I hope all of you are having a brilliant (and SAFE!!) New Years!! Here is the round up of my top 5 most popular posts of 2011.  And before I post my VERY LAST (sad) post for this year, I want to thank Debbie over at The Crumpet, for inspiring this blog with her own top ten most popular posts!! Enjoy everyone and thank you so much for following along with me this year! Hope the next one is even better!

Without further ado:

My very first attempt at needle marbling. Popular I'm sure because this is a relatively new technique (from what I've heard) and lots of people are starting to try it out. I really had fun doing these and they didn't take long at all but looked pretty intricate on my nail. :)

Oh yes. THESE nails. I honestly hated these nails. REALLY hated. In fact I didn't even bother with cleanup on them because the second that picture was over I took them off. I really don't know what it is that bothers me so much about them but I just REALLY didn't like them at all. They came out nothing like I'd planned. And GAH! Look at that awful lighting. This is another early March posting. I think the only reason these get so many hits is because everytime someone types "symphony" into Goolge, these pop up.

Mamegoma nails! These also came from my Week of San-X posts. I love Mamegoma. I may do more of them in the future because they're really just too cute not to!

My Deborah Lippmann Dance Music set swatches. People love swatches. I won't pretend to be great at them because there are certainly better swatchers out there. But I was quite proud of these ones because the lighting was right, the colors were accurate and the painting job was one of the neatest I've had. So I'm pretty satisfied that they made it to the top ten!

My Reindeer nails for the 31 Days of Christmas challenge! I actually wasn't a HUGE fan of these nails. I thought they could have been better, but then I'm a bit of a perfectionist which is not always a good thing when you're doing nail art. They really have turned out to be my most popular design of all time and got about 250 likes on Instagram. Crazy times. I'm glad you all liked them though! :)

Thanks so much for following along with me! Did your favorite post make it to the top ten?

The end of the year has finally arrived!!  I'm so ready to start a new year and I have so many wonderful things to look forward to in 2012!  So for my New Year's post (and my last two posts of the 2011!) I'm going to do a round-up of the most popular posts I did in 2011.  Some of them are older, and some of them are newer and it's fairly easy to tell which are which! I've definitely learned a lot this year and in January I plan to do a then and now blog with some of the things I've learned since I started on this nail art journey just over a year ago. :) Enjoy!

Candy Cane inspired nails from the 31 Day Christmas Challenge. I really don't know why these were so popular. I kind of lazed out on them. I really wanted to do some lovely stripes, which I ended up doing anyway for my Christmas Day mani. The base is one of my most favorite polish colors of all time though: China Glaze Ruby Pumps. So pretty and sparkly.

My very first Dupes Up post and my very first holo polishes. This post is from March, a mere three months into my nail art addiction. You can really tell too! Just look at that awful cleanup and those dry cuticles! Ah! It's terrible. But we all start somewhere, right? I'm sure these are popular because people love holo's AND comparison posts.

A two-fer! My Pokemon nails! I was really pleased with how these turned out. They're also from March so the awful cleanup is still in play! But these really took me HOURS and they were the most intricate thing I'd done to date. I even had to mix colors for some of the balls. I got a lot of good feedback on these and I'm sure the popularity stems from the Pokemon craze. My favorite ball: the dive ball.

These are from my Week of San-X. My Tarepanda nails. I really love the San-X characters and they don't get nearly as much love as the Sanrio ones. These were the first art nails I'd done in awhile and I was (and still am!) working on improving my art skills. Patterns are a bit easier because if they go pear shaped you can work it into the design. But characters are another story! They came out pretty nice but I hated the glow in the dark coat I added on the top. They were done in a cabin on a West Virginia vacation though, so I feel good about it!

My first Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge. Your oldest nail polish. Lol...I actually ended up loving the color I had so I'm glad I did this challenge. The art wasn't half bad either!

My first 31 Days of Christmas post. These came out totally different than I expected them to. And I was in a hurry and stamped them too quickly, thus mashing the stamp and the polish. Yuck. But I'm glad you guys were interested in the challenge! Did any of you join in?

It's time for another edition of Dupes Up! This weeks contenders:

Deborah Lippmann: Here Comes the Queen from the Juicy Couture exclusive three pack

vs.

Essie: As Gold As it Gets from the Luxe Effects collection.

