Very last minute Christmas gifts

Have you been completely lost on what to get for the guy or girl who has every polish? Well here are some last minute shopping ideas. Go! Now!

Nail Polish Gloves

Nail Polish Gloves from H&M. These cost $5.95 and came with a matching red pair attached. If you don’t have an H&M in your town, I’m betting these wouldn’t be to difficult to make. Just go get a pair of basic gloves and some glitter puffy paint (or your favorite polish) and have at it. Then you can choose any color you want.

Nail Polish Ornament

Nail Polish Ornament by Merck Family’s Old World Christmas. This traditional glass ornament costs $7.99 and comes in both red and pink. Visit their website to find a shop near you that carries OWC ornaments.

Diamond Shape Nail Ring

Diamond Shape Nail Ring from Topshop. This ring is sized to fit at the top of the finger, framing the nail. It costs $15, and the Topshop near me had two other designs priced at $12, including one that looks like a gold press-on nail.

Peace, love & happy holidays,
Sonja

Sugar Skulls

Today is Día de los Muertos, wrapping up the season’s macabre celebrations. Tomorrow I’ll put my spooky decorations back into the closet, but until then the reveling continues with calaveras on my nails.

sugar skulls

These designs leave a lot of room for variation, and it was really fun picking out different looks for each nail.

1. I used Nubar White Peony for the base.
2. Using just the bottle brush swiped almost dry, I shaped the skulls with Zoya Dove.
3. The pink eyes  and noses are SpaRitual Reveal Yourself. A dotting tool made it easy to create equal sized eyes, but everything else was done with a small angled nail art brush.
4. The decoration colors are SpaRitual Circle of Life (blue) and Enlightened Soul (yellow), and Zoya Midori (green) and Sooki (red).

Peace & love,
Sonja

A Witch’s Best Friend

Happy All Hallow’s Eve! Tonight I’m wrapping up the holiday’s nail art with my favorite Halloween mascot, the black cat.

black cat

Before applying SpaRitual Street Smart, I cut out to small triangles of black paper and placed them on my ring finger while the base coat was still sticky.

The eyes are Zoya Creamy with Diamond Cosmetics Gloworm Green layered over (so they glow). The nose is Zoya Dove, the whiskers are Diamond Cosmetics White, and the smile is SpaRitual Knowledge is Power. Unfortunately it must not have been completely dry when I applied the top coat because the design smeared some.

Now I’m out for some final tricking before the night’s up. Enjoy what’s left of your Halloween celebrations!

Peace & love,
Sonja

Wicked Web

Today’s post is inspired by the creepsters that hang outside my kitchen window. After first considering the go-to Halloween orange for the background, I opted for a sky blue (Nubar Blue Hydrangea) to mimic my view.

spider's web

And I finally made use a Nite Lites polish from the Diamond Cosmetics set currently on sale for Halloween, Moonglo, which gave it a shimmery finish, and reminded me of dew on spiders’ webs in the mornings.

Diamond Cosmetics Moonglo

Here’s the best glow-in-the-dark shot I managed to get. The Nite Lite polishes give off a good glow if you hold them up to a light first, but it fades really quickly to a hazy green. Additional coats boost the glow-ability some. In the picture above I used two.

Who else has been playing with glow-in-the-dark nail art recently? Let me know about any fun you’ve been having in the comments below.

Peace & love,
Sonja

 

The Bloody French

I got this idea from one of the True Blood inspired posts at Colour Coated. Jasmine did this dripping design on natural nails, so check that out for a look you could wear in real life.

Here I made another “nail costume” using press-on nails, in an elongated oval shape resembling vampire fangs.

vampire fangs

The nails were already white, but a bit translucent, so I went over them with two coats of Diamond Cosmetics White. Then I used the bottle brush on Zoya Sooki to start filling in the tips, then dotting tools to add the dripping effect.

