ciaté calendar day twenty-four | enchanted rose

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! 

I have been wearing this mani since the 24th, but haven't had a chance to post yet. I went straight from work Monday to my grandmother's for Christmas eve. The last day of the calendar was the perfect color for the holiday, and red glitter called Enchanted Rose. I started with two coats of Mistress on my nails, and two coats of white on my ring fingers. I added two coats of Enchanted Rose to the red polish. I evenly spaced stripling tape across my ring fingers diagonally and added a coat of Mistress. Once it was dry I used a striping brush to go over every other red stripe with the red glitter. 

I have to thank Ayn one more time for such an awesome gift; I had so much fun with the advent calendar!

ciaté calendar day twenty-three | mojito

Day twenty-three, polish and a little nail art, but before I get to that I just have to say that I have the hole place to myself for the evening. I have a few little things to wrap up {literally}, and am participating in one of my favorite Christmas traditions... watching White Christmas!

Now to the nails! The color for day twenty-three was a bright green called Mojito. I wanted to something a little Christmas-y so a added an abstract tree complete with ornaments and tree topper. I used the set of nail art polishes that my sister had gotten for me to draw on the squiggly Christmas tree.

ciaté calendar day twenty-two | sundance

I can't believe that after today there are only two days left of the Ciaté advent calendar. I am a little sad. I loved all the new colors, the polishes are all amazing, and it was really fun to post everyday. Today was the last caviar pearls of the bunch called Sundance.I used Big Yellow Taxi and Headliner to pair with the micro beads.

ciaté calendar day twenty-one | fade to greige

Today's color is called Fade to Greige and is a pretty purple-grey. I love this color, it is one that I will wear a lot. 

ciaté calendar day twenty | magic carpet

Today was a very exciting day for probably many reasons, but for me it was because I completed my Christmas shopping! I love that I have everything done before the weekend. Saturday is going to be a day of relaxing, wrapping, and spending time with friends. Thank goodness. 

The polish color of the day was Magic Carpet, a purple glitter that I layered over Cookies and Cream. I did one coat on every nail, and three coats on my ring finger. I also broke a nail at work today {look at that weird shaped middle finger nail!} and had to chop them all down. Sad face.

 See you all tomorrow with my tiny little nails!

ciaté calendar day nineteen | cookies and cream

I had a wonderful day off today, and a well deserved break from the crazy, busy, exhausting love that I call my job. I love that we are in season, and constantly moving {all day long}, but retail in December can wear you out. 

Today I have a delicious lunch with my mom and grandma, and a fantastic dinner with my mega best friend. {So nice to catch up with Shawna after more than a week apart... seemed like years!} Between both meals Mike and I went holiday shopping and picked out some great stuff for our families. I spent the evening wrapping presents and watching this on TV. 

Yes, that is a fake fire on my TV, with crackling log sounds and all. The best way to add a fireplace into your apartment. If anyone else wants to enjoy this beautiful scene all you have to do is watch it on Netflix! 

Now while all of these fun activities were going on I was rocking on awesome color on my nails! It's called cookies and cream and is a very pretty nude color.

 

ciaté calendar day eighteen | candyshop

Another caviar mani! I went a little bold for this one and applied the micro beads to EVERY nail. What do you think of this look compared to just an accent nail?

ciaté calendar day seventeen | power dressing

Day seventeen is one of my favorite colors so far. It is a very dark, navy blue. I used glass slippers as a topper on my ring fingers. 

I love this combo!

five days of nails

Mike and I went on a mini vacation. Well, I went on a vacation, Mike had interviews for residency programs. So while he was touring, stressing, and impressing, I was scoping out our possible new city of Tucson. I had been to Tucson once before, and what can I say... I hated it. It was a family vacation, and I was at an age where this was the worst thing in the world to be doing. Anyways, more on that later.

While I was gone I was still getting my polish on, but not able to post like I wanted to. So here is a wrap-up of all the days that were missed while I was away.

day twelve | twilight

day thirteen | glass slippers

day fourteen | speed dial

day fifteen | headliner

 day sixteen | big yellow taxi

So that is what you have been missing. And that is what I have been up to. Soon I will post more info on our Tucson trip and some other exciting information that has been brewing.

ciaté calendar day eleven | bumble bee

Day eleven was the second caviar manicure of my lovely advent calendar. This one is named bumble bee. I wore the black and yellow micro beads with the color from day ten ladylike luxe. The beads are fun for the first half of the day, but when you work with your hands and the beads start falling off, it doesn't take long until you start picking them off one-by-one.

