Christmas Eve Candy Cane Nail Art

Hi everyone, I've been away but I couldn't let Christmas pass by without a Christmas nail art mani :-)

I've not worn nail polish in a very long time. My nails grew to unsightly lengths with rugged edges and I just said 'Enough! I need to be pretty!', and this was the result.

I started with butter London Knees Up which a beautiful metallic red. I don't have many reds so it was an easy choice. I then sparklified it with OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy With It from the OPI Muppets collection of 2011. I originally stopped there, then the bf smudged my thumb nail so after I repainted it, I decided it needed more...

So armed with my $3 colour changing Christmas tree and Marshmallow Fireside from Bath & Body Works (which I ordered from eBay, I wanted a full size of the mini sampler I picked up overseas last year) I got to work. It didn't take me that long actually, I have done candy canes twice before (Advent 2010 and China Glaze Holiday 2010)! I just love the look.

No progress shots as I was motoring speedy gonzales style (so much cooking to do Christmas morning tomorrow!) but I have a couple of left/right hand shots:

My ambidexterity is a work in progress.

No SLR shots either but I tried to make them pretty in a few iPhone apps: picframe, picfx, bokehful and snapseed if you're interested. Loving my new iPhone 5 and you can really do a lot with those apps. So much fun to use too!

That's the Christmas table setup I've been working on. Most courtesy of Target except the place mats, candle holders and the Christmas coasters! How I'm going to fit the food on there tomorrow, I have no idea. Anyway hope you enjoyed the post, and have a wonderful Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone!

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Dj Donk Bath Body Works, Christmas, Nail Art

OPI Spookettes Halloween 2011 and Jack o'lantern nail art!

Hello lovelies! I finally got around to trying the OPI Spookettes mini collection for Halloween 2011. It is almost identical to the 2009 collection. There is a glow in the dark polish as well as 3 cremes - black, white and orange. I was inspired and came up with Jack o'lanterns:

I googled jack o'lanterns for facial expressions whilst watching the Japanese version of The Ring Friday night. So this halloween theme seemed appropriate :-D More on the nail art later, first let's see swatches!

I have skeletons! I went to the Chemist the other day and they had a little stand of quite frankly, junk, and then I saw this collection of skeletons and at $2.95 I could not resist :-) They were my inspiration for the jack o'lanterns! Anyway, left to right we have He's My Boo, Mummy Knows Best, I Only Date Werewolves and lastly Zom-Body To Love (glow in the dark). Oh and they come with FREE spooky nail decals:

The white didn't photograph well but you can see on the box above there's also webs and little 'trick or treat' decals.

Onto the swatches! Above is He's My Boo and while I thought it was identical to the 2009 version Tattoo You Want Candy? it looks a little lighter:

He's My Boo is on the right. So in comparing 2009 with 2011 the blacks looks black and the whites looks white however I would say this orange slightly different. But not much :-P

Above is Mummy Knows Best. Appears to be just like Alpine Snow and the 2009 I Love Mummy. I did not like this formula though. But I think mine were a little gloopy :-(

I Only Date Werewolves above. Not much to say here. I think it was 2-3 coats (as was everything due to the gloopiness of my particular batch).

Above is Zom-Body To Love in I don't know how many coats as I lost count. Clearly this is used for layering over the top of another polish. But at least it's green (unlike the blue-purple polish that was 2009's glow in the dark). Very Halloweeny!

About 3-4 coats over Mummy Knows Best.

Weee it glows in the dark! This only took half an hour for me to play with camera settings and timers and light switches (sigh). Anyway, back to the nail art!

I started with the black polish as a base, then drew pumpkin shapes (which also look like apples now that I think about it) in white. This makes the orange below nice and opaque:

I could have used just the orange but the black would have shown through. A white base is good because you can decide on your shape then fill for colouring in later.

Now I know pumpkins typically have darker lines to mark the sections but I didn't have one and I thought this China Glaze would do nicely. This is Sun Worshiper from the 2010 summer collection I believe. It is very neon. I did not think I would find a use for this ever again. Imagine my delight Friday night as I was painting over my pumpkins :-D

Now after the China Glaze I decided to continue watching the Ring whilst playing Heroes of Newerth and finishing my pumpkins. In my multitasking madness I forgot to take progress swatches of the faces :-( Basically I painted the stems of the pumpkin green with Essie Pretty Edgy then painted the faces in black/I Only Date Werewolves.

Grrr! Arrrgh! My skeleton inspiration :-P

Then came the hard part. I wanted my faces to glow so I went over the facial expressions with the glow in the dark polish. Sadly, I did not go to enough effort to try and capture it nice and glowy like the Zom-Body To Love swatch above :-(

But you get the idea! hehe!

Bad photo :-| Boo. I will try better next time... if there is one :-P Anyway, in all this glowing and photo taking I noticed that my bath and body works pocket bac antibacterials were GLOWING. I did not know that when I picked up this stash during my USA holiday:

Fricken LOVE bath and body works. I would have bought more if my suitcase could fit it :-( We went to the one on South Street Seaport:

This little shopping mall has a wonderful view of the Brooklyn Bridge (excuse the dodgy iPhone shots, I'm still going through our camera photos!)

