Happy New Year's Eve

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year's Eve and hope everyone has their resolutions all lined up. I know I don't, LOL! Anyways, here is my last mani of the year, my blingy silver holo glitter extravaganza. I used Sally Hansen Celeb City as my frosty silver foil base color (can see it on my accent nail), then I dipped my nails in some unnamed tub of ultra fine silver holographic nail glitter. Then 2 coats of Seche Vite to encase the glitter and smooth it out. I cannot describe how sparkly this looks in the sun in real life. These picture only capture about a tenth of the sparkle. I used small black beads from a Bundle Monster nail art wheel set for the 2012 and yes, it was a pain in the you-know-what. Enjoy!

See you all next year and as always...

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Giveaways

There a lot of great giveaways going on out there right now so I decided to add a page called Giveaways to my blog where I can share the ones I run across. You can get there by clicking here or by clicking on the Giveaways tab above. I tried to post a small picture of what each one is giving away although there was a few that it wouldn't let me for some reason.

I will try to post some of my Fort Bragg trip photos (including what polish I was wearing) later or tomorrow.

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Fort Bragg

Just about ready to walk out the door for the hubby and my Fort Bragg trip, will be back sometime on the 29th but will definitely post on the 30th. Hubby is "sneaking" along the laptop so I may "sneak" in some mani posts as I am taking a few polishes with me just in case. *wink, wink*

Either way I will have some awesome shots of Fort Bragg when I get back.

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Merry Pinkmas!!!

Merry Christmas all! I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas! I thought I'd pop in now that gifting and food is done to show you my Christmas Day mani. I was getting tired of the green and red manicures and even my blue snowflakes so I opted for pink. Yep, pink! I couldn't find a pink in my collection I wanted to use as a base coat so I frankened (is that a word?) one up. Unfortunately I used to lower end polishes to make it so it was a bit streaky and took 3 coats but I love the color. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, so we'll just call it Merry Pinkmas for now. Ya know being how it's pink and it's Christmas.

I then sponged on Sinful Colors Snow Me White (flat white creme), then sponged over it with Orly Au Champagne (frosty, shimmery white), then again with Sinful Color Smoking Hot (small, white iridescent glitter). I konaded some Christmas trees & "Merry Christmas" from m12. As well as some snowflakes from m59 and one from BM-14. I used Konad special polish in white, Color Club Foil Me Once (light pink foil), and Color Club Hot Like Lava (bright pink foil) as my stamping polishes.

I went back over the Christmas trees with China Glaze Shooting Stars and used Kleancolor Aurora for the pink stars.

So here's a few shots of the final result, a few of which don't capture the true color or the glitter sparkle showing once again that I need a lightbox. Luckily, hubby wants some pics of his bonsai so he said he'd build me one after our vacay. Woo Hoo!!!

Merry Christmas and Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Christmas Eve Mani

It's tradition in my hubby's family to open gifts from family on Christmas Eve and then open gifts from Santa on Christmas Day. So we've been busy eating buffet style food including the most awesome meatballs in a mushroom gravy (YUM!) and opening gifts. Just got the older kids to bed and am fighting the 2 year old who is currently running (and I do mean running) through the house with her 2 & a half year old cousin...and now my hubby just informed me that my oldest is puking, so I need to go. Will post pics if I get a chance, if not I hope you'll all understand. My poor "Sunshine"~the flu is a crappy Christmas gift...crap, now he's puking too.

Check this out if you get a chance, absolutely awesome "Twas the Night Before Christmas" mani story by Canadian Nail Fanatic.

Much Love, Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas to all~The Dragon Lady

Stone Cold Snowflakes

I was starting to feel left out for not doing a snowflake mani, I was going to save mine until after Christmas but I was getting kind of tired of red and green so figured it was time. For the mani I used Orly Stone Cold, which I think is my new favorite dark blue. It's both bright and dark at the same time! I think it's in part to the small flakies (large shimmer?) that makes this polish pop. I then proceeded to stamp with XL Special Holiday plate K, m59, and BM-14. I used China Glaze Adore, China Glaze Devotion, and Konad Special Polish in white for my snowflakes. Excuse the lack of clean up as I was racing the sun to take pictures...I have decided I just need to cave and build a light box. LOL!