They are super easy to apply, and are a fun look. They are perfect for wearing just for the day.

ciaté calendar day ten | ladylike luxe

Today's nail post actually involved a little nail art. It came from me not having enough time to re-do a full mani before work today. I'm not complaining at all, because I got to sleep in! It was well worth it, and it turns out that I got a pretty cool mani out of it. 

 I kept the red from yesterday {Mistress} and took scotch tape and placed it diagonally across my nails. On my ring finger and thumb I added the gold closer to my cuticles, and on all others I painted the "Ladylike Luxe" to the tips. I thought that it turned out pretty well, and it only took five minutes {no lie}, five minutes. 

See you all tomorrow!

ciaté calendar day nine | mistress

Another quick post today, maybe I will have a little more to post later. Here is day nine, the color is called Mistress {how risqué}.

I know that this picture is blurry, and I am sorry, but I lost all the light of the day. I should have taken a picture before work. Bummer. 
 

ciaté calendar day eight | vintage

This was a quickly painted, almost out the door type of day. Closing at work, and then back by noon gave me very little time to get the day eight mani completed. I pulled it out, and I am so glad that I did. This is my favorite color so far, and I got a ton of compliments on this amazing greyish green. 

I wish that I could leave this color on for more than just a day. I will have to revisit after Christmas. 

ciaté calendar day seven | cutie pie

I think that I mentioned before that Mike received an advent calendar as well. His is awesome, and he loves it, but he was been away for a few days on interviews. So while he was gone, not only have I gotten to enjoy my mini mani calendar, but I have also had the pleasure of dark chocolate every day as well. 

Today's polish is called cutie pie, and I thought that it was gorgeous; a pretty light pink. 

 

ciaté calendar day six | angel wings

Here is day six, angel wings:

Sorry this is so short, but I am just pooped from our busy night at work. Let m tell you, I'm not complaining. I love busy nights working retail, it just flies by so fast. See you here tomorrow for the day seven color!

ciaté calendar day five | cabaret

Day five might be my favorite color so far, big surprise, it's purple! Here it is, cabaret.

ciaté calendar day four | caviar pearls prom queen

Day four, and it is my first caviar manicure; this is what I have been waiting for. The mani was way easier than I thought that it would be. I used the day one color, cupcake queen, to pair with the prom queen caviar micro beads on my ring fingers. I am super nervous that the beads are going to fall off in a hot second, but they look so cool. So to get this look going you paint your base coat and first coat of color per usual. Then nail by nail paint the second coat and pour the beads over the wet paint immediately {remember to do this one nail at a time}, tap off the excess beads and lightly pat the beads to the nail. To finish it off add a top coat just to the tip on the nails. I did this at first, and then I thought that I would try to add the top coat to the whole nail, do NOT do this. The top coat smeared the colors from the beads all around, and looked hideous! So I took the beads off and re-did my ring fingers. 

Enough blabbing, this is how it turned out:

ciaté calendar day three | halo

Day three, and I am still going strong. This is pretty awesome, it does help that I have had the last two days off. It's pretty easy to keep up the cause so far. So here is halo, day three polish. 

it's the holiday season

The other night {shortly after my last post} the holiday fever caught me, and I have been decorating ever since. It used to be that Mike didn't get into the holiday spirit, but he has come over the the merry & bright side, and even helped me trim our tree. 

When I pulled out the decorations from two years ago {yes I did not put anything up last year for fear that Violet would try to eat it all} I realized that I didn't have that much to work with, so I knew that I needed to find some other items to help deck the halls. I headed to Michael's {it would have been Hobby Lobby if it weren't closed on Sundays}, TJmaxx, Target, and the Dollar Tree. 

When I walked in Target I saw the cutest gift bags right off the bat, and couldn't resist buying one of each with the idea of using them somewhere as decoration. That is when I thought that I should put them in inexpensive frames and hang them on the wall. Here is what I used:

And this is how it turned out. I thought that I would use the frames as-is, but the frames were nothing to write home about. I had some gold craft paint lying around, so I used a paper towel to wipe some paint on the frames. This really jazzed up the dollar store finds; I love that they have a vintage feel. The total cost was $12 for the festive framed prints.

Now this is the tree that my mom got Mike back when he was a little bit of a Grinch. I picked out the silver & black themed ornaments, and Mike picked out the pickle {kinda hard to see in this shot}. It always gets a spot front and center.

The flowers I picked up the poinsettia flowers at Michael's and traded out the Ikea daises seen in the upcycled glasses post.

Both of the table runners are from TJmaxx. The dinning table runner was just purchased this year, and the coffee table runner was from last year when our dinning table was MUCH smaller. The glass bowl was one that I picked up at Ikea for four bucks, and I filled it with ornaments that I picked up at the dollar store.

The best part was enjoying a home made chai latte by the tree.