Holly Nails.

Merry Christmas! Today I decided to share my final Christmas design, the one I chose to wear for the actual day of the holiday. 

The base color is Orly Rage, and then I stamped the holly design from the BM-14 plate. I didn't have a green in the right shade for my stamping so I mixed the blue and yellow Born Pretty Store stamping polishes. The red is acrylic paint.

Christmas Tree Nails.

Today's manicure is probably my favorite out of all the Christmas designs I've done! 

I started with a base of Zoya Jules and then used striping tape and Wet n Wild Sagreena the Teenage Witch to add the tree.

The finishing touches were rhinestones for tree toppers, and a little bit of glitter (Milani Gems) for ornaments.

Holiday Dot Border Nails.

Added a dotted border over any base color can make for a really cute manicure, and it's a design I haven't done in a while. I posted another manicure with a dotted border back in May, but I decided it was time to revisit the design! 

And it works perfectly with a holiday theme.

I chose three very shimmery polishes, which adds nicely to the festiveness. I used China Glaze Swing Baby, Ahoy!, and Watermelon Ring.

Christmas Lights Nails.

Christmas lights are perfect for a cute and colorful manicure!

The base color I used is Color Club Perfect Mol-ten, and the black is Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris. The red and green lights are acrylic paint, and the yellow and blue are BPS stamping polishes.

Chrome Striped Nails.

I came across a photo from my phone of a manicure I did a few months ago and decided I should share it. 

I believe what originally happened was I took this photo to send to a friend, and then before I could get around to taking all the high-quality blog-worthy photos, the design ended up getting messed up. 

You can certainly still get the idea from this photo though, so I figured it was worth sharing. The black is Wet n Wild Black Creme, and the colors underneath are all of the polishes from the Color Club Foiled collection.

Foiled and Dotted Nails.

Thankfully my nails aren't back to being super short, this is just a manicure I did about a month ago and remembered I needed to share!

The polishes I used are CND Oilslick and MAC Bad Fairy. Bad Fairy is one of my favorite polishes, it's so pretty I'd even wear it on its own, completely nail art free!

Dotted Olive Nails.

I think olive green nail polish is the perfect way to give your nails a little subtle festiveness, which is why I ended up wearing Zoya Gemma on my nails today.

But subtle nails are only fun for so long, so of course I wanted to add a few less subtle dots to the manicure. I used China Glaze Swing Baby to add the dots. Swing Baby is also a great holiday color, I'll have to remember to use it more!

Holiday Rhinestone Ruffian Nails.

I think today's manicure is perfect for the holidays! It's quick and easy but just flashy enough. 

The green polish I used is Wet n Wild Sagreena the Teenage Witch, and the red one had no name or brand. The rhinestones which I tried to create a ruffian look with are from Amazon.

Reindeer Nails.

I tried to do reindeer nails a few weeks ago and didn't like how they turned out, so I decided to give them another shot. 

I did them a little differently and ended up being pleased with the results!

The base color is Zoya Jules, and the other polishes I used are OPI You Don't Know Jacques, OPI I Brake for Manicures, and Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris. The red and the white are done in acrylic paint.

Dotted V-Gap Nails.

For today's manicure I kept things pretty simple, using tape to create a triangle at the base of my nails and then of course adding some dots!

The polishes I used are American Apparel Mount Royal and OPI Don't Mess With OPI.

Biotin Progress.

I've been taking biotin for exactly a month and a half now, so I thought I would update you guys. I've taken it everyday since November 1st (I posted about it here.) 

I feel like it's hard to judge for myself so here are my nail progress photos.

The first photo is of my nails on November 1st, the second is on November 17th. I cut them around November 25th (the third picture.) And the last photo is what they look like today!

My nails have always grown fairly quickly, so it's difficult to judge if they really are growing faster. But, more importantly, they seem to have been a lot stronger lately so I've gotten to stop worrying about them breaking all the time. And as a happy bonus I think my hair is growing a bit faster!

What has your experience with biotin been?

Holiday Glitter Gradient Nails.

The holidays are the perfect time to break out lots of shiny polishes and chunky glitters and combine them into awesome manicures!

At first I was just imagining a manicure with a gradient using a gold and China Glaze Watermelon Rind, but quickly I realized a little glitter was necessary.

For the gradient I used Watermelon Rind, Color Club Antiquated, and Color Club Perfect Mol-ten. The glitter is Milani Gems.

Melting Ice Cream Nails.

Ice cream is awesome, and it makes for awesome nail art too. 

As I mentioned it likely would be, today's manicure is inspired by one of my current obsessions! Not ice cream but the book I talked about in yesterday's post.

I wasn't confident that I could convey the actual sea of tranquility through nail art, so instead I went with ice cream. It's on the book's cover, it plays its role in the plot, and of course, it's awesome.

The polishes I used for this manicure were Orly Pixy Stix and Spark, OPI Done Out in Deco, Revlon Blue Lagoon, American Apparel Office, and Julep January.

Finals Discussion.

Finals are definitely putting a kink in my blog everyday of December plan! So while my nails are sadly nail art free for the day, I thought I'd spread around my current obsessions. (They might even end up as nail art inspiration soon enough.)

