Tree Time!

I put up our tree today!  This is exclamation mark worthy because I’m never so seasonally motivated, particularly when it comes to our tree (we have history.)  But we’ve got some fun things planned for later on this holiday season that require a bit of planning right now, and so that’s what I’m doing.

Also, I woke up this morning just feeling festive!  So much so, I managed to convince my husband to watch Babes in Toyland, a favourite terrible Christmas movie from my childhood starring Keanu Reeves and Drew Barrymore, while I melted some Christmas Wish-scented wax (pine, peppermint and cookies) and painted my nails with this festive glitter bomb, KB Shimmer’s sELFie.  This polish looks so pretty on its own, but I love it topped with this tiny bejeweled nail charm.

These sort of ultra dense, glitter-packed polishes always look fantastic in super macro close-up, and sELFie is no exception – lovely!  A fun and festive mani for a fun and festive day.

Rose Coloured Glasses

This is the manicure I wore last night when my husband and I went out to celebrate the 13th anniversary of our first date.  It’s just a simple combination of Whimsical Ideas by Pam’s Rose Coloured Glasses over KB Shimmer’s dusky blue Stonewashed – probably the kind of thing I could have pulled off even 13 years ago, were it not for the fact that pre-date, I was so worked up (positively thrumming with excited/nervous energy) I never could have held a polish brush!  And I wasn’t really into nail polish back then.  This whole nail art business is a fairly recent addition to my life.

Ha, except now that I’m thinking about it, I DID paint my nails the night of our first date – black, with blood red middle finger accent nails.  I also wore an Emily the Strange hoodie with cat ears (and, ahem, paw mitts.) Yeah, I was that girl!  Still am, as these are the cat ears I wore last night to go along with this manicure!

SELFie on the Shelfie

Actually, I don’t go in for that Elf on the Shelf business.  If some mischief-making little gnome wants to bugger around my house after hours, the least he can do is leave the fun decorating stuff to me and instead run a couple of loads of laundry and maybe clean the litter box.  Jerk.

Selfies are also pretty awful.  But then again, I am an Old and I still don’t understand what “on fleek” means.

But!  This super fun, wonderfully festive polish, KB Shimmer’s sELFie, is, trendy name notwithstanding, AWESOME.  Every year I quite optimistically purchase a can’t-be-mistaken-for-any-other-season-but-Christmas polish (your basic tree in a bottle) and every year I’m disappointed.  KB’s offering from last year’s holiday collection was dark and murky, the total antithesis of a bright and shiny Christmas tree, and the less we say about the polish I used in one of my ugliest – and most popular – manicures, the better.

But KB’s hit it out of the park with sELFie, a beautiful – and beautifully made – green holographic glitter sprinkled with red, blue, purple and gold hexes.  It is SO Christmas – like you’re painting your nails with crushed ornaments. Which, were this any other all-glitter polish, is exactly how application would go – Snag City.  But sELFie is that rare polish that is the absolute perfect mix of base and glitter, applying smoothly and evenly. You could certainly use this lacquer as a one-coat glitter topper over a favourite festive polish, but I got it to full, glorious opacity in two and a smidge coats (two regular coats and a bit of touching up, mostly right at the tips of my nails.)

Oddly enough, I don’t tend to wear a lot of nail polish in my day to day life, but I know sELFie is going to be getting a lot of play on my fingertips this season – it’s the perfect holiday mani!  As always, if you also find this polish divine, you can find it and its collection mates at both KB Shimmer and Harlow & Co.