Christmas Tree Nail Art - Caviar Beads and Striping Tape

A little late on this post but it'll be archived for posterity anyways.  Right before the holidays I was wearing China Glaze Fifth Avenue and decided it needed some spicing up!

Because this wasn't a planned out mani, the color scheme is a little bit off. I'm not a super fan of the mauve and metallic mint but I don't hate it either.

I used scotch tape, striping tape and caviar beads for this design.  The scotch tape was used to make a triangle and the striping tape was zigzagged back and forth and then painted over with Pop Beauty Jade Metal.  Then I peeled both tapes off and applied the caviar beads (which bled terribly by the way with the top coat - these were from the dollar store).  I then applied the stars at the top and sealed with top coat. SUPER simple, took only a few minutes!

Pop Beauty Jade Metal & China Glaze Fifth Avenue

Orly Velvet Rope Swatches

I feel like every polish I've tried lately has been a winner.  Either I've refined my tastes and choices to the point where I don't pick out stuff that I end up not liking anymore or my horizons have broadened and I just love everything.  Either way, not complaining.

"Natural" Light

Shown is two coats of Velvet Rope, they went on so smoothly too.  I realized this is only my 9th Orly.. where have I been?!  I did something a little differently this time with my treatments.  I got to try some new ones, so far so good!  This is two coats over NailTek II and sealed with Barielle Manicure Extender.  No chips yet, just some tipwear that's painfully visible, sorry.

"Natural" Light

Velvet Rope is a shiny, somewhat metallic, but not entirely rich purple with itty bitty silver glitters mixed in.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

wtf skittles & a wonderful gift

I have some skittles for you today! Among other things. I think I am going to post a couple more times today haha. I took pictures of my collection set up and nail organization that will show you how I do it, maybe you could get a few ides from it, but that will be later today.

Anyways a couple months go I bought a six pack of mini Laffy Taffy scented nail polishes from (where else?) Five Below.  The colors stood out to me and I really wanted them, it was 5$ for the whole set of 6 minis.  I couldn’t find the purple one until after I did everything so this swatching session is one shy of complete.

 Cute, aren't they? My friend's 3 year old love them because they're "baby polishes". Haha!

These polishes are a complete and total mind****. Crème in the bottles, metallic on nails.  Or crème in bottle, shiny on nails. I don’t get it. And I was really super disappointed. But I decided now that I’m not bummed about it anymore to show you what I’m working with.

 This is going to be a little like the old spice commercial so bear with me on this.  Look at the yellow bottle, now look at my nail.  Look at the blue bottle, now look at my nail. CREME in bottle. METALLIC on nail!  Please click to enlarge to see how much of a mind**** it truly is.  The strawberry is creme and the cherry looks like a freakin' jelly on the nail.  And the green, don't get me going on the green.  I don't even know what color it dries to.  Is that metallic, a sheer shimmer? Who the hell knows. I don't.  I bought the set specifically for the creme yellow, it looked so pretty in the store.  It turns to a gold shiny shimmery finish with hints of wanting to be a metallic. *scratches head* WTF?

Off topic: My brother is in town from California and he brought me the CUTEST gift!  When we were younger we used to play this game on the SNES.  It was both one of our favorite games and we would sit for hours and play; its called Earth Bound. Anyways sometime over the summer he called me and asked me what my favorite Earth Bound character was.  I really thought he was just plastered but it makes sense now.  The game has quite a few cutesy characters but I picked Paula, the female hero.  This is what he gave me:

A FREAKING PAULA PILLOW!!

While her name is Paula in the game, you can change her name, along with the other heroes names, at the beginning. I just thought this was the sweetest gesture!  Thank you Alex and Alex's crafty friend for the wonderful gift :D

Thanks for reading guys (=  Please click the images to enlarge, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!