Simple Holiday Nail Art Ideas feat. Butter London Holiday 2011

I was a bit naughty this week. I made an order online because I wanted a GWP. I initially justified it by buying a Christmas present for family, then I discovered the butter London Holiday 2011 polishes. Oh dear. I ended up buying two of the three and drawing these designs on my nails when I was swatching:

So I thought I'd share with you these two simple nail art ideas for the holidays! On the left we have Christmas trees and on the right snowflakes. These are using the two gorgeous glitters from the 2011 holiday collection:

On the left we have The Black Knight and on the right Tart With A Heart.

The Black Knight is a black base glitter polish (but needs 3 coats to get opaque otherwise it's a bit of a dark grey). It has magenta and blue glitter with micro silver flecks. So pretty. You could layer this over black to avoid the nastiness of trying to remove a glitter polish.

Tart With A Heart has a rosey champagne base colour with gold and slightly holographic glitter (larger particles than in Black Knight). Three coats are shown above but this is clearly meant for layering. So that is what I did for the Christmas trees:

I layered about two coats of Tart With A Heart over another of my button London polishes (from Nordstrom whilst overseas actually, not this week!) called Knees Up. Knees Up is a beautiful red that is very opaque (1-2 coats max).

So to start with I drew a little star with OPI Alpine Snow at the top of each nail with my usual nail art brush.

Then I drew the outline of the tree (messily as it's going to be filled) with the same brush. I did it in sections working my way down the nail.

Then I filled in with white. I originally planned to leave the design there (to keep it simple) but I wanted to add a bit more colour.

I drew another smaller tree inside the white with Essie Pretty Edgy to give it some colour.

Then added some brown for the tree base (Sephora by OPI, cannot recall the colour as it's not written on the mini!) and Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty for the star.

For the snowflakes I must apologise, I did not take progress shots (I didn't think I would post it!) but I did draw on a piece of paper how I was going to paint them:

Basically you start with a vertical line (1), then draw a wide X over it (2). Next the centre of the snowflake needs to have little half diamonds between each two lines (3). To finish, simply add two sets of short lines on each line (4). Done!

I thought I'd share my purchases this week! The L'Occitane gift set was ordered so I could get the Clarins GWP (the white bauble) which also came in red with white spots. I wanted that one :-( Then I went shopping after I got my package and picked up some herbal tea from T2. I plan to go back next week and pick up more presents from there, such an awesome shop. I also got a purple tin for the loose tea.

... and while I was in Portmans I spotted this on the $20 off rack. I saw it and had to have it. It was purple, I couldn't help myself. Now I need to stop spending and save!

Anyways I hope you enjoyed the post and are having a lovely weekend. See you next time!