Retail Cost: $8

A close up shot of the bottle shows that the two are nearly identical.  They're both gold glitters in clear jelly bases and both have a coppery gold shimmer to them.  The glitter is not uniform and is almost a tiny flake type glitter rather than your standard round, square or hex shape.

 I swatched these over both black and white polish.  The effect over white is very subtle.  Even in person you don't get much gold from one coat though the subtle shimmer is nice.  This is one coat each over Hard Candy The End and Ulta Snow White.  You can already tell from the black swatches that that Lippmann glitter is much more compact.  One coat of it nearly covers the nail with flecky gold glitter while the Essie is a bit more sparse.  

Indoors the effect is a bit more pronounced but it's still apparent that the Lippmann has more oomph per swipe.

 A close up of the black swatch.  The Lippmann is on the left and the Essie on the right.

And the white.  Since the jelly base is clear it's really more of a glittery effect than an overall gold appearance.  I like the Essie but I think I like the Lippmann better.  It's more expensive, sure, but since you get double the effect in every coat it seems to me the cost is really roughly the same.  One thing is for certain, while they may not be EXACT dupes owing to the Lippman's more compact glitter you could certainly use two coats of Essie to achieve the same effect.  If you're looking for a flecky gold glitter this season, one of these two is sure to satisfy the want!

Essie As Gold As It Gets can be purchased at Ulta and drugstores nationwide. Deborah Lippmann Here Comes the Queen  is available exclusively through JuicyCouture.com. 

I can't believe Christmas is already over!! It came and went so quickly this year I didn't even have much time to enjoy it. I spent most of Christmas and Christmas Eve at my parents house and I ended up playing all manner of silly games with my niece! She also got a Dippin Dots maker AND a Blizzard maker from my brother and we got to make a complete mess making ice cream and soda dots. Whoever decided an ice cream maker for children should require you to turn the cream for 10 FULL minutes was clearly not using their head. So guess who ended up churning cream for forever? Lol...but I digress. Here are my lazy day nails for the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge. I used Orly Ma Cherie for the base on the red nails and Deborah Lippmann Do Ya Think I'm Sexy for the glitter. The gold nail is Barry M Gold Foil with Milani Gems in Gold over the top. They got quite a few compliments for being so simple! Thanks for following!  I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!

My camera is still on the fritz so this is another Instagram pic.  But it's my Christmas Day mani for the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge. This mani used Ulta Snow White for a base and then Konad Red polish for the red stripes. I got the green color that is used from my Secret Santa on the Polish Aholics Anonymous group.  The girl who sent my Secret Santa really rocked it out!  She chose one polish from my wishlist which is the one I used here: China Glaze Watermelon Rind.  Then she made me some great stuff and sent me two polishes from a brand I've never used. 

Here they are! My SS was Stephanie. She actually MADE this cute little bag and the earrings which are beautiful. I haven't gotten around to trying all the stickers and polishes but the blue color in the middle is a one coater with lovely shimmer to it.  I can't wait to use them for my nail art!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I can't wait to show you all the wonderful things I got! :)

Thanks for following!

I'm trying to get back on track with the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge. Today is supposed to be Santa nails! I was actually kind of excited to do this one because back in November before I knew there would be a Purple Crumpet Fairy 31 Day challenge, I was playing with designs on nail wheels and this was one I came up with. It's a similar theme to what I did for my Elf nails but with a santa suit instead!  I think they came out pretty nice.  I thought about doing a matte coat on the red so that it would look more velvety but I ended up making the whole thing shiny instead!  Fun fact: I never believed in Santa as a child.  So I didn't get to have that coming of age "mom and dad lied to me!" moment when I learned he wasn't real!  I feel deprived! :P

Enjoy and thanks for following!

Base coat is: China Glaze Riveter Rouge

Santa done with: Orly Luxe and Models Own Black Nail Art PenRouge

Well it looks like I got a little flummoxed about the days for the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge. Seems that I should have posted my glitterbomb yesterday instead of the pudding nails. But, alas, it's too late now! The one rule of the challenge and I've already broken it! lol...still I'm going to keep trying to complete all the mani's!  So here's my late and untimely Christmas glitterbomb.  I used China Glaze Love Marylin (from the gorgeous new Eye Candy 3D glitter collection) and then added a coat of OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air.  After that I alternated coats of the two for a total of four coats.  It was much more sparkly than this picture makes it look!  But still, very Christmas-y!

Enjoy and thanks for following!