Eclipse Totality

Instead of editing nail art (or even painting my nails), I worked a half day and then drove to see the eclipse. Please enjoy these photos in lieu of nail art, since I don’t think I will be posting any today!

without eclipse glasses

stars visible during totality

Blooming Blossoms

I decided that I wanted to make a set of pink gradient-like flowers on a beautiful teal (rather than green) background, and this is where I ended up! I was torn between tulips and cherry blossoms, and so actually went with neither, but ended up with pink in shades of cherry blossom. I don’t understand my brain either! I also have to say, this may be some of the most perfect advanced stamping I have ever done, my colors are IN THE LINES. Go me!

Colors:
~ Bright teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Light teal: Glitter Gal – No Worries
~ Teal: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
~ Dark teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Light pink: Zoya – Tobey
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Stamp: Moyra – 45 I Fill You

I was also supposed to post this on Wednesday and had different art lined up for today, but real life interfered so here we are. Still floral, just late! Enjoy.

White Reaching Blossoms

I was inspired by @mdollasnails to create a design with a blue-to-purple gradient covered by white flowers. The original design featured large but few flowers and green leaves. I did not have a similar stamp, so I decided to repurpose a cherry blossom stamp and turn it around. I also decided that since the sun appears to have returned to the sky, that my white polish should be glow in the dark. The end result is a slightly muddier white, but it GLOWS and that makes me unreasonably happy.

Colors:

~ Blue (base): Makeup Selective – 105
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Flakies: Picture Polish – Festival
~ GITD white: Serum No 5 – Pure Glow Getter
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B017

Now of course, I waited until 15 minutes AFTER walking the dog to remember to take a photo of my nails glowing, so it isn’t as bright and crisp as I would have liked. Sorry!

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I got to end last night by seeing a car run into a power line pole, break, place tension on the next door pole, and that pole to catch on fire. Firemen, policemen, and the power company were on site until around 2am when they fixed everything back up after the lights went out around 6pm. It was an excited evening!

Painted Eggs

Happy Easter! I wanted eggs. Painted colorful eggs. The last time I used this stamp, I had a minimal of 5 colors on EACH EGG and it was far too busy. So this time I decided to just do two colors per egg and pair them across the color wheel, and I like the results much better. It is legible! And only took 1.5 hours instead of 3 hours to paint. I got the idea of sticking to two colors per egg from @polish.maven, and I am glad I went with that. Maybe for next years annual coloring-of-this-stamp I will vary it slightly more?

Colors:

~ Green linear holo: Serum No 5 – Jaded
~ Green scattered holo: ORLY – Sparkling Garbage
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink: Zoya – Tobey
~ Orange: Formula X – Incandescent
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105
~ Purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B017

Happy easter this weekend to those that celebrate! Hopefully I will keep on top of editing my nail art and will have some more posts next week, we shall see. Enjoy!

Rainbow Springtime

I WANT COLORS. And I may have gone overboard with them. Also the pink I used was overwhelming, oops! Still overall fun to create and to wear. Of course the addition of a baby chick and a bunny helped! The design was inspired by @melonnailart, although hers was much cuter than mine ended up being, because she stuck with pastel and I decided I needed more vivid colors.

Colors:

~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Orange: EdM – LE 197
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Shimmer: Sally Hansen – Platinum
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017

I am always a bit torn when posting easter nails: I am jewish, and my husband is orthodox (greek) christian. So, I don’t celebrate easter, and he celebrates it on a different day than most people! I usually post during typical easter rather than orthodox easter anyway. Oh well, enjoy!

Pink Tulips on Teal

Every single spring since I purchased this stamping plate, I have made use of the tulip stamp. And every single year it looks slightly wrong. Too dark, too bright, wrong base color, wrong mix of petal colors. Something is off. This time, however, I think I finally nailed it. I love the three-tone teal base (a pastel teal that glows in the dark with a darker teal and white sponged on haphazardly), I love the two shades of cooler toned pinks, and I love that I used a teal-green for the leaves. I am also happy that I studied the stamp more closely and realized that the leaves are not one solid mass, there is negative space in there! The end result is much lighter than my previous attempts. Flower win for me!

