#52WPNMC & #StampingSaturday

Of course with the holidays it's harder to find time to do manicures more often, so gotta combine these challenges and post something!

For 52 Weeks Pick And Mix Challenge the prompts this week were "brush stroke" and/or "favorite brand". I went with brush stroke this time, and it's my first time seriously attempting it. I don't think visible brush strokes on past manis count for the technique, haha.

Stamping: Winter Trees

This mani was a lot of fun to make and with way more polishes than I normally use! The multi-stamp layering is more complex than what I've tried before, and I have a new stamper to play with from the Creative Shop. Overall I'm really pleased with the result, hope you enjoy it as well!

#StampingSaturday + Enchanted Polish

It counts as Stamping Saturday if you started last Saturday and then had to wait for decent weather for photos and then make a post the following Saturday...right? Because that's what happened with these!

#52WPNMC - 3 Shades of Blue

 The two prompts for this week were - domestic animals and 3 shades of blue. I attempted to do 2 in 1, with slight cheating!

#52WPNMC - Week 4; 3 dark colors

I somehow missed last week's prompt, but it's alright, just jump back in whenever I remember about it! This mani was actually inspired by another blogger, Andrea over at Handtastic Intentions. We met up with a few local polish addicts enthusiasts last week to hang out and chitchat and she mentioned she hasn't tried Julep's Valerie yet. And I realized that Valerie came out in the Oct 2013 collection, and I too, have not tried it...oopsie, time to remedy that! So I thought, hey! green and gold roses would look good! The stamping plate is MoYou London Gothic 07 with the roses, bird and cat. And wouldn't you know it, the mani is right on cue for the 3 dark colors prompt in 52 Weeks Pick-n-Mix Challenge.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Here's the mani I wore today - even got away with it at work! I don't interact with too many people and so far only 1 person noticed my nails, so we'll see if I can sneak in with nail arts more often!
When it came time for the pics, I have to say I'm a bit bummed that they didn't turn out that great...the light reflection and the complex polish layers..gah, it looked much better on my nails! I guess it'll be a while before I get the hang of nail photography well enough to show the polishes as I mean for them to be, so tips are appreciated!

Behind the Scenes - Polish Removal using Julep's "Party's Over Kit"

Putting on that glitter or textured polish is a lot less daunting when you know removal's going to be easy! So which getting ready for my next mani, I had my husband snap pics of what my removal process looks like. Hope someone finds it useful!

Husband's got the caps on his fingers from Julep's "Party's Over Glitter Removal Kit" for a little demo - he doesn't have any polish on!