiny.


For my little minimalist Rudolph, I took the red and made one big dot for his nose in the middle of my nail.  I then went through with a black acrylic and added the little eyes and antlers.  A coat of top coat and I really loved the look.

What do you think?  Cute Christmas design?

Until next time, <3.


FingerPaints

The One With the First Snowflake Manicure of Winter

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose


Good Morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing today?  It's December 4th, which means we are only 21 days away from Christmas.  I need to get my butt in gear and start doing some Christmas manicures!  I have a few ideas of what I want to create or re-create, it's just getting around to doing it!  Work has been crazy this week and I wore a swatch on my nails for most of the week, so that took away some of my Christmas design time.  Might sit down this weekend and bust through a few ideas....maybe do another nail art wheel?

In the meantime, today I'm sharing with you my first snowflake manicure of the season.  You know me and my love of snowflake nails, so of course I jumped right to it even though there was no snow on the ground yet.  Sure enough, the day after I painted them, we got our first snowfall of the season.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • FingerPaints - Sterling Sculpture
  • INM - Granite
  • ORLY - White Tips
At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like this color combination, but when it was all said and done, I was obsessed.  I forgot about how perfect of a silver glitter Sterling Sculpture is.  It contains large and small flecks, which you would assume would be impossible to remove, but shockingly it isn't.  Clearly glitter removal isn't difficult due to the size of the glitter or density, but the base itself which is practically gluing it to the nail.  Anyways, it's the perfect accent for this manicure blending the white into the dark grey. 


Short little nubby nails again due to a few breaks, but what can you do.  Back to square one of growing them out.  Despite them being short, I was able to get some pretty good detail with those snowflakes.  I think I need to switch up my snowflakes a bit this year.  Go for some different patterns.  We shall see.

What do you think?  Like this look?

Until next time, <3.