This is the view from the South Street Seaport mall on one of the levels. Lovely.

For some reason I had always imagined Bath & Body Works to be so much bigger? It was this tiny little store!

Anyway where was I? These are the Halloween hand sanitisers they had for 2011. And when I turned off the lights, looky here!

3 of them glow in the dark @_@ I did not know that! How cool is that? Anyway, I have rambled and posted way too many pictures again so I better go and do some chores or my tax or something haha. I hope you enjoyed the post, the nail art and are having an absolutely lovely weekend. The weather has been cold windy and rainy here, not very spring at all! I eagerly await the long weekend next weekend. Until next time...

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Dj Donk Bath Body Works, Nail Art, Nail Polish, OPI

Midweek Mani Madness - Cute Carrots!?

Oh deary me. What started out as an 'Easter' themed nail art ended up like this. What can I say :-/ I still think it's cute, if a little crazy... and it wasn't planned, I was wearing Sephora by OPI's Iris I Was Thinner then decided to draw something the next day... after I did dishes, washing and other chores, so excuse the warn edges and frayed top coat :-|

Uh yeah. I think I was going to alternate between bunnies and carrots, I'm really not sure now that I think about it. But I ended up drawing different faces for the carrots and forgetting about the bunnies. I even contemplated various vegetables and fruits but really couldn't be bothered :-P

Thumb swatch above. This purple is such a beautiful colour, it is from the Modern Flower Sephora by OPI Spring collection that came out last year.

These are the colours I used. I'm really getting through that China Glaze Snow! I'm going to laugh if it turns out to be the first bottle of nail polish I use up...

Ah yes, more bath and body works Slatkin & Co candles... I just can't help myself - the dollar is TOO good not to buy these treats! And it's pink! Sooo pretty. It's called Pineapple Orchid and not only is it pretty, it smells nice too :-) I'm getting through my 3 wick candle of Frosted Cupcake so I thought I better get a replacement. This will do nicely. I really like frosted cupcake though, I may need another...

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good week, Canberra just went BAM! winter! so I've gone from a summery 24 degrees to scarf, beanie and winter jacket :-| I hope wherever you are, you're enjoying better weather!

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Dj Donk Bath Body Works, Nail Art, Nail Polish, Sephora by OPI

Lush Frog Prince nails for Valentine's Day!?

Erm I'm almost embarrassed to post this but I felt I had to after spending so long drawing these cute little froggies on my nails :-D

What the?! You say. Indeed. I showed you those lush bath ballistics I bought the other day and I just kept staring at the Frog Prince bath ballistic... So I drew a little frog on paper and got to work... I started with my thumb:

I chose Essie Mint Candy apple as a base because I didn't have a lime green (shocking I know). Then I drew the outline of the frog with Essie's Pretty Edgy. The belly is OPI Fiercely Fiona, the whites of the eyes China Glaze Snow and the rest was drawn with black and red Sally Hansen nail art pens.

Back to the bath ballistic! I was hoping it wouldn't be a sickly yellow/green bath since it *was* part of the Valentine's collection. It was more green this time:

And that red dot are the lips floating around... which melted into the oily drops below:

Which you need to mix up otherwise you're nice and red :-D

Well no bath is complete without some nice scented candles! I love the homemade cookies Slatkin & Co from Bath and Body Works. It's not overpowering which suits my poor migraine prone head and it's just nice and sweet smelling. Win. Oh I almost forgot! The frog prince ballistic has a surprise inside:

There's your prince! Happy Valentine's Day everyone, have a lovely day and I'll see you next time :-)

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Dj Donk Bath Body Works, Life, Lush, Nail Art

Essie Splash of Grenadine, Adelaide trip and a very cute reindeer

Ah the holiday season again. Which means cute gifts, good food and lots of Christmas shopping! I tweeted earlier about my hand sanitizer obsession so I thought I'd post a cute little picture of my latest acquisitions. Rudolph (despite his lack of red nose but that's his name) has made a return this year to feature some of the mint scented Bath and Body Works Pocketbacs. Very cute stocking stuffers indeed! I may hold onto one or three :-D

Onto the nails! I decided to try Essie Splash of Grenadine, from this year's resort collection (natural light):

I don't know why I haven't tried this earlier? I have the mini set and it's just gorgeous! I must admit Essie cream polishes can be fickle to work with, it seems to change every polish but they are generally nice to apply and don't finish streaky. Flash shot below:

And of course I've been dying to try the OPI Burlesque glitters so I layered on Show it and glow it (flash):

Sooo pretty. I want to do all my nails but I know I'll die getting the glitter off. Natural light shot below, reminds me of Sephora by OPI's It's Bouquet with Me:

Lastly I'm off to Adelaide for a little while. I've been a few times before, and have done a lot of the touristy things such as the Penfolds Winery, Botanical Gardens, Adelaide Zoo, etc. But I'm going back to the Zoo to see the Pandas! And there's flamingos (meep). I love flamingos.

And other beautiful birds:

I'll also be getting some nice Haigh's Christmas gifts for the family. Ok I have to pack, left it way too late! Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

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Dj Donk Bath Body Works, Essie, Life, OPI