Snowy tree

Once again, I sought inspiration for today's mani, but it's perfect for today since we got dumped on with snow by winter storm Draco yesterday. We got at least a foot of snow!  This time it came from a pin that I found.  Instead of using red like in the picture, I decided to go with a green since that's my favorite polish color! While looking over the greens that I had, I wanted to do something a bit different than the traditional Christmas green.  When I saw Zoya Bevin, I knew that it was the perfect color!

I used two coats of Zoya Bevin as the base.  I free handed the snow and tree using Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner. Just like the other tree mani I did, I didn't use tape for the tree though I should have.  I really like how this turned out though! In Wisconsin, we have long winters so I might have to revisit this idea sometime again.

Sassy Lacquer Boughs of Mint Holly

My friend Carrie from Sassy Lacquer had a sale a while ago, and I bought three polishes from her.  Today I am showing you Boughs of Mint Holly from her Winter 2012 collection.

Bough of Mint Holly is a mint green creme polish.  Within the base is gold shimmer, fine silver glitter, and shredded red glitter.

I used three thin coats for these pictures. Mint Holly applies wonderfully and dries quickly between coats.

What I like about this polish is that even though it is a Christmas polish, it's not overtly just for Christmas and can be worn other times of the year.

Naughty Christmas!

Every year a friend of ours hosts a naughty Christmas party. Before your imagination runs wild, it does NOT involve us doing sexual things. It's just a joke. It's a way to relax during the holidays and have fun. If you want to participate, you can bring a gift and we do a grab bag. For my gift this year, I had my friend from Sassy Lacquer create a custom polish called.... are you ready for it? Here Cums Santa. She was so good natured about it too! I had her make me one too, and I have pictures for you today.

The base is white for well.... you know! Then the red is for Santa's coat, the black for his belt, and silver for his belt buckle.

Naild'It Snow Flake Cake

I was given Naild'It Snow Flake Cake a while ago by a friend but was waiting for the appropriate time to wear it. Since it's winter now, I think it's time!

I knew I wanted to layer this polish, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to use as the undies so I broke out a nail wheel and a bunch of polishes.

From left to right, we have Zoya Isla, Zoya Arizona, Sinful Colors Amethyst, FingerPaints Art You Blue?, Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Lam-Lam, China Glaze Exotic Encounters, Sinful Color Leap Flog, Rimmel Black Satin, Sally Hansen Gunmetal, Sinful Colors Slate, and 2 coats and 1 coat of Snow Flake Cake on it's own.

Here's the combo I finally chose to do on my nails.

It was a bit difficult to photograph, but you can see all the awesome glitters in the bottle shot below.

This last one is a bit blurry, but you can see the great holographic glitter that way.

My base color was Sinful Colors Slate which you can on its own below.

Art You Blue? & Gold

Just a quick post for you today. Sorry about the pictures being in my husband's car! We had a few cloudy days so I snapped this in car when it was sunny in case I wasn't able to get other pictures, and I was right!

The base for this mani is Finger Paints Art You Blue? I used 2 coats here. It's a beautiful dark denim blue with some shimmer to it. On top, I added Jessica Gold Leaf 18K. My friend managed to pick this up for me at a supply shop she visits, and it was only $15! That's a steal compared to it's usual price or even compared to the price of other gold leaf top coats. It did take some placing and maneuvering to get it to look this good, but I still love it!

Guest Post: Hailey

Today's guest post is from my friend Hailey. She's not a blogger so just enjoy her post!

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Hello Everyone!
My lovely friend Jessica just gave birth to the most adorable little gentleman and was looking for some people to do posts for her. I personally don't have a blog, but I thought I'd try to lend a hand and post some pics and talk a bit about it! So a very big thank you to Jessica for trusting me to do my first ever blog post here on her awesome blog! I must say I am totally honoured, and I'll admit, a bit nervous! Be kind dear readers! <3

The art I chose to try my hand at (uhm...no pun intended) was inspired from Nailside. I've been in love with it since the first time I saw it and have kept putting off trying it myself. I figured this was the perfect reason to do it. And for anyone interested...yes I am holding a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser. 

If you know Nailside, you know her lines are perfect. And since she's the one coming up with this stuff she knows how to do them properly. Mine isn't quite so perfect, but for my first try I'm pretty happy with it! 
I figure I'll tell you what I did and why it wasn't the right way, or the easiest way to do it. Hopefully you'll be inspired to give it a try yourself and can learn from my mistakes.

First I did a base coat of Gelous. Personally I like it because I find it dries in a reasonable amount of time and it seems to do a decent job of protecting from staining. The second and third steps were thin coats of China Glaze Sexy in the City. It's not the exact colour used in the original, but I don't have it and my Sephora doesn't either. So make do with what you've got! Side note: I think this would be really pretty with purple and silver, or possibly lime green and hot pink. Don't limit yourself!

From here I cut a triangle out from a piece of tape with it angled wide enough to go to the edges of my nails. I didn't get each side even, but unless someone is getting all up in your bubble they won't be able to tell. Promise! I discarded the cut out portion and put the tape on my nail.

