Doctor Crafty's Green and Orange Abstract - NCC Recreations

Hey y'all!

It's finally Friday!  This makes for exciting news for most of the us, and today I'm excited to be able to bring you my final recreation for this month's Nail Challenge Collaborative theme, celebrating 3 years of nail art goodness.  Today I've decided to recreate Doctor Crafty's Green and Orange Abstract Geometric nail art, which I thought was a really unique and colorful, fun look.

Ron from Chamber of Secrets - Magical Monday

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Here we are again on the second Monday of the month, and that mean it's Magical Monday!  This month Cat and I are tackling our favorite characters from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Since last month, Cat's "Flying Impala" nail art turned into more of a "Ron Weasley" look, and Ron was scheduled to be our next major character, I decided to go ahead and play catch up with her to do my own Ron look, focusing on his journey in the second story.

Magical Mondays - Hermione!

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It's that time of the month again!  No, not THAT time, the time when I team up with bloggy buddy Cat from BGPolish to honor Harry Potter in nail art!  This month we've chosen to give some love to the brightest witch of her age, Miss Hermione Granger.

Magical Mondays - Ford Anglia meets Whomping Willow

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Ahhh... it's nice to feel myself returning to a "normal" posting schedule.  I'm going to be reverting back to the M-W-F nail art schedule, with Swatch It on Saturdays - a schedule I haven't been on since November, before the 31DC and the 12DOC challenges that consumed the past two months!  Also, my goal is to get a tutorial up on YouTube every 2 weeks for now, until I get faster with filming and editing videos (it takes forEVER!).  Today, though, the focus is all about my monthly collab with Cat of Belle Glamour, and our mutual love for all things Harry Potter.  This month we decided to pay tribute to one of our favorite scenes from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - when Ron and Harry fly Mr. Weasley's flying Ford Anglia right into the Whomping Willow in their effort to get to Hogwarts on time!

31DC-D18 - Artwork

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Today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Artwork, and whilst I was browsing the internet for inspiration for yesterday's Tranquility look, I came across a painting that I really wanted to recreate as a nail art look.

Magical Mondays and 31DC-D12 - Film

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Happy Magical Monday!  Today I'm back with the next installment of the collab series I'm doing with Belle Glamour, celebrating one of our favorite mutual interests, Harry Potter.  It also works out quite nicely that today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Film, so I could kill two birds with one stone!  This month, Cat and I are showcasing our favorite characters from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorceror's) Stone.  My personal favorite character is Hagrid, played by Robbie Coltrane in the films.

31DC-D11 - Reversed Polarities

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Today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Reversed Polarities, which confused quite a few people, apparently.  Originally I had intended to do a purple and yellow half-and-half nail with some needle dragging in concentric circles, but after Debbie explained what she meant with this prompt on a group discussion board, I had to rethink what I was doing.  The less confusing term for this look would be something like photo negative, or inverted colors, where the colors of a nail art are flipped to the opposite color.  I almost immediately thought a skyline mani would look cool with the colors inverted, and possibly because we just booked our next trip to Austin, I just had to give it a try with my hometown's skyline.

12DOC: Freestyle Christmas Tartan Plaid

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Today is an exciting day for two reasons!  First, it is the final prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge which has consumed this month's blogging activity for me, and the second reason is a fairly big blogging milestone.  This is my 300th post!  Who would've thought when I started this journey just over a year ago that I'd have logged 300 entries into this blog?  It's very bizarre for me.  In any event, today's final prompt for this challenge is Freestyle, leaving it completely open to each artist's interpretation.  I took inspiration from another artist's design for the Red and Green prompt and while my attempt is nowhere near as sophisticated or chic as Natasja's of Love Life Lacquer, here are my Christmas tartan/plaid nails!

12DOC: Presents!

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Happy first day of winter (officially)!  Seems a bit bizarre, given that I've been wearing a uniform of sweatshirts, long pants, and socks for months now, but I'm still a Texas girl at heart and it's bizarre that my flip-flops were retired for the year in October.  Today marks the penultimate prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas nail art challenge!  It's also the final assigned prompt, because Tuesday's prompt will be freestyle and open to all the artists' interpretations.  I find this prompt particularly appropriate though, because it involves something that I still haven't done and need to do quickly - wrapping presents!

