Nail Polish Canada's 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 1 - SNOW

Hello everyone!

I was very surprised when Nail Polish Canada invited me to participate in their 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE. It made me very happy! :-) I remember the beautiful manicures for last year's challenge, and and it's been very interesting to see what has been made so far this year. The challenge will run for three weeks (one mani per week). And we can participate one week or all three. The theme this first week is Snow, and we can make anything related to snow. This is my entry for week 1. As you hopefully can see, a snow fairy tried to make pink snow in her little Winter Wonderland on my nails. As usual, I have more photos of this manicure, and further down, you'll find a list of products, and I'll tell how I did this.

Although I can't win the prizes, (because I don't have a mailing address in Canada or the U.S.) you can vote for me. Just click here to vote for your favourite, or if you want to take a look at the other entries. If you want to join in, you can find all details and sign in here.

What I did:

1. I started with white nails. Then I made a pink- white gradient. I mixed pink and white nail polish on my palette (the back side of a stamping plate) with a dotting tool, and used a sponge.
2. For the layer of snow on the tips, I used the one stroke technique. I used pink and white acrylic craft paint for that, and a small angled brush. Usually I use fast drying top coat between layers, but this time I added a shimmer top coat first; one coat of IsaDora #769. (It shows IRL.)
3. Then I used different stamping plates, and a XL stamper for the fairy. For the snowflakes I used a Konad stamper most of the time, and white, pink and red Konad stamping polishes. And I made some dots from the fairy's wand.
4. The photos were taken inside. Because it was dark outside, I brought  a bag of snow to the kitchen, and made a little snow photo studio. I used an Ott- Lite, and held my hand in a shoe box with white sheets of paper inside. To not get everything wet, I placed a plastic bag under the snow. I've recently started taping pizza baking paper on the Ott- Lite, after seeing this photo tutorial on My Awesome Beauty. An Ott- Lite lamp is a good alternative, if you live in Canada or other places where there's little winter daylight.

After taking photos with Ott- lite yesterday, I had a chance to take photos in daylight this morning. The one taken in daylight is the first photo, and there you can see the shimmer better. But the gradient shows better on the other photos.

Products used:

IsaDora: #600 (base coat)
IsaDora: #603 Tip White
GOSH: #598 Bubble Gum (pink)
dotting tool
sponge
Acrylic craft paint: Titanium White (white), Rose (dark pink)
small angled brush
IsaDora: #769 Mother of Pearl
Seche Vite (fast drying top coat)
Konad stamping polish: Red, Psyche Pink, Pastel Pink, White
XL stamper
Konad stamper
lint roller (to remove polish from the stamper)
Stamping plates:
Fairy and snowflakes: MoYou London: Princess 07
Snowflakes:
MoYou London: Princess 02
MoYou London: Artist 04
HB-23
BM- 323
1 little bag of snow (for the photos)

I hope you liked these pink snow nails, and that you'll participate in this challenge too. I wonder what the next theme will be.

Lani

How to make one snowfall last a year, and be able to take winter nail photos whenever you want to.

Hello everyone!

Yes, it's that time of the year again. It's getting colder, (at least here in the north,) and it's time to change to winter tires. Do you have a lot of winter nail art ideas or stamping plates, but wait for the first snowfall so that you can have a snowy background on your photos? I can take those snow photos whenever I want to, because I froze down snow last winter. And today I want to show you how I did it. If it rarely snows where you live, it can be fun to enjoy the snow a little longer.

Two ways to get a winter background for your nails when it's not winter:

When I took my Midsummer/ Midwinter French Nails photos this summer, I used snow from a bag I had in the freezer. But the year before, when I took the Penguin Day Nails photos, my boyfriend used a knife, and cut out some pieces of frost/ ice from the freezer. Then the only thing you have to do is not defreeze the freezer as often as you should.

How to make real snow last:

Make sure that you have what you need, before it gets below 0 degrees Celsius at night.

All you need is:
snow
clean spoon
zipper plastic bag/ or a plastic bag that you can close
freezer

The bag doesn't have to be plastic when it's cold. But when you take the bag out of the freezer, it's easier to have the snow in a plastic bag, in case it starts to melt.


Then, when you have what you need, just wait for it to start snowing, and check the weather forecast.

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What you want is clean white snow. So it can be a good idea to use snow from a garden table, instead of the snow on the ground or close to a road. As I try to show you below, the cleanest snow is in the middle. But if you have fresh snow, the snow on the top is also clean.

Then use your spoon, and fill your bags. But remember to leave some space for air in each bag, before you close it.

I used these small bags, or the ones I use for fluids on the plane, because we have a tiny freezer. But if your family think it's ok to fill the freezer with snow instead of food, use bigger bags if you want to.

I put my bags in the freezer when I had filled them, but of course you can wait until it nearly gets warm enough for the snow to start melting.

Then, when you are ready to use your snow, just shake the bags. Or if it has turned into a snowball, use a fork to make it look more like snow. If you want it to look like a bigger pile of snow, put the snow on something white, and your nails on it, and focus on the nails and snow only.

What's also nice about being able to take snowy pictures when you want to, is that you don't have to work in the low winter light. But if there is snow outside, and you have OttLite or other good indoor lighting, you can make a little snow studio inside.

Good luck!

Lani