It's My One Year Blogaversary!

WOW! I can't believe it has been a year sine I did my first nail post here on Sincerely Stephanie. When I started this blog I essentially knew nothing about nails, I kind of just jumped in with both feet and learned as I went. I made a lot of mistakes, but hey blogging is all about learning! I'm learning more each and every day.

For today I wanted to do something special but wasn't exactly sure as to what. So I looked back at my first post and decided to kind of recreate it! What was the first ever post on here, why it was Candy Canes!

Here are my 2012 Candy Canes. I went with Milani White On The Spot as my base and then did my diagonal stripes in China Glaze Merry Berry and China Glaze Running In Circles. I did these with my medium length striping brush!

Looking back I can't believe what has happened this past year. My nail art skills have improved enormously, and I have made some wonderful friends. I've had the honour of winning multiple nail art contests, I've been able to give away some awesome prizes to my fabulous readers and I've even got to meet some bloggers in person.

On top of everything I can't believe that there are over 1000 people that have decided to follow me via GFC! Plus over 1100 likes on Facebook. It honestly blows my mind. All of your comments make my day every day. You should see when I'm with my friends and I get a super awesome comment, I just start smiling big and gushing over how great you guys are.

Let's take a look back at my first ever Candy Canes shall we?

I remember how proud I was of these and I still am! This has been an incredible journey so far and I plan on keeping up blogging for a long time to come!

I have no giveaway planned for today, but you can still enter The Beauty Blogazons Holiday Giveaway! In the next few weeks there is also, Christmas, my birthday and new years eve (which is the same day ;)). So in January to celebrate all this and 2013 I will kick off something great!

I can't wait to see what else this blogging adventure will hold for me. I really hope you continue to follow along and interact with me as I LOVE hearing from all of you always!

With SO MUCH LOVE
Sincerely Stephanie

Candy Canes

Hey all!


So I've been in the Christmas spirit lately and decided that I had to make sure my nails were looking christmasy! I always love candy canes and they feel so festive to me, so for my own nails I thought a candy cane design was in order. This was the final product!! [Instructions below :)]

Candy Cane Nails! 

In order to get these fantastic nails I used Sephora by OPI's High Maintenance, a white striper and Wet and Wild glitter polish called Hallucination. 

Polishes I used

The first step was putting on a good base coat! Right now I'm using Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength Diamond Shine Base and Top coat. 

Once your base coat is dry do one or two coats of whichever red polish you choose to use. I chose High Maintenance because there is no glitter or extra sparkle in the polish which gives your candy cane a more realistic feel. Depending on which nail polish you use will determine how many coats you need to apply. Just make sure that the nail is fully covered :)

Let this completely dry. 

Now onto the stripes. 

Use a white striper and start in the bottom right corner of your nail. Then make two white stripes close together, leave some red space and then make two more white stripes close together. Repeat this until you run out of nail. I have found that it is easiest to hold the striper still and rotate your nail to get a nice straight stripe. Although sometimes making the stripe exactly straight can be rather difficult, generally only you will notice if there are imperfections so try not to worry about it :)

Once all your nails are looking delicious and the white stripes are dry take a glitter polish and just do a light coat over top of of your handiwork. The glitter is optional, but I find it gives it just enough shine for the holiday season! 

I am pretty pleased with the final result! It's festive and fun and perfect for the holiday season! 

Until next time,

Sincerely Stephanie