I then decided to sponge some iridescent glitter on top. I used an unnamed pink to purple to blue giltter from Shades of the Season and then Sinful Colors Smoking Hot. I still haven't decided whether this was a good idea or not, I think I liked it better before the glitter. What do you think?

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Yesterday's Christmas mani + konad

I wasn't ready to give up my mani from yesterday (Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe & Orly Rock-It) with all of it's sparkly goodness so I decided to add some Christmas konad stamps to it. I used konad special white stamping polish and plates m12, XL Special Holiday K, and BM222. It didn't come out quite as good as I hoped so I won't be keeping it past tomorrow.

 

Thumb

Index

Middle

Ring

Pinky

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

More Christmas manis *PIC HEAVY*

I had a Christmas party to go to so I needed to do something festive with my nails but didn't have very long to do it as I was running behind after doing my oldest two daughter's nails for their upcoming holiday trip with the grandparents. So I opted just to do a red and green mani with lots of sparkle but no glitter that way I can play with it a bit more later. I choose to paint my ring finger and my thumb Orly Rock-It (just the accent nail didn't seem festive enough, LOL) and the remaining three fingers Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe. I used two coats of Rock-It and three coats of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe. Then topped them all of with a coat of Seche Vite to speed things along.

 

These are picture of my daughter's manis, both used my franken, Reindeer Poop, because it explodes with festive, Christmasy colored glitter, and their favorite part...it smells like peppermint candy cane. I keep catching them sniffing their fingers and then I get, "What?.....It smells good." LOL

I used three coats of Reindeer Poop on both the girls' manis because they didn't want to use a base color, I only needed one coat over white for my previous mani.

Oldest daughter, aka "Sunshine":

Middlest daughter, aka "Sweetie Pie":

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Christmas and Holly

Sorry I didn't post this earlier but I have been running around doing some Christmas shopping and haven't had time.Then I sat down to photograph some polish and started making frankens and got a little distracted. Anyway, this mani is three coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White topped with one coat of my franken, that I think I'm going to call Reindeer Poop because it looks like chewed up and ate some Christmas decorations and it also smells like peppermint candy canes. This franken has gold, silver, green, red, and holo microglitter, small green, red, silver, and gold hex glitter, large silver & holo hex glitter, and finally extra large silver hex glitter - all in a clear base. My accent nail is three coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White konaded with BM 14 and Blue Cross Snowman unnamed green foil, then I decorated the holly berries with China Glaze Ruby Pumps and a dotting tool then topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust. All nails got a coat if Seche Vite (caused some shrinkage on a few nails).

Sunlight

Macro - sunlight

Macro - shade

Macro - accent nail

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Day 10: GRADIENT nails

This is my last 31 day challenge post for this month, I am taking a break to play with Christmas and wintery manis. I wanted something wintery as it is technically my first day of winter break. I went for the SNOW-mani, white shimmery, glittery, holo awesomeness. I used Orly Au Champagne (2 coats), with Sally Hansen Diamonds (1coat) as my base for this gradient. I started my second layer of gradient with Orly Winter Wonderland, then Jesse's Girl Firefly, then China Glaze Snow Globe and finally China Glaze Shooting Stars (all 1 partial coat).

I had a difficult time getting a picture that showed the shimmer, the sparkle of the glitter and the holo rainbow flashes all at once so here's several pictures to show the various aspects. I liked how this turned out but I don't think I will keep it past tomorrow.

Sunlight - you can really see the iridescent glitter from Snow Globe in this one

Sunlight

Outside in the shade

Blurry to show holo

Macro

 

I am headed up to my mother's tomorrow to do a Christmas mani for a party she has coming up so I hope to post pictures if I can talk her into something fun. She tends to favor warm, neutral colors and I am trying to get her to experiment with some gold foil and Christmas greens, and some glitter.

Much Love, The Dragon Lady