Tutorial Thursday: Santa Hat French Tips

In the spirit of Christmas, I bring you awesomely festive and SUPER EASY Santa Hat French Tips!

Supplies You’ll Need: A good red polish, I used butterLONDON’s Knees Up; a white polish, I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and a great fast drying topcoat. I’m using my heavily guarded and rationed Hong Kong Girl from Glisten & Glow. I was going to put a belt buckle on one of my nails, but when I got into it I completely forgot to do it, so the West End Wonderland and Raven are optional lol. You’ll also need a pallet and your trusty mechanical pencil!

Step One: Using your mechanical pencil, dip it in the red and create a faux french tip with a little tornado like appendage hanging down. That gives me an idea for spring nails……. Hmmm….. Repeat this process on each nail, and switch up the direction that the hat hangs down if you’d like.

This is what it’ll look like when you’re all done. I’ve switched directions and gave them gaunty angles and what not.

Step Two: Take your mechanical pencil and dip into the white and then lightly press onto the nail creating the fuzz around the brim of the hat and the end of the hat.

Step Three: Give yourself a good layer of topcoat and voila! You’re done! How easy is that?!

Tutorial Tuesday: Ornament Nails

Supplies you’ll need: Black acrylic paint, a white polish, five different polishes of your choice and a basecoat of your choice. You’ll also need an old mechanical pencil with lead (you’ll see why soon!) and a pallet to put your paint on.

Step One: Prep your nails and let them dry with your basecoat.

Step Two: Using the mechanical pencil with the led not poking out, make half circles in different positions on each nail. If you wanted to, you could always put more than one circle per nail.

Step Three: Using the pencil again, begin to apply your ornament colors. Some colors, like this one, will take more than one coat.

This is what you’ll have when you’re done.

Step Four: When you’re done and your polish has dried a bit, click your mechanical pencil a few times until there’s a good piece of lead pointing out.

Dip it in your black acrylic paint and carefully draw an outline around your ornaments.

Make a little “head” for your ornament.

Then make the little ornament hanger.

This is what you’ll have when you’re done.

Step Five: Once you’re done doing all the nails, apply your topcoat and you’re done!

Tutorial Tuesday: Candy Cane Nails

Here we have a really quick and simple tutorial. It can be used on short or long nails, with any combination of colors you can think of. It’s quick, versatile and super freaking cute.

Supplies: All you’ll need is a roll of blue painters tape, or masking tape or I guess scotch tape would work as well though I’ve never used it. You’ll need an Xacto knife and a red of your choice. You’ll also need your nails painted with a base color of your choice. I used Kawaii Nail Lacquer’s Joy to the World for a little added “punch” of Christmassy color!

Step One: Take your roll of painters tape and CAREFULLY and I can’t stress carefully enough!! Cut strips long enough to cover your nail and leave a little excess. You’ll need a lot of these strips cut, so when you’re done cutting one part, peel them off and stick them to the edge of your desk or surface you’re working on.

Step Two: Lay the strips down on a slant, making sure that the spaces between the tape vary a bit.

Step Three: Apply two coats of your red polish and then, while the polish is still wet, carefully peel all your little tails off leaving the design in it’s place.

Step Four: Using your cleanup brush and acetone, clean up any messes. When the red polish is completely dry, or close to it, cover with your favorite high speed topcoat.

Every one will be different, and some will look better than others. But that’s the point of candy canes, right?

Unboxing the USPS Style Box of Joy!!

Late September the USPS gave out 5,000 of these elusive Style Boxes of Joy. Had no idea what was going to be in them, didn’t know if we’d even get them.

Then Sunday I got an email alerting me that mine as ready for shipping  

Let the joyus news be spread, I got my Style Box of Joy today- a whole TWO days early!  

So! I share with you the unboxing!

Here it is, fresh from opening!

OOooooooOoO I am already excited!

First up is this awesome SoHo makeup bag.

Inside it has a pretty good sized mirror, a larger bag for loose makeup and also has holders for brushes and a nice little flappy thing to cover the bristles.

I got two “trial” size Rembrandt Intense Stain Toothpastes. Which if these are actual “trial” size, I would hate to see the full size.

Cause these be about the size of regular toothpastes.

I also got Rembrandt Intense Stain Dissolving Whitening Strips. 56 teeth whitening strips.

Which I promptly had to use and take pictures of… I’m going to be doing a review at the end of using these to show how much they whitened my teeth. I drink coffee and smoke, so my teeth are pretty stained. Enough that regular whitening toothpastes don’t really touch them. It’ll be nice to see how well these work.

Day 1 of whitening. You get to laugh at my bespectacled self LOL

I also got two Neutrogena Moisture Shine Glosses in Plum. They look pretty good when swatched on my hand, so we’ll see what they look like on. One will probably go in my goodie stash for giveaways and/or grab bags.

Got a sample of ROC Retinol Correxion Sensitive Night Cream. Anti-Aging for Retinol-Sensitive skin. Dunno if I have retinol sensitive skin, but I’ll give it a shot. Also got a sample of some Nivea stuff, but it’s already missing. Pfft.

I also got two 20% off coupons from Tracy Reese. Which if any of you want to use them, please feel free. That stuff is a little too rich for my blood . Use the code TRJOY20.

Got a CD too. Has tracks from Blue October, Pam Tillis & Lorie Morgan and some other people I don’t know. Gonna listen to that later.

Got a book about Fashion too……. Dunno how useful this will be to me, so if anyone wants it, just holler!

And a small Priority Mail Flat Rate Box. Which will come in handy!

Not too shabby for free stuff, huh?!

I want to see if all boxes vary or if everyone got the same. So leave me a comment telling me what you got, or if you blogged it like me, send me a link!

Nail Art Tutorial: Fall Leaves

The last in the Fall series, I bring you Fall Leaves! This tutorial is super simple and quick to do!

Supplies Needed: A base coat, I used Strawberry Ice Cream Soma by Literary Lacquer because… Well… It’s freaking awesome. You’ll need at least three colors for you leaves. I used Am I Ginger? by LynBDesigns, Wicked by Perception Nail Lacquer and Lake of Shining Waters by Literary Lacquer. You’ll also need a black or brown acrylic paint, a nail art brush, a dotting tool and a pallet.

Step One: After you apply your basecoat, let it dry completely. On your pallet, add a bit of black and water it down a tad so it glides on smoothly.

Step Two: With a gentle hand, draw on your branches. They don’t have to be perfect, no stick or twig is .

Do the same on all nails until you have all your “twigs”

Step three: With your dotting tool, begin putting the “leaves” on the twigs. Do them sparingly with each color because with three colors, it will eventually become a lot of leaves. Repeat until you’ve used the three colors, or you have an abundance of leaves.

Once you’re finished, apply the topcoat of our choice and you’re done!

This is a quick, cute and simple fall mani! If you do one of my manis, please post it to my Facebook page!