Green Hazy Forest

I wanted to create a magical-appearing forest atmosphere. To do so, I started with a magnetic green base, and then layered on tree stamps in light grey, grey, and black. I think my nails are a tad too long for this design to actually look good, but it was kinda cool and I love the magnets background (even if you can’t tell it is there very well in static pictures)!

Colors:
~ Green magnetic: Masura – Emerald Cat
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Dark grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Stamps: Moyra – Picturesque 106

I don’t want start recording how-to videos, or videos of my fingernails in motion…but for magnetic finishes I am ALMOST tempted to. The real beautiful of this just cannot be captured in a static photo. Then again, I don’t have the editing time or disk space to save lots of videos, so this will have to do! Enjoy!

Red Target

I think these look both cool and creepy. I wanted to make something that looked like a laser sight surrounded by shattered glass or metal, and I think I achieved that! Whenever I do something like this I am tempted to use a complicated base color with glitter and shimmer and shift…and this time I talked myself into a simple holo. I love the end result so I think I did it right!

Colors:
~ Black holo: ILNP – Black Magic
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Stamp: BPX Geometry – L020

I day I will actually invest in a full set of stamping polishes, so I can stop guessing blindly as to which of my creme polishes are opaque enough to let me stamp without the base poking through. I got luck with this, seeing the glitter of Black Magic through Dove did not ruin the overall look. Maybe next time.

Rainbow Quilt

I wanted to see what would happen if I created a colorful quilt by laying all my jelly polishes over each other. Voila! It is pink-weighted because I don’t actually have a green or a blue, only a teal (oops, I should work on that), and my yellow is quite weak. But it is very pretty!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Holo: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Orange jelly: Azade – S220
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Teal jelly: Zoya – Frida
~ Purple jelly: Zoya – Katerine
~ Stamp: Hit the Bottle – Material World 01

Of course, to preserve the crisp black lines of the underlying stamp, I started with a layer of clear holo glitter. It worked like a charm! This was easy (if a bit time-consuming) and it makes me very happy to look at! Hope you enjoyed!

Elaborate Exchange

This manicure was FUN. Fun to design, fun to paint, and fun to wear. I really like adding 3D gems to my nails just because it gives me something to run my fingers over, even though they fall off all the time! Regardless, I think I have the right pink and blue for this design, and the overall look was excellent. I was inspired by @na_ko91 although her pattern was far more geometric. I decided to go vaguely south-east asian with my pattern, and I am happy!

Colors:
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: Hit the Bottle – Material World 01

I feel the need to do a neon rainbow manicure gradient, or something else equally vivid, after the BRIGHTNESS of this manicure. So much fun! Hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.

Blue Flame

This design was inspired by @nailsandtowel, I can never claim credit for coming up with a design featuring a blue so dark it was nearly black over a mystical flakie background. But I loved it enough that I had to recreate it! I thought about using my flame stamping plate to make the fire, but it wasn’t fine enough, so I just freehanded the flames. I like some nails better than others. I also decided to go a bit nuts with the glitters on my two plain nails. More glitter for everyone!

Colors:
~ Flakies: Emily de Molly – Cohesion
~ Holo: Different Dimension – Intergalactic Dolphin
~ Blue: Zoya – Ryan

I continually feel that since I am back in the lab, I should have more time to spare to paint my nails. However, I still have clinical duties, and now have a dog and a house to take care of….so I only find time to paint my nails once a week. And it is usually stamping. I really should be doing more freehand nail art and impressive designs, but I just don’t. Even this manicure, half of my nails are just blue! Maybe someday soon I will work myself up to a full freehand design. Enjoy anyway!

Pretty Pattern

High Degree is probably one of my favorite polishes, but it is so complicated that I struggle to come up with nail art designs that feature it without either smothering it or making it hideous. I think this is the second every design where I have used this polish and am actually happy with the result. My last fail was so bad I almost didn’t post it, and changed my nails 24 hours later. But this? Yes. I think I need to stick with black and white with this complex polish, rather than follow my heart and use oranges and pinks :-p

Colors:
~ Magenta with orange glitter: Emily de Molly – High Degree
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 03

It is also especially difficult to photograph, because of the neon tones in the magenta polish. I love it anyway! Hope you enjoyed.

ShamRock Around

A second St. Patrick’s day manicure? This is unheard of! I think I have bought more green polishes in the past 12 months than any other color, and it shows. Half these polishes are new. I think I can consider my green polish collection complete now. Hopefully.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Light green: Formula X – Quantum
~ Green holo: A England – Dragon
~ Dark green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Stamps: BP – L049, MoYou Pro – 02

My only real complaint about this manicure is that I messed up my ring finger accent nail. I was trying to double stamp green-over-gold but I didn’t line the stamps up the way I wanted, so I went back and colored in the lines. The end looked cool but messy, since I applied the colors after the stamp and the line work isn’t perfect. Hope you enjoyed anyway!

