Challenge Your Nail Art: Desert Snowman

Hello Readers!

For today's Challenge Your Nail Art prompt (snowman), I may have gone a little bit outside the box. Originally I was planning to do a traditional snowman mani, but I wasn't feeling super inspired by it. I was looking over my list of unused plates and I remembered a certain succulent plate that hasn't had any love, and it hit me: cactus snowmen.

I live in the desert, and so we don't really ever get enough snow to make actual snowmen. The only snowmen you see here are the inflatable variety that pop up in people's yards this time of year. So I imagined some desert cactus wanting to have a little fun and people longing for snowmen decorating the prickly pear in their front yard with snowman paraphernalia and it made me giggle.

I used Sinful Colors "Tempest" for my base purple color and my cactus green is Essi "Going Guru". I stamped over "Tempest" with a similar purple in some snowflake designs but it is very subtle and hard to see.

My cactus images come from two plates: this Uberchic "dupe" (not a perfect dupe, the aliexpress seller switched some images around on it, presumably on purpose):

And the "desert dwellers" plate from Bundle Monster's Fuzzy and Ferocious collection for the saguaro: 

To transform my cacti into playful snowmen, I also created decals from this Bundle Monster Christmas plate:

And then layered them over the cacti. When I saw the little sled image, I couldn't resist allowing a small potted succulent to go for a ride on it. 

Lastly, I decided to go full cactus on my ring finger and give him a snowman flake. I stamped a texture pattern for needles and created a decal from this plate for a little snowman face:

Nail Crazies Unite: Holiday Movie

Hello Readers!

Today I am so excited to share my holiday movie inspired nails for the Nail Crazies Unite group on Facebook! I decided to go with one of my favorite holiday movies, "Elf".

"The fastest way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!" I used a lot of different plates in this mani, because mixing and matching is what I like to do over here!

First off, let's have a look at the polishes:

Sunlit grass, two coats, for thumb-middle-ring, and one coat of Snow Me White followed by one of Fresh Linen for pointer-pinky.

So let's start of on the plates for pointer-pinky, the music notes with holly sprigs. I wanted to give the feeling of sheet of Christmas music because it is a major theme in the movie. For the music pattern I used a plate from the MoYou London Rockstar collection, and then placed a decal made from a Bundle Monster holiday collection plate:

Of course, I had to add a little elf in, and my elf comes from a dupe of a MoYou London plate from the fairytale collection:

This plate has a few images I can see being fun for Christmas- the elves of course, but I think the scissors would be fun for a wrapping presents themed manicure, and the buttons for a snowman theme.

For my thumb I made a decal from another Bundle Monster holiday plate. I am kicking myself a little bit for forgetting to keep it on the stamper head instead of making the decal on my silicone mat, which is why the word "list" is backwards.

I'm planning on using the Christmas lights image in another mani this December! 

So finally, the middle, which was a combination of freehand and using this MoYou London holy shapes plate as a guide:

I painted my fingernail yellow, then added green about 2/3 of the way down. Next I stamped a thin solid stripe in black and stamped a bigger square over it. I went over those guides with black again for opacity, and added a little gold stamping above it to represent the stitching on the elf character's coat. Then I added a little gold outline inside the square for a belt buckle. It represents the main character's elf costume:

So *whew* that's it! I hope you enjoyed this mani, I thought it turned out really cute! Check out some more holiday movie themed manis in the link up!

An InLinkz Link-up