Christmas Candy Cane Nails

China Glaze Ruby Pumps, OPI Alpine Snow

My work Christmas party was on over the weekend and I thought the occasion was worthy of special Christmas nails. Candy cane nails seem to be all over the internet at the moment and they're just so cute and easy! I was running a little short on time so I just did a candy cane accent nail. I kinda screwed up the top candy cane nail because I think I didn't have enough topcoat on the brush and it smudged a bit. But I still think they looked awesome!

I need more flakies!

OPI Russian Navy, Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black, Avon Crystal Vision Crystal Nail Topcoat

Like everyone else on the internet who likes nail polish, I was absolutely amazed at the awesomeness of Cult Nails' limited edition flake gem Unicorn Puke. When I read that it was being re-released as Clairvoyant I was so excited! Unfortunately it'd already sold out so I'll have to wait a while to get my Clairvoyant/Unicorn Puke fix. In the meantime, I tried to make a colourful flakie manicure with the few flakie style polishes I have. I used OPI Russian Navy as a base to try and get some blue in the mani, topped with a few coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black and then a few coats of a little gem I found in my nail polish bag from when I was a young'un. Avon Crystal Vision Crystal Nail Topcoat has little blue-green flakies in it, and is the only flakie I own. It was super runny and watery when I found it, but I left the lid off for a day and it thickened up nicely! The result was a crazy colour shifting flakie style manicure. 

For a bit of fun I made a little thumb gif to show the colour changes! 

Forget Me Not & Party Fever

Essence Forget Me Not, Kleancolor Party Fever

Essence is my new favourite brand. I'm really amazed at the quality of these polishes considering their price (compared to the standard $18-20 for other brands). Forget Me Not is a cornflower blue, almost purple polish with a very subtle shimmer. It's applied like a dream and was just a delight! This one came from the Blossoms etc collection and was only $3.50 (I think? Around that price). The one thing I didn't like about it was the shape of the bottle. It's tall and thin, like a nail art bottle and I kept on feeling like I might accidentally tip it over. 

For a bit of fun I did a coat of Kleancolor Party Fever on top. I got a bunch of Kleancolors a few months ago, all of them glitters, and all of them awesome!

Pink Shatter

China Glaze Light As Air, OPI Pink Of Hearts Pink Shatter

I love shatters. It's by far the easiest way to get awesome looking nail art, without needing any special skills or tools. If you can paint your nails, you can rock fab looking shatter! I found with this particular shatter, the thicker your layer was, the more dense the colour ended up as, and of course the bigger the cracks were!

The other reason why I absolutely adore having shatter on my nails is because of all the little things you can discover in the patterns it makes. Like finding animals in the clouds, I always seem to 'see' something in shattered nails. (and food, weird houses, furniture and cars)

So what did I see in these nails? If I list everything you'll think I'm a crazy person! In this particular mani there's lots of things, including an old lady wearing a scary cape, elephants walking in a row and a flailing sea monster!

Blue Addicted

Essence Blue Addicted

Whoa! I was so excited to find Essence in my local Target the other day and the thing that had me the most excited was that they had this polish! Blue Addicted is from the Colour & Go range and is a pretty spot on dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Across the Universe (or so I have been told. I don't have AtU to compare it with sadly). It's just a crazily beautiful polish. It looks like a seaweedy under-sea sparkle-fest on your nails. And for only $2.55 a bottle how can you say no? I even went back to get a second bottle since it is only 5mls.

Look at that glitter! 

As you can also probably tell, I cut my nails. This blog isn't called Little Nails for nothing! Trying out the whole squared shape thing, usually I like them super rounded, but I thought I'd try something different!

Strawberry Stripes

China Glaze Strawberry Fields, BYS Black Nail Striper

In an attempt to do something fabulously bright and summery to celebrate the beginning of summer I ended up with this on my nails. And I reckon it's awesome! I used China Glaze Strawberry Fields, which I got a few weeks ago, but hadn't actually used yet for a full mani. It may just be my favourite pink from my growing collection of nail polish. During my hunt for a 'summery' colour I realised I don't actually have many pinks, reds or purples. I do have about a million 'almost black' polishes though. I think dark colours always look great on shorter nails.

As always, I just can't cope with plain ol' painted nails. I need some glitter, or some shatter, or something awesome, so I jazzed it up with some cool stripes after seeing an awesome mani on a random beauty website, which featured photos from Nail It. You can see Nail It's original post here. It's really simple, just lines, and great for if you're practising using a nail art brush or a striper.

P.S. Since this photo was taken I've cut my nails. This length is the absolute longest I can get my nails to without them driving me crazy or breaking. Prepare yourselves for my little short nails next post. 

Citrusy Tribal/Aztec Mani

OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI Fiercely Fiona, China Glaze Custom Kicks, BYS Black Striper

Oh, how I love the whole tribal, aztec thing that's in right now. This mani is quite similar to another I did, just with different colours. It kind of reminds me of oranges and lemons!