I shared one of my book obsessions last month in the form of nail art, and I thought I'd go ahead and share another. I read The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay a few weeks ago and am still thinking about it. I don't even know what to say about it other than it's perfect and everyone ever should read it.

And if you aren't looking to enjoy a new book, at the very least you should enjoy the Ikea monkey. Because there isn't anything I want more in the world than a monkey that can be described as both stylish and illegal.

So don't be surprised if the moon or a monkey show up on my nails over the next few days, because these are the things that are stuck on my mind in between final presentations, papers, and exams.

Tie-Dye Present Nails.

One of my favorite ways to make stamping more fun is by throwing in a little tie-dye, which I posted a tutorial for here. 

For today's manicure I chose the present image from the BM-205 plate and stamped using Sally Hansen Lickety Split Lime and Brisk Blue, as well as the Born Pretty Store blue stamping polish. The white I used is Milani White on the Spot.

I hadn't used this technique in a while, and I'll have to keep it in mind because I really like it!

Layered Chrome Dot Nails.

Even when you have a lot of nail polish, it's easy to end up using your same favorite ones all the time. So I was happy that this manicure gave me a chance to use one I've almost never used! THe base color is LA Girl Rockstar and then I added the dots with Color Club Hot Like Lava and Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris.

Polar Bear Nails.

As far as animals that might eat you alive go, polar bears might just be the cutest! So of course I wanted them on my nails, in fact I've been looking forward to it being winter again just so they could make for a seasonly appropriate manicure.

The polish I used as the base color is China Glaze Bogie and everything else was done with acrylic paint!

Sparkly Candy Cane Nails.

Candy canes are one of the best parts of the holidays and of course that means they deserve a little coordinating nail art. 

For this design I painted my nails with Milani White on the Spot and placed striping tape over my nails and then painted over it with an unnamed shimmery red polish. The finishing touch was a little bit of the silver glitter from Born Pretty Store that I reviewed here.

Dotted Arrow Accent Nails.

For today's manicure I used OPI Steady As She Rose on all my nails and then created an accent nail with OPI We'll Always Have Paris and Here Today Aragon Tomorrow, and China Glaze Shower Together. 

I think the dotted accent nail is very cute, if I hadn't been going for something more simple, I definitely would have carried the design over onto all my nails!

Winter Floral Nails.

I love floral nails, and they're perfect for spring but with a few color changes they can become perfect for any season.

I chose a darker color scheme, using OPI Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs, Chopsticking to my Story, Don't Mess with OPI, Ski Teal we Drop, and Skull & Glossbones.   

Christmas Sweater Nails.

Ugly Christmas sweaters are so fun, and they happen to translate perfectly into totally cute nail art! 

 For this design I used China Glaze Below Deck, China Glaze Watermelon Rind, and American Apparel Port.

Watercolor Splatter Nails.

For today's manicure I decided to combine two of my favorite techniques, watercolor and splatter. 

First I used OPI Elephantastic Pink, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle, and American Apparel Office to create the watercolor effect over top of Wet n Wild French White Creme. Then I splattered overtop with China Glaze First Mate.

I really loved how these turned out!

Snowman Nails.

I guess today continues with the winter weather nails! I've wanted to do snowmen on my nails for a while now and I think these turned out super cute. 

I was inspired by this tutorial. For my version I used Wet n Wild Silvivor with LA Colors Star Light as the base. The details were done with OPI Hot & Spicy, Julep January, and CND Oilslick. All of the white is acrylic paint.

Winter Snowflake Nails.

December is just beginning and I've already seen more snow this year than I saw for the entirety of last winter. And of course the weather is always good nail inspiration!

I think these snowflake nails are very cute. I like how simple they are.

The base color is Color Club Cold Metal and I used the BM-14 plate for the snowflakes and stamped with Konad Special White polish. The rhinestones are from a wheel I bought on Amazon!

Rose Gold Beam Nails.

I love striping tape manicures, and I realized I've barely been doing anything with tape lately! I figured I'd fix that and put it to use for today's design. 

The base color is Orly Rage, and the black is CND Oilslick. The finishing touch were the black rhinestones from a wheel I got off of Amazon (I ordered the striping tape off of amazon too!)

Hot Chocolate Nails.

Hot chocolate is one of the best things about winter, and so when I saw this youtube video, I knew I had to use it as inspiration for a little nail art!

The base color is OPI We'll Always Have Paris, the white is acrylic paint, and for the hot chocolate I used OPI You Don't Know Jacques.

Green Converse Nails.

I did these converse nails a few months ago and just rediscovered them on my computer. I ended up posting a different manicure when I did these, but I decided they're still cute enough for a post!

The base color is OPI Don't Mess With OPI and the other colors are Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, Sally Hansen Silver Sweep, and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Jawbreaker Nails.

Recently splatter nails I've seen have reminded me of jawbreakers, so that is where I took all my inspiration for today's manicure from!

The base color for this manicure is Wet n Wild French White Creme and the colors I splattered on are Orly Spark, OPI Ogre the Top Blue, and CND Flashpoint.