Candy Cane

I pulled out all my stamping plates to find the perfect Candy Cane image for today's nail art.
Surrounded with stamping plates, I was eagerly looking for anything with stripes and swirls that would work for this delicious look.

Candy Cane - Picture by JuttBahi

First I needed the perfect polish for the look.

To get that I grabbed the much hated Ciate - Boudoir that I used for a previous look this month. since I didn't like how sheer the polish was I decided to turn it into something that I could use. I poured all of it in a full sized bottle, and cleaned out the Mini bottle in order to re-purpose it for another franken polish one day.

If you are wondering how to properly clean out nail polish bottles, take a look at this handy link.

I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here


With bottle cleaned out, and empty space in a full sized nail polish bottle, I grabbed StarGazer - 315, a gorgeous glass fleck red polish, and added some. Mixing wise it was 2 parts Ciate - Boudoir and 1 part StarGazer -315.
Together they make a lovely crelly red with glass flecks. It also stamps, so perfect for what I was going for today.

Thanks to the awesome ladies at PAA, and in particular Lori, this polish was named:
Secretary's Nail Art - This is My Jam?

For base I used Sinful Color - Snow Me White.
I used BM-205 (ring finger), BM-210 (little finger), MASH 43 (index), and CH4 (middle finger) for this look.

Candy Cane Nail Art using MASH43, CH4, BM205 and BM210

Which nail you do think look the most like a Candy Cane?


I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

The Hipster Reindeer

After 5 hours of baking I am finally done with 3 different types of Christmas Cookies, and I managed to get a little time for a nail art look for you all. I might be high on sugar, and my belly full of cookie-dough, but I think this look turned out pretty cool.

According to Norwegian Christmas Traditions one is suppose to make 7 different kinds of Christmas Cookies for the big day. With these 3 done, I am now up to 4 different ones, so I only need another session like this and I will be done. Not Christmas without.

Since I have been standing on my feet for so long today, I am going to keep this post short, and I didn't do anything wildly elaborate with my nails today either. I simply did not have enough calm in me to do so.


I started out with a Ciate from my Ciate Mini Advent Calendar.
This time it was Ciate - Hopscotch. This looks like Ciate - Speed Dial to me, so I might have to do a comparison of the two later. Let me know if that is something you want to see.

Ciate - Hopscotch is quite sheer like the rest of the Ciate polishes in the Advent Calendar, for the look today I ended up doing 3 coats. I really did not have enough calm in my body to wait for all those coats to dry, as you can see on my middle finger.. where I smudged off the entire side of the nail. Obs. Girls, don't attempt at painting your nails while on a sugar-high. Not a good combination.

I feel more like running a marathon right now, than painting my nails. Haha. That never happens!

Once it was all dry I grabbed Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays and stamped using Wet N Wild - Black Creme, as an accent I chose Bundlemonsters new BMXL178 from the Work It! -collection.

This is an awesome look, and I immediately snapped a picture and sent to my favorite hipster here in Northern Ireland. The manicure earned themselves not one, but two thumbs up from a real hipster.
I think that is pretty awesome.

Ciate - Hopscotch, stamped using Wet N Wild - Black Creme and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays, and BMXL178

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Natalie's Christmas

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me and it contains product previously sent for reviewing purposes and affiliate link. For the full review of the 3D Christmas Sticker from BornPrettyStore, click here. Nothing further to disclose.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Today's look started out with 3 coats of Ciate - Encore!, it came in the Ciate Advent Calendar I bought, and if you want to see all the looks I have done using products from the Calendar, check them out here.  A warning has to be mentioned about Ciate - Encore!, it is a stainer. Though yellow nails are not in any way dangerous, it is ugly, and we would all prefer it if our nail polishes didn't stain our nails.

Ciate - Encore!

Since I can't leave anything alone, I topped it with Ard As Nails - Natalie, hence the title, and stuck some Christmas Stickers from BornPrettyStore in Gold from the TY114 section. In my initial post I was complaining about some bleeding that I discovered, and that was not the case with this look, which I am very glad for.

Ciate - Encore! with Ard As Nails - Natalie and BornPrettyStore TY114 Christmas Stickers

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me and it contains product previously sent for reviewing purposes and affiliate link. For the full review of the 3D Christmas Sticker from BornPrettyStore, click here. Nothing further to disclose.

Sparkle all the way

If you follow my Facebook page you have already seen a sneak peak of today's look. If you are not already following me there and wants more sneak peaks on upcoming posts, you are very welcome to join.

While I was out shopping for nail polishes a while ago, I was gifted this great little pouch with makeup brushes in it from the Seventeen brand. I didn't really care for the brushes, but the pouch makes a great clutch for outings. And it is large enough to fit my credit card, phone and keys. So that's what I have been using it for. So one day I decided to match up with my pouch for a night out.

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice?

This is the look I ended up with.

I started out with a peel off base, and gave each nail a coat of polish before going back using the dabbing method to cover any bald spots. Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? was really gooey and thick, while I had better luck with Ciate - Blizzard with little to no dabbing needed. Which also why Ciate - Blizzard is taking the main focus and Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? is only starring as an accent.

I ended up checking Ciate's webpage and tried finding the polishes from the Advent Calendar 2014 that I had bought, and could only find one: Ciate - Ringmaster , a mini bottle containing red, blue, silver and green hex glitters. Which has yet to make an appearance on here.
The other Ciate polishes are sold for 5 £ for the mini bottles and you can do a "Pick And Mix" 3 for 12 £ and full sized are 9 £.
Bit steep for polishes that can not be measured in quality to other polishes around the 10 £ mark.