Colors:

~ Pastel teal GITD: Serum No 5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Dark teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017

Of course, as a bonus, the design glows in the dark (the flowers are outlined). I love using GITD polishes in the spring when the sun comes out, even if it means my nails sometimes scare me when I wake up overnight and see something bright in my bed!

Do you guys think there are any other color combinations I should try? Yellow on dark blue? Orange? I don’t know. I am just happy I finally got one right…I have a whole year to put together a color palette that works again!

Daffodils

Every year I use this stamp, and every year I try something slightly different. This year I went with a two-tone yellow center and used a teal/pink shimmer as the background. I forgot, however, that this teal polish loves to become all wavy when I stamp over it! It actually looks pretty cool as a result, but is NOT what I intended. Sometimes too much shimmer is a curse!

Colors:

~ Teal shimmer: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Dark yellow: Zoya – Honey
~ Stamp: BP – L067

I feel like I should make a list of ways to use this stamping plate in the future: color combinations for the flowers and the backgrounds. Maybe I can try to go psychedelic with it in the future and venture away from the classic yellow/orange/white. Who knows. But it is lovely to see all the bright daffodils outside in early spring!

Clover All Over

Look, my title rhymes! I need to get my amusement somewhere. This manicure is both good and bad: it is good in that it looks clean and I had fun stamping it. However, the bad comes from the base polish. I have not worn Region Specific by Emily de Molly in (probably) a year, and while the color has gotten to be a more intense bright teal, the glitters are just gone!

It used to be a polish full of shards of silver glitter, and they have all faded to nothing. Still pretty, but not what I purchased and not what I wanted to use as a base. I ‘fixed’ it by adding a teal flakie polish over the top, which successfully made the base interesting again. The polish as it currently looks is the top photo, the bottom photo is how it looked in 2020…which is embarrassingly I think the last time I wore it.

Colors:

~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Region Specific
~ Flakies: Zoya – Maisie
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017, BPX – Floral L018

Have you girls ever run into the problem of glitter vanishing over time? It isn’t in the bottom of the bottle, it just appears to have melted away. I don’t know if I should reach out to the maker to let her know, or just move on. I don’t know if it is a problem with the base, the pigment, or the glitter itself. It is very odd! It also highlights the problem with owning 700 bottles of polish: I do not wear most of then often enough to empty a bottle before something like this happens. Whoops!

Complicated Celtic

I’m back! Sorry for the long absence, I was in Australia for two weeks, and then spent a week recovering from jet lag/catching up on work and did not post. As a result, I am posting my St Patrick’s nails late, today and Wednesday. Sorry! I will start with the disappointing nails today. These nails took a very long time to create due to the drip marble background, and unfortunately did not wow me enough to justify the time commitment. I forgot that I actually prefer the look of applying globs of polish in swirls on my nails rather than doing a drip marble. It is prettier AND much faster! Silly me.

Colors:

~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Green glitter: Zoya – Ivanka
~ Nude cells: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!

~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017

Trying to isolate the tiny parts of an intricately interconnected stamping design (the full design is on my thumb) to place them on my nails was also challenging. I messed up every nail at least twice before I got the right amount of polish removed from the stamper head. Oh well, it is at least very green! Enjoy.

Pastel Pink Peonies

These are rather subtle nails, but I like them! I am a few months early, as these were inspired last year by blooming peonies in May…and it is February. One of my neighbor’s homes that I pass on my daily dog walk had the fantastically massive blooming peonies in light pink, and I just knew I had to try and capture something similar on my nails! They also look a bit like cherry blossoms? Which it is ALSO too early for. In short: I would like the flowers to bloom so here are some early flowers.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Shimmer: POP Polish – Watermelon Bubbleslick
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

I made this by painting my nails pink, and then dabbing on a darker pink and white to create a semi-textured appearance. After top coat, I stamped the floral design. It looked a little TOO boring, so I added some pink glitter at the end. Could anyone else identify them as peonies? Probably not. Did I know they were peonies? Yep! I do wish I had grabbed a photo with these nails and my neighbor’s flowers, but alas. Enjoy!

