The Holiday Worlds of Old

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington, weary of his celebrity status and the crushing burden of being awesome all the time, wanders off and gets lost in the woods, eventually coming upon a strange circle of trees, each bearing a door shaped like the symbol of any given holiday. He falls through the one shaped like a tree and eventually winds up in Christmas Town, but I like to speculate on what might have happened had he stumbled into Fourth of July Land or, say, St. Patrick’s Day Town (he’d be drunk by 11 a.m. and have already picked fights with three people and a cat, that’s what.)

Here I tried to capture a few of those doors in that strange stand of trees, from Thanksgiving Land to Valentine’s Ville.

Peppermint Pink

I can’t tell if these nails look like peppermint candies (what I was ultimately going for) or like the Umbrella Corporation attempting to get in touch with its softer, more feminine side. That was a Resident Evil joke, and not even a very good one at that. Shameful, shameful. Someone take away my very limited gamer geek street cred before I attempt another “funny.” 😉

Froot Loops

I’ll concede that Froot Loops make a great dry, out-of-the-box snack, but you will never convince me of their worth as part of your balanced breakfast. Through no real intervention on the part of my parents, apart from simply not having it in the house, I never developed a taste for super sugary cereal. I’ve always preferred crunchy, nutty, oat-ey things like Just Right and Shreddies and Grape Nuts (not what you think, you pervert; mind out of the gutter.) In fact, I’m still sort of mourning the loss of Fruit & Fibre cereal with the delicious little dried blueberries. Come to think of it, I haven’t made breakfast a part of my daily routine since Fruit & Fibre went out of production. Coincidence? I think…probably!

Thanksgiving Greetings

Why yes, that does say “Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! Eat lots of ham!” in nail art pictograms.

Like the picture says, Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! I’m Canadian, eh, so our Thanksgiving was some weeks back and now naught but a distant, gravy-covered memory. I like American Thanksgiving so much more than ours. It feels like a proper family holiday instead of the stop-gap it is in Canada where it exists just so we don’t go insane between Labour Day and Christmas. I’m not so fond of the crass glut of consumerism that goes on the day after American Thanksgiving (or today for a good number of stores) but you can’t win ’em all.

But no matter what you end up doing today – shopping, going to the movies, passed out half asleep on the sofa with your grandpa, the game and a stomach full of tryptophan – may it be fun, restful and blessedly stress-free. You know, for you. Because I’d say the turkeys and hams might have a few things to be stressed about today. 😉

Pansy Power

Not that she’d notice (because she’d be have to be awake for that to happen) but these nails are for my cat Porky. She’s old and cranky, bitches me out every single morning until I give her soft chow and makes it smell like cat breath under the covers when she demands under-the-blanket naps. She kind of drives me bonkers, but she’s also my best friend and I love her more than anything.

She is, surprisingly, a cat of not that many quirks. You want quirks, look to my other cat, Weegie, who is the feline equivalent of that guy at the party with a lampshade on his head. But if Porky has a “thing,” it’s munching potted pansies on the balcony in the springtime. I love pansies, and I noticed that she loved them, too, many years ago when I found a pot I had brought indoors out of the chill totally denuded of all blossoms. She’s a savage pansy destroyer, that one. No doubt these painted pansies will last a little bit longer around her than the real deal. 🙂

Snow Cones

I debated whether to enter these in Nail Polish Canada’s Holiday Nail Art Challenge for this week’s theme of snow, but then I got a little tied up in the branding aspect of shaved ice in a cup – the spelling is S-N-O, no? Which doesn’t exactly qualify as “snow.” But people still call them snow cones, probably because “rainbow shaved ice in a cup” is a little unwieldy.

The rainbow “granule” accent nails were dead easy; once again, a nice, simple technique for the beginner nail artist, and an effective one at that. If you’d like to try it for yourself:

1. Brush on two coats of a base polish. I used white because it makes vibrant and pastel colours pop.

2. Round up a selection of rainbow-hued polishes, if you’re going for the snow cone look, or whatever colours you please if you’d like to be contrary about it. 😉

3. Taking a small detail brush and starting at the tip of your nail, dot on polish in whichever end of the rainbow spectrum you’d like to start with in a horizontal line. There’s no need to be perfect here; a bit of the base colour peeking through keeps the design from looking too muddled and “done.”