After a lot of dabbing this is what it looked like. I also used the Ciate - Suspension Topcoat for this, and think that it did a great job smoothing everything out. So far it's the only thing that came in the Ciate Advent Calendar that I really liked. That being said, I might have to include Ciate - Blizzard on that list as well...

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? 

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice, stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I finished the look with some snowflakes using Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. For a full review, check over here. I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Shooting Stars

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

Today I have some nudes for you.
We are not talking about the aftermath of a Christmas Company Dinner going wrong here, but of today's nail art that I did for my little Advent Calendar here on the blog.
One new post every day until December 25th.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Yesterday I did a bright red look with cute hearts, and today I am toning it down a little with a nude polish and some gold nail art stickers. I am really trying to cater to everyone's taste  this holiday season.

This time I am back with a polish that I got in my Ciate Advent Calendar, this one was hiding behind door number 4. Ciate - Members only. This polish is very similar to Ciate - Ivory Queen, only difference is that Ciate - Members only is even sheerer. We are talking topper sort of sheerness in this one.  On my nails you will see 3 coats.

To finish the look I applied Christmas Stickers from BornPrettyStore in Gold, from the TY103 section of the sheet. In my initial post I was complaining about some bleeding that I discovered, and that was not the case with this look, which I am very glad for.

Ciate - Members only and BornPrettyStore stickers in TY103

This would actually work really well for a New Year look.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

Miss Mistletoe

I am trying to cater to everyone this holiday season, whether you are into stamping nail art, or not.
As the last couple of looks have been snowflakes, stamping and water decals, I thought I would go back to basics, and rather do a much cleaner look with a glittery accent.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Today I have attended to the annual Christmas Show by the Ulster Orchestra preforming The Snowman. If you do not know The Snowman, I would highly recommend checking it out.
It is one of my favorite animation movies for the holidays.

To be honest I always cry when I see it. It is that beautiful.

For this look I used Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir. On my nails you will see four coats (!) and there are still visible nail lines (VNL). Ciate - Boudoir is very sheer, and I prefer it topped over another red for a lush look. On its own it is not to my liking at all.
I'd much rather have a one coater than another crelly red. I sure got enough of those in my collection already.

Since the Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has such small glitters I decided to dab them on instead of doing a glitter placement. Some days you just don't have enough time to do a glitter placement, and this still looks cool dabbed on.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has gold, red, pink, and lavender hex glitters.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Let It Snow

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.


So the part of me trying to only post about one and one of the Advent Calendar polishes, to avoid spoilers for others is going out the window. I got a bit eager on trying them out, so I will just post them as I see fit.

Creating backgrounds for mail art

I started out with Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box, both polishes turned out to be quite sheer so I decided to build them up over each other to create a sort of marbleized background for my nail art today.

First I prepared the Uber Chic Stamping Mat with some base coat, just to note to you there that the base coat from Ciate that you get in the Advent Calendar is not good for this purpose.
Once prepared, I dropped two drops of each polish on to the mat close to each other and squished the stamper head down over them and did a little twist before transferring the polish from the stamper head to the prepared surface on the mat. This process was repeated 5 times in order to build a suitable opacity.

Once the decals where dry, I peeled them of and stuck them on my nails and cleaned away the excess polish.

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together

When it was all done, I added two quick coats of Ciate - Snow Globe over all my nails, and topped that off with 2 coats of topcoat, preparing it for the next step.

...

adding snowflakes, stars, a reindeer, and some extra dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

I am using the BornPrettyStore D264 Water Decals again.

This look took many steps to complete, but I am so happy with the final result. The extra coats over the flakies from Ciate - Snow Globe really helped creating a smooth surface to put the decals on.

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together, with Ciate - Snow Globe over, and dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White and water decals from BornPrettyStore in D264

Ciate - Ferris Wheel, and Ciate - Boom Box marbleized together, with Ciate - Snow Globe over, and dots using a dotting tool and Sinful Color - Snow Me White and water decals from BornPrettyStore in D264

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Products in this post has previously been sent for reviewing purposes, to view the original post, follow this link.

BornPrettyStore D264 Water Decals

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

As I have mentioned before I am aiming this year at giving you one new Christmas themed / festive look each day in December all the way until the 25th. It's like my own little Christmas Calendar for you guys.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

... and when we first are talking about Christmas Calendars I wanted to tell you quickly that some of these products that I will be showing you here on the blog will be coming from the Christmas Calendar from last years Ciate Advent Calendar. I will attach a tag to this post if you are interested in seeing all the different designs only using the Ciate Advent Calendar. This will give you an idea as to how it can be used. I picked mine up at a sale at Tk Maxx and heard of several others who have done the same, so I will do my best to not have any spoilers as to what it contains, but I can't promise anything. I might get carried away.

I think the Advent Calendar was highly overpriced at 50£ considering the quality of the content. It is more worth the 20£ that TK Maxx was asking for it.

Today I have polish that was behind door nr.3 and a glitter polish that was behind door nr.2. So no spoilers today.

The whole look took 2 coats of Ciate - Chincilla, which might be a dupe with China Glaze - Pelican Gray, and 1 coat of Ciate - Glitterball. While Ciate - Chincilla was a bit tricky, Ciate - Glitterball behaved like glitter polishes should act. Smooth application, in one easy stroke. Giving that little lift to an otherwise boring shade of grey.

Stick some water decals on it and you are good to go.

Ciate - Chincilla with Ciate - Glitterball over, and D264 Water Decals from BornPrettyStore

If you will be picking up the Xmas Nail Art Water Decals White Snowflake Snowman Transfer Stickers D264 from BornPrettyStore, they are at the time of writing this at sale for $0.99. Standard price being $2.36. BornPrettyStore gives free worldwideshipping, and if you are sending an order fell free to use my discount code RAMG10 for 10% of all full priced items.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.