End of the Rainbow

What, a St. Patrick’s day manicure?! This was a LOT of fun to create, although my stamped design didn’t fully cover so I had to touch it up, which is why there are so many darker green dots on my shamrocks. And I inverted my pots of gold (they were supposed to be right-side up but I painted them facing me, oops! Rookie mistake that I haven’t made in a LONG time). So now you know why my hand position looks funky in these photos!

Colors:
~ White GITD: Serum No5 – Pure Glow Getter
~ Green GITD: Serum No5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold glitter: Cult Nails – Walk of Shame
~ Red: Emily de Molly – LE199
~ Orange: Emily de Molly – LE197
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B017

The added bonus: the base colors were glow in the dark! I don’t know why, I just wanted them to be. It was fun to put together although maybe a bit silly, since GITD polish is so much harder to remove! It also turns out that my green GITD polish glows more brightly than my white. I did not know that before.

Hopefully next year neither my stamp nor my actual freehand art (if I try any) gets messed up. It was such a good idea! Oh well. Hope you enjoyed 😀

Paisley Parade

This is just plain cute. I wanted to use a delicate paisley stamp, and since Valentine’s Day was around the corner at the time I painted these, I figured I would use a Valentine’s-appropriate base. The stamping is a little stark in contrast to the pastel base polish, and maybe would have looked better with a dark grey, but overall not bad! Next time, grey, and maybe paint a rim around the nail?

Colors:
~ White with glitters: Emily de Molly – Sakura
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Stamp: Hit the Bottle – Material World 01

I am so excited that flowers are starting to bloom; it means the baby ducklings in the park are soon to come! Every spring I wait with bated breath for the first eggs to appear, and then the tiny fluffy yellow ducklings. Soon! Hope you enjoyed these pastel nails.

Candy Colored Wiggles

This is a weird manicure. I wanted to use a super colorful flakie base, and then just grabbed some candy colored creme polishes and made weird squiggles out of them. I don’t know why (thats a lie: I wore this to match a very colorful dress to a wedding. It was a weird choice). They look rather intentional? But they were not. Moral of the story: at least have some very basic idea of what you want to do before you start painting your nails! These weren’t even fast because I had to go back and correct my squiggles along the way.

Colors:
~ Blue and rainbow flakies: Ever After: Playing with Fire
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105

This manicure has a sister design (which is to say, what I was wearing on my other hand to the wedding to match the same dress) that looks, if possible, even sillier. I’ll show it eventually. Hope you enjoyed!

Stained Glass Cardinals

Stained glass nails! I love this stamping plate but I am afraid to over-use it because I don’t want it to get boring or old. But anyway here are some stained glass birds. I didn’t want to go overboard with the shades of red and pink, so I stuck with two of each. I probably could have gotten away with adding a bit more color.

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Flakies: Emily de Molly – Cohesion
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on black
~ Red: Zoya – Sookie
~ Dark red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Zoya – Tobey
~ Stamp: EDK – Mosaic

I am stuck on using Cohesion as a base for stained glass manicures, and I am not upset about that. It really does look like iridescent glass (and since making stained glass windows has become my father’s primary hobby in retirement, I have some idea what I am talking about). Maybe I should acquire a few more sheer/iridescent polishes if I am going to use this whole stamping plate… Hope you enjoyed!

Purple Tulips

Every year in early spring I use this stamp, and every year I love the result. Next time I will likely use lighter colors, but I am really pleased with how this came out! Even my dots look nearly perfect :-D. I also remembered that I have some dyed wooden flower, and the purple one was the PRECISE shade that I used in my manicure! So I grabbed a photo with it, and the photo turned out to be my favorite from the day. Go figure!

Colors:
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Purple: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B017

I have a few more spring flower specific manicures to share, but I think I am mostly past my obsession to create 230948 floral manicures for early spring. We will see. Maybe it will snow again (we had an ice storm this weekend, apparently. I slept through it) and the flowers will have to double back and try again. Hope you enjoyed!

Daffodil in Orange

I get tired of seeing yellow daffodils everywhere, but my neighbor has some fancy ones with ruffly centers that are orange-on-white. So this is dedicated to my adventurous neighbor and her pretty colored flowers!

Colors:
~ Orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Grey/blue glitter: Different Dimension – Come One, Come All
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 145, BP – L067

I forgot while I was painting this that I have not actually used this neon orange polish before. It was an LE from Emily de Molly numbered 197. I just really wanted a neon orange that went on smooth and didn’t lean red (the only neon orange I had before was a mini polish that is almost red and takes 4 coats). This covered well in two, although it dried with the typical semi-rubbery neon finish. I love it! It paired really well with the grey-blue flakie glitter polish that I used on my accent nails. Overall, absolutely a good manicure. Hope you enjoyed as much as I did!

Simply Stunning Leaves

I don’t think I have ever made a bad manicure with this stamp. Its just pretty and well balanced. So I put a pretty and well balanced base under it and called it a day! I had already spent 2+ hours working on the art on my opposite hand so I was not interested in spending a long time thinking about what to do here.

