Painting

While we're tackling painting a guest room (trim and walls), painting stair risers and painting a credenza I bought at the thrift store for my husband's office, this post is about another kind of painting -- painting finger nails with nail polish!

I follow a lot of blogs, mostly about decorating and DIY, but I have a nail polish blog that I follow: More Nail Polish.  I also see some great polish colors and trendy styles on, where else, Pinterest! They got me motivated to make an effort to get my nails longer and polish them with some of the trendy styles I've seen on her blog and on Pinterest.  As a girl that rarely painted her nails, I tested the theory that keeping them painted helps them grow! My nails are weak, thin and brittle.

This past Fall, I bought a Living Social deal to a natural nail clinic, Atir. I also learned some things from the manicurist. You CAN file off those ridges. I thought it was really bad for you nails to file the tops, but with the right file (a very, very fine one) you can file the ridges. She compared it to giving yourself a facial scrub. You sloth off dead skin cells from your body and filing the tops of your nails is similar. You should only file the tops every 10-14 days. She also said that you should also always have something on your nails. Whether it's a ridge filler, base coat, top coat, or a full out base, color, top coat, your nails need a protective layer, like keeping your car waxed. Keeping a protective coat keeps them from breaking at the slightest impact. It also DOES allow them to grow longer due to the added protection. Here are some instagram pictures I've had over the last 6 or so months of trying to have nicer looking hands!



Funky French Manicure



VT Hokie Tribute




Steeler Nation Funky French with Accent Nail

Candy Corn for Halloween






Gray with Glitter Accent Nail



Nude with gold glitter polish and Seche's Collage Overlay which
has white large hexes and smaller holographic hexes and rectangular confetti

 Now if I could just make sure I fit in an actual cuticle maintenance in between some of the polish changes! Just ignore that little detail in the pictures please!

2012 Christmas House Tour

Well, here it is, our house all decorated this year. This is the second year in our new house.

You can see a post on our trees here, vignettes here and a post on the front door wreath I DIYed here.

Let's walk shall we?
Kitchen:



Living Room

 I have to apologize point out all the shots in bokah, practicing the technique and may just finally have it.

Den



Looking into the Living Room from the Den.



Dining Room

I have to confess 2 things here. There are not many close-ups pictures of the table because of a couple things, both resulting from the party we had on Saturday. First, I washed the table cloth (using the instructions on the label) and it shrank. By at least 4 - 6 inches so it no longer covers the table as it did prior to said washing! Second, when moving the centerpiece back to the table after washing the tablecloth, the candles fell off and one broke. SO, I tried not to focus in on the one to the right since it is broken. I may try to fix it and hope it's not noticeable as I love this candle trio! I was bummed.

You can see my DIY mirror that I found the idea for on Lowes idea site.

Finally, Stair Railing upstairs, with yet a final bokah effect of the little white tree in our bedroom!

You can see 2011 here.

You can see 2010 here.

You can see when The Old House was on the 2004 Holiday House Tour here.

Linking:
I'm joining the Holiday House Tour with The Nester today.

Fireflys and Jellybeans

O' Christmas Tree

I don't know why I haven't found time to use my somewhat new camera to take pictures of the whole house decorated for Christmas. It may have something to do with a lot of things going on at the same time and, oh yeah, it's dark when I get home from work making inside shots a little challenging for a novice like me.

Anyway, I will be back with a Sum It All Up 2012 Christmas House Tour but for now I snapped some shots of our trees before bed last night.

I used chocolate, teal and lime green in our living room this year. It doesn't look this noticeable in real life, but in these pictures you can REALLY tell that the very top lights are out. There is a short in them as it is all of that top strand that is out, not just a few here and there. AND. I did not notice until it was too late. We've only had this tree for about 4 years so I'm pretty bummed that they're out already and one in the middle that I did notice and was able to add a mini set of lights to. Wow, I need to find one of those devices to help you locate the short and play around with it this weekend before our 1st annual Christmas party!!

The top of the tree can be seen from the room and as you go up the stairs so I put a lime green star on the back of the tree and a big bow with brown, teal and green ribbon on the front.

I also have four of these little things that plug into the lights that make the ornaments spin. I just love using those every year. This one is a glittery ball. The disco balls also look really cool in action.

My husband picked out his colors for his white tree. This year he went with red, black and silver. He did a good job decorating and then I went back with the Peace ornaments because I'm not sure he even knew what to do with those! We also figured out how to get the red star tree topper plugged into the tree lights this year!

See my wreath here.
See my Vignettes here.



I'm linking up today.

Thrifty Decor Chick

Christmas Vignettes

Today I'm linking up over at Southern Hospitality for Rhoda's Vignette Party. (I linked to the craft party on the 6th and you can see that post here.)

Here are some of the vignettes at my house. There are a few more which will be in my upcoming Christmas House Tour post which I'll use to link up to the Christmas Tree link party on the 15th with Sarah.

Lantern in the Kitchen

Christmas Tree Cones In the Den

Console Table in the Living Room