12DOC: Christmas Decorations

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Yup, it's Monday, again, and we're now halfway through December.  By now, neighborhoods should be filled with creative and festive light-up displays at dusk, where enterprising homeowners compete with one another for the most Christmas-y lawn display of the street.  This was the inspiration I used to complete today's 12 Days of Christmas prompt: Christmas Decorations.

12DOC: Red and Green Candy Canes

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We are now in the final half of the 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge, and today's prompt is Red and Green colors.  I took inspiration from the colorful Christmas candy canes (and two of Barry M's Winter Silk shades) to create this striped design.

12DOC: Hoth Camo!

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Hold onto your seats for a minute... because my nail art for today's 12 Days of Christmas prompt contains 0% nail charms!  Are you so excited??  I totally am.  Today the Challenge Your Nail Art group is tackling the colors Icy Blue and White, so I decided I wanted to go Tauntaun hunting on Hoth, and was gonna need some camo!

12DOC: Snowmen

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Happy Friday!  Can you believe we've already made it through the first week of December, and Christmas is only 3 weeks away?  Sometimes it feels like the first half of the year drags on and takes forever, then as soon as September hits, everything whizzes past!  Marching right along in the 12 Days of Christmas challenge is today's prompt: Snowmen, so I turned once again to that trusty pack of nail charms I bought at Poundland, and added some freehand nail art to flesh out my look.

Holo Leopard nail art

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Happy Black Friday!  Today I have a quick and easy nail art look for you that will sparkle and shine without requiring too much effort from your food-coma'd state.  This leopard print is done in autumn/fall friendly shades, and doesn't take an art degree to pull off!

Fall-ing for Nail Art: Traditional Thanksgiving

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Happy Thanksgiving!  To my US readers, I hope you're all stuffed to the gills with yummy food and in the company of loved ones.  At the very least, I hope each and everyone one of you can find something for which to be thankful, and that goes for all of you, regardless of your national origin or geographic location.  Today's final prompt in the Fall-ing for Nail Art challenge is Traditional Thanksgiving images, and I bounced back on forth for this prompt for several days, trying to find something that wasn't too cliched or that hasn't been seen a million times already.  I've got a very untraditional take on traditional images, and it was inspired by my shopping trip today where I was really overloaded with all the Christmas decorations and sales going up in November.  It seems to happen earlier and earlier with each passing year, and here in the UK I was actually seeing Christmas sales going up before Halloween!

Fall-ing for Nail Art: Cinnamon Apples

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I'm back today with another look for the Fall-ing for Nail Art challenge, and this time the prompt is Fall Foods!  I had a good long think about all the ways I could interpret this prompt and finally settled on a combo that creates one of my favorite fragrances of autumn: cinnamon and apples!

Guest Post: Rachel of Nail Parade!

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Today the guest post series continues, where I hand over the steering wheel to another UK nail blogger, Rachel.  This lovely young lady dabbles in a bit of everything on her blog beyond just swatches and nail art, including her life, her books, her makeup, and even scouting!  It's my pleasure to introduce you to the nails which lead the Nail Parade!

Hey everyone! My name's Rachel and I'm from the blog Nail Parade!  Today I'm bringing a cute little hearts design for your nails, which I have featured on my blog before, but that was quite a while ago now so I'm bringing it back!  And don't worry, you don't need to be super amazing at using nail art brushes (I know I'm not!) because it doesn't even require them! All you need is 3 nail polishes. 

Beetlejuice Nail Art CYNA Halloween themed TV or movie inspired

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Happy Halloween, and happy Friday!  October went by so incredibly fast, I almost cannot believe it!  October 31 is, traditionally, one of my favorite days of the year because I love dressing up and going out and seeing everyone else dressed up and having a good time.  The Halloween season also brings around some of my favorite movies, including the one that inspired me for today's prompt for the Challenge Your Nail Art series, Beetlejuice!  As he says, "It's Showtime!"

Spooky French Tips CYNA Halloween Villains

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Today marks the penultimate prompt for the Challenge Your Nail Art Halloween challenge, and the prompt is actually one that I suggested, so I knew I had to "bring it" with my contribution.  I opted to put a bit of a spin on these classic Halloween monsters by creating them as french tips.  Can you identify all the spooky species?

Jack-O'-Lanterns! CYNA Pumpkin Faces

Hey y'all!

I'm back with another Halloweeny nail art courtesy of the Challenge Your Nail Art Halloween linkup.  Today's prompt is the classic Pumpkin Face, so I've created a bevy of handful of wacky jack-o-lanterns for you!