Ugly Christmas Sweater Nails

Howdy folks! IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! Ahh, I love the holiday season. There is nothing better than the smell of pine trees (or, the smell of scented pine sticks placed in a fake Christmas tree, but it's almost the same) and fresh baked cookies. However, one of my top favorite things from the Christmas season isn't all the trees, or baking, but the ugly Christmas sweaters! There's only one month of the year to break them out of the closet, so I make sure to give mine plenty of use in that time.
Here's the beautiful little number I based today's design off of. It's actually not that hideous in the grand scheme of ugly Christmas sweaters, but... definitely still able to be classified as an "ugly sweater." My dear great-aunt Irene bought this for me years ago, and it's only been in the past  two that I've gotten up the courage to wear it. I have to say, it's growing on me, and it's super warm and snuggly, but for the purposes of this post we're going to consider it as an ugly sweater.

Here's a close-up of the pattern I (loosely) based my design off of.

Onto the tutorial!
You'll need:
- base coat
- tan polish
- black striper
- red polish
- dotting tool
- green polish
- black polish
- top coat
- matte top coat

Start off with a base coat and paint your nails with a light tan color.

Maybelline - Sandstorm

About one third down your nail, use a black striper to paint thin zig-zagged lines.

Art Deco - Black

A bit farther down the nail, use the same striper to paint another, somewhat thicker, zig-zagged line.

Use a red polish to paint on quick red tips. Remember to rotate your finger, instead of the brush, as you paint to get a smoother line.

OPI - Cajun Shrimp

Silly me forgot to take photos for a couple of the steps here, but use a green polish and a dotting tool to add dots along the red tip, and add a few dots in black above the first zig-zag. Then seal it all in with a topcoat.

China Glaze - Exotic Encounters
Sally Hansen - Black Heart

Christmas sweaters aren't shiny, though, so add a matte topcoat to de-shiny-ify everything.

Nails Inc. Matte Topcoat

Ta-da!

Thanks for reading! As usual, remember to follow on GFC/Twitter/Facebook/etc. using any of the buttons on the right-hand side of the blog if you enjoyed this post. Facebook doesn't seem to be sharing my posts with very many people anymore, so if you'd still like to hear from me, make sure to add my page to an interests list or follow using one of the other sites!

Does anyone else here share my love of ugly Christmas sweaters? Have a particularly hideous one you'd like to share a picture of? Let me know in the comments, or post a picture on my Facebook page. See you all soon! 

Turkey Nails

Hello, everyone! Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Four weeks without a post, acck! So what was Allie doing for the past month, if not painting nails and blogging, you may ask? I happened to be doing NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. What you do is sit down for the entire month of November and try to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Sounds fun, right? This is the first year I've ever completed it, which I'm really proud of (clocked in about mid-day yesterday with 50,132 words), but it also meant a lot of other stuff in my life slipped that month. Namely, painting nails, and blogging about it. However, NaNoWriMo is over now (I'm not sure if I'm saddened by that, or a bit relieved) and that means I can devote my full attention to the blog again! So thanks to everyone who's stuck with me throughout my long absence. You're all the best!

Anyway, onto the nails. Here's the design that I wore for Thanksgiving. Just some simple turkey nails! Thanksgiving is past, but maybe you'll find some other reason to have little turkeys on your nails soon. Enjoy the tutorial!

You will need:

- base coat

- blue polish

- green polish

- striping brush

- dotting tool(s)

- tan polish

- light brown polish

- dark brown polish

- white polish

- yellow polish

- red polish

- top coat

Start off with a base coat and paint your nails a light blue color. 

China Glaze - For Audrey

Dip a striping brush into green polish and make light strokes at the base of your nail to create grass.

Essie - Mojito Madness

Using a dotting tool and tan polish, draw feathers spreading out from a center point, leaving space in between each one.

Maybelline - Sandstorm

Fill in the spaces you left with the tan polish with similar lines made with your dotting tool and the lighter brown polish. 

China Glaze - Foie Gras

Use a larger dotting tool if you have one (or just use the same one as before, if you don't), and create the turkey body and head. Then drag the polish down twice at the bottom of the nail to create little legs. 

Essie - Little Brown Dress

It's at this point that my camera chose to spaz out and not take nice pictures. I took tons and tons and tons of photos, with different angles and different lighting and everything, but for some reason, my camera wasn't having it. Guess who has just moved "new camera" to the top of her Christmas list? This girl!

Anyway, as all of the other pictures were complete fuzzy messes, I had to combine a few steps into one in the least blurry picture I could find. 

Use a small dotting tool and white polish to dot on little eyes. Use the same dotting tool and yellow polish to create a triangular beak, and add a teensy bit of red for the wattle (does anyone else love that word as much as I do? I think it's completely hilarious). 

After that, all you need is a top coat and some cuticle clean-up if you have any to do, and that's it!

China Glaze - White on White
Sally Hansen - Lightening
OPI - Cajun Shrimp

That's all there is to it! Thanks for reading. Did any of you do NaNoWriMo this year, and if so, how'd it go? Anyone have funny family Thanksgiving stories they'd like to share? I'd love to hear about everything in the comments, so don't hesitate to leave one below. And I will definitely see you all next week, with a new post, back on schedule!