Christmas Polish Swag 2012

Merry Christmas (for those who celebrate it) and Happy New Year everyone! I feel like I always blog about  nail polish related goodies are dropped off by Santa each year. This year continued the tradition of nail polish, remover, cotton balls, accessories, etc. My Christmas swag of 2012.

The colorful thing in the back is the Ciate "Mini Mani Month advent calendar." I don't know much about the Ciate brand at all because this is the first I've seen it. So far I like the polishes I've tried though. Each number square hid a bottle of nail polish in a random color. The bottles are adorable...they even have little bows on them. Also, there were a few bottles that contained tiny pearls (the left top and bottom right in the picture below) that can be used for "Caviar manicures." You bet I'll be giving that a try just as soon as I post this. Can't wait to share!!

Then there was my standby Sally's Beauty Secret Acetone nail polish remover. I'll probably blog eventually about the different nail polish removers I've used but for now and ID is good enough.

Polishes: The title "First new polishes of 2013" goes to....China Glaze Latticed Lilac, China Glaze Cracked Medallion, Finger Paints Signed in Wine, Sally Hansen Plum's the Word, Avon Mosaic Effects Top Coat, Avon Decadence, and all the Ciate minis. Phew, a bunch of new manicures to try already! Wahoo!

Accessories and mani-helpers: Avon nail glitter Iridescent (the big white/silver pot on the bottom), Sinful Colors Glitterazzi, and Sephora by OPI Pink Nail Glitter. I think Santa wants me to experiment with some nail glitters in 2013.

Thanks to Santa for feeding my polish addiction and spoiling me with a TON of new goodies! I am one very lucky girl!

Christmas Stash 2012

Okay, so we all know how *OBSESSED* with France I am. It's true. I'm hopelessly interested in anything and everything French (my neighbor is from France isn't that crazy?). Anyway, behold part of my Christmas presents from my older sister, S: 

Yes that's right. A freaking Eiffel Tower wine rack! S and I would love to become some serious wine-o's...but we're just starting our cork collections. Here's to many fun, wine-filled nights in the future!

Happy New Year: Best of 2012!

It's time for my yearly "Best of" post!! These are the top 12 best nail polishes and/or nail designs I came by in the year 2012!

12. Black and Pink Moonicures

11. Gold and Black leopard manicure

10.  DV8

9. Galaxy nails

8. Pinterest inspired "Pretty Polka Dotties"

7. Fireworks from the 4th of July

6. Summer Olympics 2012 nails

5. Thanksgiving "Thank You" Manicure

4. Inspired By: Raspberry Lemonade Blistex nails

3. Hunger Games "Girl on Fire" Nails

2.  Mi Mini Minion Manicure from September:

And my favorite manicure of 2012 is.....Monarch Butterfly nails:

Happy New Year's Eve everybody! I'll be doing what I also do on NYE....nothing. Jk, hanging with fam drinking champagne!

Workout for today!

Then I did some leg work on a few gym machines:

                                                  Leg Extensions - 15 reps x 2, 20 reps x 1 @ 25 lbs

                                               Seated Leg Curls - 15 reps x 2, 20 reps x 1 @ 25 lbs

                                               Seated Leg Press - 20 reps x 3 @ 70 lbs

                                                   Calf extensions - 10 reps x 3 @ 70 lbs

GO DRINK SOME WATER!

Thankful Thanksgiving!

This is one of my two planned nail designs I mentioned a few posts ago. It's sort of a big, fat THANK YOU to anyone who checks out my little nail blog here..and it also fits to be posted around Thanksgiving.

For this design I used my blog readers as inspiration. In blogger it tells you the top 10 countries with people who have viewed your blog (if you have a blog I'm sure you're already aware of this!).  My 10 top pageviews by countries are the United States, Israel, Japan, UK, Philippines, Canada, France, Mexico, Germany, and Italy. This is an idea I've been wanting to do for probably a year and I've finally gotten to do it! Yay!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Walk for a Cure: Alzheimer's Walk

This past weekend a friend of mine (S) and participated in Walk For A Cure, a 5k fundraiser for Alzheimer's Disease in Philadelphia. There were a ton of people supporting the cause and the walk went by so quickly. 

My maternal great-grandmother had Alzheimer's so I received a purple flower to walk around with. I even had painted my nails to match the purple. Coincidence?? I think not.

 At the end of the walk all the flowers got put into "garden." The colors were based on if you lost someone to the disease, if you knew someone with the disease, or if you had the disease yourself.

It was a beautiful day and I hope to be involved again next year!

Inspired by: Monarch Butterflies

Today's nails were inspired by a photo on pinterest that caught my interest (ha, pinterest interest). I went to youtube to find a tutorial I could follow (I honestly did end up following this tutorial even though I don't normally follow tutorials) because the nails looked so awesome. I found this one "Monarch Butterfly Nail Design." The video is included below my nails. 

For this design I used: OPI Flit a Bit, Orly Liquid Vinyl, and Orly White Out.

The tutorial was made by Cutepolish. I think I've checked out her designs before. She's super talented and has tons of cute designs so you should totally check the channel out if you're looking for some inspiration!