Stained Glass Bees

It is tradition for Jewish New Year (a holiday called Rosh Hashana) to eat apples dipped in honey to symbolize the sweetness of the coming year. However, I find painting apples on my nails a bit juvenile, and I have done honey a few times now. I have not painted many bees! And then I found this inspiration by @nailscassi and just knew that I needed a creative interpretation and to make stained glass bee nails for Rosh Hashana. I actually demoed this twice: once with cream polishes for the art, and once with holos, and the holos just looked better. The only downside is that the bee wings, because holo greys out white, blend a tad too well with the background. Oh well!



Colors:

~ Grey holo: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Flakies: Emily de Molly – Cohesion 

~ Black: Pueen – Black Jack
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Green holo: A England – Dragon
~ Black holo: A England – Fated Prince
~ Gold holo: ILNP – Sparks May Fly
~ Silver holo: Darling Diva – Diamond
~ Stamp: EDK – Mosaic

Now…Rosh Hashanah isn’t until the fall, but I feel like bees are more appropriate for the spring. Which means I am posting it now rather than waiting for early October because, bees! Hopefully I remember that I did this and can reference it again in October, but for now enjoy your random spring bees that were intended for a celebration of honey in the fall :-p

Neon Pink Flowers

I finally bought stamping polish! Real stamping polish! And I immediately used it to make a bunch of gradients and then stamp with more gradients. This was a pink-to-yellow base stamped with a light-to-dark blue floral pattern. The variation in the blue is not nearly as obvious as the base gradient, but I still like it! It also took 20 minutes because of how pigmented the stamping polish is and how quickly it dried.

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink stamping: Pueen – Sweet Pink
~ Yellow stamping: Pueen – Bright Yellow
~ Blue stamping: Pueen – Baby Blue
~ Dark blue stamping: Pueen – Royal Blue
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

This will, hopefully, kick off a collection of spring-themed manicures. We are in mid-february, it is time to start looking for crocus buds and daffodils. And allergies, of course. Enjoy!

Another Heart Gradient

Happy valentine’s day! I think I paint pretty much these exact nails every year, because they are so classically valentines. That said, I apparently forgot to make a dummy post (basically just a list of the polishes I used) for this! So…in short I actually have no idea what I did. It looks like a light pink/red/dark pink gradient with a stamped pink heart. Simple enough…but I own at least 3 of each color that could conceivably be on these nails. So sorry, I will not be giving colors!

I think today I also need to give a shout-out to my sister, as it is also her birthday. I always felt a tad bit bad for her since she would automatically get heart-themed cards and chocolates on her birthday, rather than twice a year (birthday + valentines) but I think it has worked out ok for her. Happy birthday!

It is also, I think, ash Wednesday? As not a christian I have no idea what that is actually about, but it seems like a lot of things happening at once today. Enjoy these heart nails regardless!

Glitter Hearts

Grey and pink go very well together, so I thought I would use them to make a heart-filled Valentine’s day manicure. I actually quite like the result! The pink/green glitter popped well, and the grey-green background set it off nicely. I don’t quite know where I came up with this particular combination of polishes, but I have a hunch I will use it again!

Colors:

~ Grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ Pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea Cherry Blossoms
~ Pink/green glitter: POP Polish – Watermellon Bubbleslick
~ Stamp: BM – 317

I always feel like I need to cram every heart stamp I own into a few weeks in early February, because otherwise I am going to ignore them the entire year. I am glad there is at least a holiday that lets me use all these stamps! And that low-key forces me to focus on my collection of pink polishes for a few manicures. Enjoy!