Peace & love,
Sonja

Scarecrow’s patches

I needed just about every nail art tool in my arsenal to put this manicure together. I’ll take you through the steps after the photo.

scarecrow's patches

1. I started by alternating these polishes (thumb to pinky) for the base: Zoya Kelly, SpaRitual Twig, Diamond Cosmetics Hot Cocoa Kisses.
2. To place the patches I taped off squares, then painted over with (thumb to pinky): Diamond Cosmetics Sunset in Sedona, Rescue Beauty Lounge Orbis Non Sufficit, SpaRitual Pebble, Zoya Jana, and DC Hot Cocoa Kisses.
3. I re-taped my thumb, middle and ring fingers to prep for stamping.
4. With Konad plate m60, I stamped the plaid pattern on my thumb (SpaRitual Pebble) and middle finger (RBL Orbis Non Sufficit), and paisley on my ring finger (SpaRitual Twig).
5. Using my smallest dotting tool, I added DC Sunset in Sedona polka dots to the pinky finger patch.
6. I added stitches with an angled nail art brush and Zoya Codie.

I really like the creative options this manicure allows. Obviously you can use any autumnal colors in your collection, and I just provided the ones I used for those curious. Also, the patterns add some interest, but you could also cut down on the time this takes sticking with solid patches. If you decide to try it for yourself, definitely leave a comment below or Tweet me with a photo.

Peace & love,
Sonja

It’s the not-so-Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

These pumpkins turned out a little rougher than I had envisioned, but I still think they’re cute. So let’s make pumpkins into pumpkinade and just pretend that I was going for that primitive art look.

pumpkins

The base is four coats of SpaRitual Aware (lovely color, iffy formula). I used Diamond Cosmetics Sunset in Sedona to stripe the pumpkins, and Zoya Shawn for the stems and vines.

And speaking of Frankies, I got Shawn in an MUA swap with Sara, and she threw in a special frankenpolish just for me, Sexy Sonja. 🙂

Sara's franken

She did a killer job. It’s a sort of plummy metallic with really fine silver shimmer that picks up the light, and then larger silver, fuchsia and holo glitter mixed. It’s smooth, opaque and dries to a streak-free finish. So perfect. Thanks, Sara!

Peace & love,
Sonja

Simple Frankenstein’s Monster nail art

Here’s a bit of Halloween nail art that’s less involved than the past few posts.

ouchie

I simply started with Ginger + Liz Ivy League, which is a great eerie green. Then I swiped on a fast drying top coat to hurry things along. I used Zoya Blair (a sweet surprise gift from Jasmine in a swap) for the scar, and Zoya Dovima, a matte shimmer polish, for the the stitches.

I feel particularly connected to Frankie because I have a scar across my forehead too. I got mine when I was seven, dancing the conga with our dog, Sienna, who had about 20 pounds on me. I lost my balance when she jumped up on my shoulders, and hit my head on the TV stand. This was back when stitches were all gnarly looking too, so it was extra awesome. Kids these days are missing out.

Peace & love,
Sonja

Werenails, or furry Manolo manicure

When I woke up this morning I found my Helmer torn to shreds, nail polish everywhere, and this swatch on my memory card. Apparently there was a full moon last night and my nails transformed into . . . WERENAILS!!

Ahh!

Ok faux reals . . .

For my Mummy Dearest

Today is my mom’s birthday, so this one goes out to her. I hesitated to dedicate such a messy mani, but since accepting weird, unintentionally Picasso-inspired art projects as gifts is kind of what moms are supposed to do, I figured this was more than appropriate:

For those who might want to recreate it, the procedure goes as follows:

1. Cut a tissue into thin strips, about two or three millimeters wide, then separate the layers and set aside. The cheap, non-fuzzy type works best.
2. Apply a base coat, then from here on out work on one nail at a time.
3. Apply one coat of a white or off-white polish. (I used Nubar White Peony.)
4. Work quickly while the nail is damp to lay the strips of tissue across the nail. If the nail starts to dry, lightly dab on some more white polish as you go. This also helps to get overlapping strips to stay down.
5. Use stork scissors, or other small scissors to trim the strips of tissue along the walls of the nail. The scissors are also helpful in pressing down the strips as you lay them down, without smudging the polish underneath.

And that’s it! Don’t use a top coat because it will make the strips transparent. While this isn’t the most durable manicure, it’s not one of those that turns you into a completely helpless person either. I was still able to open a can of lemon La Croix, and you can get the nails wet as long as you just gently pat them dry.

Peace & love (and happy birthday, Mummy!),
Sonja