The base color which looks so stunning here is two coats of Theres a Nap for That by Nailed It! from Polish Pickup. I missed this polish the first time around, which is why I love the July throwback that they do yearly where everyone votes to decide which favorites are returning. I cannot get enough of neutrals with crazy shimmer, and this one certainly delivers! It is subdued enough to wear in the hospital, while bright enough to keep me happy. And it goes on easy. Win all around!

Colors:
~ Grey with pink shimmer: Nailed It! – Theres a Nap for That 2.0
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Stamp: Lina – @urbannailart collab

I think this nail art was just an overall win, between the polish, the stamp, and the dots (always dots!). I am also excited that it is starting to get warm (I see daffodils outside!) which means it is time to grab all my floral stamps and get to work. Unfortunately, it means that global warming wins this year, and we had no good snows. I miss sledding! Hope you enjoyed.

Orange Neon Stars

You know those art toys growing up, where you would put the pencil in the hole of a snowflake-shaped plastic thing and drag it all over the page twisting it as you went? This reminds me of those. They were always fun and the design ended up pretty no matter what you did, because geometric stuff is cool.

Colors:
~ Orange glitter: Cadillacquer – End of Silence
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Zoya – Margo
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B039

Unfortunately, the stamp I used was so busy that the underlying neon orange jelly with white glitters was pretty much lost, so it was not worth the hassle that resulted of trying to remove a glitter polish. Overall pretty, but much more effort than needed!

Neon Mess

Apparently there is a British desert called a “mess” this is quite tasty. This is not that kind of mess. This is the kind of nail art fail that makes me wonder what the heck I was thinking, and why I kept working on it (to try and improve it) long after it had established itself as an utter disaster. The base is stunning. The orange splotch over it? Less so. The purple stamping on the orange? Why? And then I went and stamped in white over the glittery base and covered that with an orange jelly. Enough. Some things are just not salvageable.

Colors:
~ Purple/orange glitter: Emily de Molly – High Degree
~ Purple: Zoya – Margo
~ Neon orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Orange jelly: Azade – S220
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L28

Let this manicure stand as a lesson to all who follow me: sometimes it is better to remove the nail art and try again, than it is to keep throwing more and more (terrible) design choices at your nails. Live and learn!

Glowing Lace Flowers

Pretty but not quite simple (it is hard to call lace manicures simple, even if it is a stamp) and with bonus purple dots for contrast. I really enjoyed wearing this manicure and got a fair few compliments on it! Turns out this color combination stands out.

This polish base is incredible. It was one of the Polish Pickup polishes that I missed the first time around (mostly because I didn’t want to pay for shipping for just one polish, and the polishes have to be pretty incredible for me to be willing to add to my 600+ polish collection at this point) and I am glad I was able to snag it when it returned for throwback month last year! I have to say it is even prettier in person than it was online. The teal glow is UNREAL. It isn’t available anymore, but if you ever run across this polish, get it.

Colors:
~ Purple with teal shimmer: BKL – Doomicorn
~ Purple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BC – 10

I also have to admit that editing these photos was painful, because purple does not play nice with cameras to start with, and when you add a glow-y neon-y teal on top of that, you get some fun weird hand colors. It was worth it though! Hope you enjoyed.

Vivid Flowers

This was FUN. I was inspired by @len4ik_nails to create some brightly colored orange and pink flowers on a green base. My only regret at the end is that I didn’t use more of the neon shimmery green leaves! Talk about a bright manicure… I am also glad that the inspiration post stopped me from putting the flowers on ALL my nails, that would have been overwhelming. I like my lines instead.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Bright orange: Emily de Molly – LE197
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Bright pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Neon green shimmer: JReine – Radioactive Nom Nom
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamp: BM – Xl158

I do think this looked better on her slightly shorter nails, especially with the two nails being plain (I can never let myself do that…). Hope you enjoyed! Happy late February/almost spring!

Freehand Flowers

This manicure took maybe 30 minutes and looks like it was done by 8-years-ago Eva. Which is not great, but also I had no tools and was on vacation. Given all that, I won’t beat myself up too badly. I obviously don’t love it, but given the limitations I was working with, it is not bad. Flowers for everyone.

Colors:
~ Dark purple: Formula X – Ignition
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Purple: my sister’s polish, name unknown
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment

Coral Blooms

This is maybe not the best color combination for this? The end result is very pretty and dainty, but putting it on a coral/salmon background just seems odd in retrospect. I am, however, glad that I remembered the very sheer black jelly that I made, since without those highlights this whole manicure would have fallen apart! I just purchased a very cheap (Wet n’ Wild) clear polish and added a few drops of black polish to it. Years ago. Voila!

Colors:
~ Coral shimmer: BKL – Not Such a Fungi
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

I have also decided to start posting spring manicures early. I have so many flowers and florals and I have been hoarding them in my unposted folder for months! So here, enjoy a huge number of them over the coming weeks :-p