Chaotic Hearts

I have never used this stamp despite owning this plate for years, because I could never figure out what to do with it! It is two designs that when placed next to each other form a heart, and are made up of smaller cutesy hearts. This time, I had an idea. Voila! Now some of them are upside down, but since love sends you for a tailspin at times, that seems appropriate. I even like the dots I added!

Colors:

~ Black/red multichrome: ILNP – Eclipse
~ Pink stamping: Born Pretty – Crimson Cheeks
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – 620

I don’t know that I will turn this stamp into an annual use thing (like the one I posted Wednesday), but at least I got to use it once! Hope you enjoyed, and happy almost Valentine’s day!

Entwined Hearts

This was incredibly simple, yet effective! Every year this is one of the stamps I reach for on Valentine’s day, and every year I go wayyy over the top and make it hideous. This time, I decided to settle for dark-grey-on-shimmery-pink. The grey instead of black made the design appear slightly softer, and I love this base color (shimmers forever).

Colors:

~ Pink shimmer: Nailed it! – There’s a Nap for That 2.0
~ Grey: Bordeau – 212
~ Stamp: BC – 04

I think I have used this particular stamp every year since I got this stamping plate, in 2017 or so. That may make it my most consistently used stamping plate! I bet my snowflake plate has caught up, but I am still pleased. Enjoy!

Overwhelming Roses

There HAS to be a use for this polish that doesn’t render nail art overwhelmingly extra. But I have not found it yet. This neon pink glitter is SO fun to look at, and yet whenever I try to use it (even for Valentine’s day, the pink holiday!) I end up regretting it. I tried to tone this down by adding a dark red ink (in place of the black jelly polish I wish I owned) and it somewhat worked, at least there is some dimension to this nail art instead of just PINK IN YOUR FACE, but even so. Nope.

Colors:

~ Neon glitter pink: Atomic – Silicate
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Red ink: Born Pretty – Watercolor 005
~ Stamps: BP – L067, BP – Valentine’s Day L002

This was fun to wear but so darn difficult to photograph. Cameras don’t like neon polish to begin with, and if you add a ton of glitter to a neon polish, you end up with…a bright shiny blob. So have some blob roses! Sorry. Also sorry for the 3 week absence, I had some nail art lined up but forgot to post it. Whoops!

Winter Stars and Snowflakes

I love this base for winter nail art! I just looks like a snowstorm, but with subtle glints of color and glitter. With the snowflake stamping I still thought these nails looked a hair dull, so I went and added purple dots. Do they match? No. Did it add color? Absolutely!

Colors:

~ Grey flakie: Different Dimension – Come One, Come All
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Station – Happy Wine-y People
~ Stamps: BP – 185, Nicole Diary – 120

This year I am going to try to avoid adding off-colored dots when they don’t make sense (of course, if I can pretend they make sense then everything will have additional dots). So far so good, but we are only two weeks into the new year…

Robin with Berries

Last year there was apparently a challenge to paint either birds or berries (not sure which) that many of the nail artists I follow took part in. One particular entry by @nbnailart caught my eye, and I had to try and recreate it! My bird is a bit disproportionate, but I loved her use (and my copy) of using rhinestones to create 3D berries. Overall, these nails just looked lovely.

Colors:

~ Grey: Formula X – Delightful
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline- Onyx Rush
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise

Now of course, I use nbnailart as inspiration at least once a month, because her skills with nails are stunning and almost attainable. Oh well, enjoy this cute robin!

Snowy Dusk

This came out super cute! The animals are too big for the trees (which is what you get when you mix stamping plates) but I think the idea is there. I also successfully double stamped the white snow under the black tree silhouettes, so I am quite happy!

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Dark periwinkle: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White glitter: Emily de Molly – Pale Landscape
~ Stamps: Moyra – Picturesque 106, BM – XL472, Nicole Diary – 122, EDM – 07

This week is going to be entirely winter manicures, at which point I apparently run out of snowy scenes painted last year! So who knows what comes after that… Enjoy!