4. Repeat the horizontal dotting with all of the colours you chose, one colour per line, until you reach your cuticles.

5. Top off with a glitter polish, if you wish. Here I used a clear holographic glitter, Essence’s Space Queen, to get that icy, snow cone-look, but you can use whichever glitter topper you’d like. See how accommodating I am?

6. Finish with the top coat of your choice, and then stand back and wait for the compliments!

The Polish Games: Beyond Lacquerdome

The Polish Games: Beyond Lacquerdome

It’s time to limber up your paws and stretch your claws, fellow bloggers and nail art enthusiasts, because it’s contest time!  Time to take up arms (dotting tools and detail brushes) and lay hellish waste to the lacquered landscape, leaving naught behind but the bitter tears of our vanquished foes.  Or, you know, something.

Actually, no, I’m sure it’ll all be very civilized.  Sponsored by the polish-lovin’ folks over at Nail Polish Canada, the Holiday Nail Art Challenge covers three weeks and three themed designs.  This week’s challenge theme is snow.  

Please do stop by the link above and vote for my little creation, if you’d be so kind (Ice Storm by Finger Candy.)  Or if you’d like to vote for someone else’s amazing nail art, you can do that, too, but be warned: I’ll cry and then you’ll be sad.  Or grab your weapons and come up with an entry of your own, and then we’ll all be just *that* much closer to the above-referenced gladiator-style showdown.  See you in the ring!

Ice Storm

These nails are a nod to this evening’s forecasted weather, which calls for snow, ice and various snow ‘n’ ice-related activities. Sounds like a good time to stay in, cozy up by the televised log and do my nails!

These nails also represent my first ever entry in a nail art contest! Sponsored by the fine folks over at http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/, purveyors of all my favourite lacquered goodies, the Holiday Nail Art Challenge covers three weeks and three themed designs. This week’s theme is snow , which is appropriate since, you know, hey look, there’s lots of it from which to draw inspiration RIGHT outside my window. And gathering on my balcony. And piling up along my windowsills…

This design is a bit of a modified pond manicure, in which I layered opaque snowflake designs between multiple coats of sheer polish. I fancy it looks a bit like tiny flakes flash frozen in ice.

For this manicure I used Essie’s super sheer Adore-a-Ball over OPI’s No Room for the Blues, with just a few glittery accents in OPI’s (Liquid Sand) Get Your Number, THE perfect sea blue glitter. Icy fun for the whole family!

Disney Girl Challenge: The Evil Queen

Does the Evil Queen from Snow White even have a name? Because I’d be in a mood, too, if everyone just addressed me as Mrs. Evil. It’s sort of demoralizing. Unless of course you’re into that sort of thing, which I’m assuming Ms Queen is, given her propensity for murder and such.

Here I tried to capture elements of the Queen’s rather enchanting gown, particularly its gorgeous royal blue/purple colour, which nicely carries on Disney’s tradition of garbing their baddies primarily in shades from the “blurple” side of the colour wheel.

Nail Porn

Sure, it’s an overused phrase, but is there any more apt description for the sort of D3-induced craziness that goes on when a polish maker releases a new line and we all want it, want it now, now, NOW!!? Not that I don’t do it myself, but the sort of rhapsodizing that goes on over the latest hard-to-find holo or Aussie-imported glitter polish is *just* this side of lustful panting.

But sometimes you have a very good reason for staring in dumbfounded delight at your hands, a little polish-on-polish action dancing in your head, because the polish you’re wearing is just so damn pretty. Like this beauty I received last week, Enchanted Polish’s Octopus’s Garden.

So what’s next? Well, you take a picture of it, and then maybe 20 more after that, all while you stand in the sun or out of the sun or under a tree or with your hand shoved in a little box, and then, as you contort your hand and fingers into positions even the most flexible of yogis would shudder at, you snap the photo, thinking such absurdly rapturous thoughts as, “That linear holo is TO DIE FOR. Just gorgeous…wait, what’s a linear holo?” Then you put it on your blog so others can share in your pervy porniness, which you know they will because you do it, too!

Hey, I guess we all get our jollies where we can. Some jollies are just sparklier than others. 😉