Award: Liebster Award from Iris

I am long long long overdue with this post. Iris over at Nailart by Iris nominated me as one of her 11 nominees for this award on August 12th! That's almost three full months ago. Anyway, a huge THANK YOU to Iris, one of my favorite nail bloggers I've found online (seriously you should go check her blog out right now!). Now, to the rules!

For the Liebster Award (don't ask me what it means I am sad to say I have no idea! Anyone who DOES know please comment below! =D), you have to do 3 things:

Numero Uno: Post 11 facts about yourself.
Numero Dos: Answer the questions the tagger has asked and then create 11 questions for my nominees.
Numero Tres: Choose 11 nominees with less than 200 followers.

Ok, so kicking off with 11 facts about moi.
#1: Nikkisnailfiles is in its third year! Yay!!
#2: I study law in the United States (where I am also from).
#3: My nail polish collection is just about 150 or so bottles.
#4: I have the most perfect boyfriend in the whole world.
#5: This blog is pretty much a manicure diary of my life since I usually paint my nails for some reason (people's birthdays, holidays, big events, etc.). I always look through the photos and catch myself saying things like "oh yeah, that was when my friend was going to a wedding" or "Those were my birthday nails!"
#6: I never use tutorials to show me HOW to do a design. I usually just jump into trying to get to the end result my own way.
#7:  My nails completely FAIL at being long. I am too rough with my hands so long nails don't last very long with me! Anyone else love short nails?
#8: I am OBSESSED with France. I even took 4 years of French in high school.
#9: I wouldn't be surprised if people thought my cell phone was physically attached to my hand....I'm ALWAYS on it. Seriously.
#10: I like to run.
#11: I am an indoors kind of girl. I enjoy a beautiful day....by looking out a window. You will not catch me camping.

Part 2: 11 questions from Iris
1. What is your favorite food? Sushi.
2. What is your favorite series? TV show series: Revenge, Nashville, Gilmore Girls
3. What's the nicest thing you've ever done for anyone? Ohhh, I have no idea.
4. What is your favorite game? Chess
5. Name a positive trait of yourself: my attention to detail
6. What would you do if you won 1 million dollars? Buy nail polishes of course! (and pay off my student loans)
7. If you had to choose between a boyfriend or a friend what you choose and why? I would choose a boyfriend because then I get both!
8. Name a book that you liked: Daemon by Daniel Suarez.
9. Which country would you like to go to? FRANCE!!!
10. What hobbies do you have? Painting my nails and blogging of course!
11. Are you a morning or night person? Why? I am a night person. I blame it on the years I worked as a late night waitress. I'm just always much more active at night.

Part 3: Nominees
I nominate anyone who wants this award! By reading this post you have earned it! Make sure to comment below so I can check out your blog though! And for my 11 questions to you:
1. Why did you start blogging?
2. What is your favorite color and why?
3. Name one polish you love but do not currently own:
4. Name your favorite nail polish type (glitter, shimmer, cream, matte, etc.):
5. Where is your favorite place to shop?
6. What is your favorite thing to do in your free time?
7. What is your favorite type of movie?
8. If you and one other person were going on vacation, who would you bring and why?
9. What is your favorite nail design that you've done (include link)?
10. What is your favorite blog to check?
11. Name one of your favorite things about yourself:

Don't forget to add a link to your blog below in the comments! I love checking out new blogs!

Rosy Reptile

After breaking out my BundleMonster plates for this recent manicure I was reminded of just how neat I thought stamping was. I really enjoy how absolutely perfect each nail comes out (every single one looks exactly like the other) and how quick and easy it is to use a stamp and jazz up an otherwise plain manicure. Stamping lets me add some pizzazz in literally no time at all! 

I call this my Rosy Reptile manicure because, at least to me, the stamp I used reminded me of scales. The two pinks I used were two of my favorites: Zoya Nicole (which my boyfriend bought for me...and it's obviously my favorite because it's my name =) I think everyone should own a polish named after them!) and Zoya Kristi. Nicole was my base on the eight fingers and then Kristi was the stamp. Then I inverted the design for my ring fingers. I was online yesterday looking at Zoya's new polishes (I'm way behind in all the new polishes that have come out this summer/recently) and I'm definitely feeling the itch to splurge on a bunch! But I'm trying really hard to wait until the summer before buying any new ones!! The stamp was BundleMonster plate 208.

Also, I have two nail posts already planned. I'm at school right now waiting for my next class to begin and all I want to do is go home and polish!! Thank god it's a weekend!!

Cherry Blossom

This isn't one of my best nail designs...it's sloppy and wonky but I wanted to post it anyway because I always say how this blog is for all the designs I try to do...which includes both the good and the bad. So we can just add this one to the "Just Me and My Jack" pumpkin glow in the dark lumpy manicure from last October on the bad list.

For this design I used Orly White Out for the background, Orly Holiday Glow for the tree, FingerPaints I Pink I Can for the outer leaves, and Zoya Kristi for the inner leaves. It makes me want to go the the Cherry Blossom Festival in Philly every April.