The next step is the gold...I used Claire's Gold Fleck. I got it about a hundred years ago, I believe around Christmas. Any gold will do. A one coater is preferable. One mistake I made was waiting for the gold to dry completely before stamping. But I learned pretty quick after the first couple nails. As soon as the gold was dry to the touch, but still wet underneath I stamped with Konad black using the Konad plate M57. Now to peel off the tape! Also, this is where I realized what an awful mistake I'd made. Peeling the tape should really be done when the polish is still wet or the polish will peel off with the tape. Which is what happened to me and why, as you can see, my edges aren't perfectly straight. Since I decided to go this way, I had to do one nail at a time to try and avoid as much peeling as possible. Tedious.

Once I peeled away the tape, and rearranged my peeling triangles I used a coat of Seche Vite to seal it in.
Now for my advice: Paint your nails gold, stamp, cover the triangle at the tips of your nails to protect them and paint the blue last. This way you can peel the tape off right away when the polish is still wet and get smooth, straight lines.
So lesson learned! 

Have any of you tried a tape mani? Did you learn the hard way too? Any thoughts on other fun colour combos to try?Thank you so much Jessica for having me here! Congrats on the little bundle of joy!

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What an awesome post Hailey!!! I think you should try blogging!

Guest Post: Constantly Redone

Today's guest post is from Constantly Redone

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Jessica worked so hard growing a beautiful baby boy, how could I resist doing a guest post for her?  I'm from Constantly Redone (http://constantlyredone.blogspot.com/) and today I'm happy to share with you some ornate nail art.

Strangely enough, my right hand came out much better than my left.  I must need more practice!  But on to the nails...the base color for this is China Glaze "Deviantly Daring" from the recent Bohemian collection.  The freehand nail art features three chromy-metallic colors in the gold family;
the true bronze is China Glaze "Poetic" which is part of their permanent line.  Deborah Lippman's "Sugar Daddy" is a rose gold/gold duochrome polish.  Finally, we have one of my precious favorites, the coveted Sally Hansen "Amber Ruby" nail prism.  It's got a serious burgundy/gold shift.

The pattern is inspired by paisley prints and wallpapers I wish I had.   I love the combo of blue and gold, especially a deep teal blue like this one.  I hope this inspires you!  Thanks, Jessica, for letting me celebrate with you!

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Looks great!!! Thanks!

Guest post: Kayleigh from Taupe is the New Black

Today's guest post is from Kayleigh.

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Hi everyone! I'm Kayleigh and I run my blog Taupe is the New Black as well as my Tumblr Nail Art by Kayleigh. Jessica very graciously asked me to do a guest post for her, and I was pretty excited as it's the first time I've ever done a guest post!

We're officially into December now, primetime for some cute wintery and holiday themed nail art! Sometimes when you're feeling a little strapped for inspiration, even the simplest thing can hit you like a thunderbolt and make you think, "Duh, why didn't I think of that?". Such was the case with this mani!

This one is inspired by a very simple but eyecatching wrapping paper that I saw! The colours are classic Christmas and best of all, it's a really easy design that anyone can try!

The background colour is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy, and the dots are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On and Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Red Red.

Thanks again to Jessica, and congratulations to her on her new baby! :)

-Kayleigh

Guest Post: Griselda from Oh Me! Oh My!

Today's guest post is from Griselda

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Hey everyone, it's Griselda from Oh Me! Oh My!

I want to start of by congratulating Jessica on her new little bundle of joy and to say thank you for considering me to be a guest blogger! This is actually the first time I've ever been ask to be a guest blogger and I felt so honored to be ask. I had such a hard time deciding on what to do on my nails for this guest post but then I finally settled on this design so I hope you all like it!

What I used:

- Seche Clear

- Orly Miss Conduct 

- Color Club Gingerbread

- So Easy Stripe Rite in Black

- Seche Vite

I figured I couldn't go wrong with something glittery, pink and leopard print! 

I really liked the way this turned out and it has a festive feel to it so it makes a good holiday mani.

Once again thank you Jessica for allowing me to be a guest blogger on Ruby's Nails!

xoxo

Guest Post: Patricia from Polished and Glittered

Today's guest post is from Patricia.

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Hello there!! I’m Patricia from Polished and Glittered. I’m fairly new to the nail polish community, so it was a huge surprise when Jessica asked me to guest post on her blog And I think it’s so cool that her name is Jessica because that is my daughter’s name!!

Never having done a guest post before, I wanted to do something really awesome.. and what better way than to show off this beautiful glitter polish from Cagedbird Nail Lacquer!

This is two coats of Sinful Colors In the Mist, which is a gorgeous gray-green. This very well could be a one-coater, but I used two for good measure. Then I layered Electric Angel by Cagedbird Nail Lacquer over In the Mist. There are large black hex glitter, medium silver and teal hex glitters, and small black and teal glitters. It took me a while to figure out what to wear this over. I knew I didn’t want to be matchy-matchy, lol. Then I remembered the new Sinfuls I just got! And ta-da!!

I hope you enjoy this and a huge congratulations to Jessica on the birth of her beautiful baby boy!! I’ve been there twice and they grow up so fast, so enjoy it while you can 

Patricia @ Polished and Glittered

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Love the glitter! Thanks, Patricia