January - Blues and Sparkle

January tends to be grey and miserable, so it's always nice to have pretty nails to brighten the month up.

I'd asked for some MoYou goodies for Christmas, so I decided to use them for my first  design for the month.

Ciaté Regatta was the perfect base for my MoYou Silver Dust stamping with SciFi Plate number 08.  I was a little disappointed that I managed to smudge my stamping when I added my top coat, but I was still happy with my design overall.

I love darker colours in the colder months, and hadn't used OPI Black Cherry Chutney for a while so thought I'd do a simple manicure with a glitter accent nail.  This colour is such a gorgeous deep purple red, and is perfect for a gothic look.  You can't see how pretty In True Stefani Fashion is in this photo, but trust me when I tell you, all the different shapes and sizes of the glitter really catch the light.

Despite the previous manicure to this one, and loving darker colours for winter, I've got a rather important even coming up in a few weeks time so want to steer clear of the darker shades for a bit to avoid any staining.  Bearing this in mind I decided to go for Heather from the Barry M Silk collection.  It's such a pretty and delicate colour on its own with a beautiful shimmer, but I couldn't resit adding a coat of NYC Lights, Camera, Glitter.  It has to be one of my all time favourite glitters and I have used it over many different base colours and haven't found a combination that I didn't like.  My mum looked for a new bottle of this one, as she likes it too, but couldn't find it in Superdrug, so I headed to Amazon, and bought three bottles to be sure we didn't run out any time soon!

I still can't decide whether my final design for the month was a nail fail or not.  I wanted to do a bit of a different kind of ombré across the nails rather than on all nails, so I chose Models Own Beth's Blue and Grape Juice.  I think the colours complimented each other and gave the ombré look, but I'm just not sure it's what I had in mind.  I added some little love hearts with Jacava Lavender Court to finish off the look.

My favourite this month has to be my sparkly Lights, Camera, Glitter, nails.  I can't resit sparkle and shine, so it just ticked all the right boxes.

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

December - Christmas Fun and Sparkle

December of course meant that it was time for Christmas nails and what says Christmas more than cute characters and glitter?

It's always difficult to decide which Christmas style to start with, and normally for me it would be snowflakes, as I do snowflake nails each year, but I saw lots of them popping up all over Instgram, so thought I'd save them for later and go for a cute snowman design first.

Back in September I had thought of a snow scene design using China Glaze Chillin' With My Snowmies, so I incorporated this in with the snowman.  I started with a base of Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for a chilly feel and added a coat of the China Glaze topper on all my nails, expect my middle finger.

I then used White Knight from MoYou London to paint a small circle for the snowman's head.  I then used Barry Mushroom, and Graffiti Nails Tuscany for the details.

A couple of years ago I did a dotticure Christmas tree design which I absolutely loved, so I thought I' recreated it, but in non traditional Christmas colours.  I used Models Own Snow White as a base and then used, Kiko 277, Barry M Sparkling Amethyst, China Glaze Frostbite, and OPI Turn on the Haute Light for all the fun dots.  Dotticures are one of my favourite nail designs to do, so it's always lots of fun to add them to a Christmas design.

As I mentioned before each Christmas I do a snowflake design, and inspired by my 'non traditional' colours in my previous design, I decided to use Sparkling Ruby from Barry M for some dramatic snowflakes.  For the base of the snowflake nails I used Happy Anniversary by OPI which came in my November Nail Box.

 

To finish off the year, I went for something simple, but gorgeous.  Thunder and Lightning from Models Own is just the perfect choice for new year's, the holographic glitter looks just like all the fireworks set off to celebrate.  It is a little thin on application, so you need at least three coats, but that's a small price to pay for the amazing glitter.

What was your favourite design this month?

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x