Brown n’ Gold Mix

This was inspired by @falguni_nails, but her IG appears to no longer exist! Oops. Regardless, I would seldom use different shades of brown for anything other than tree branches without outside inspiration, so this was fun! I also need to remember that carmel brown might be a stunning color but not with my skin tone. I have lobster hands 😦 but I love the design so whatever. Thats also why these images are darker than usual, no matter how I tried to color correct either my hands or the polish looked wrong, so here we are!

Colors:
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Gold metallic: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Gold glitter: ILNP – Juliette

Every bit of this mani is freehanded (this is what I do with my days off…especially when I had a cold last year and didn’t feel like exposing my germ-filled self to the outside world)! Anyway, hope you enjoyed! 

Bright Patches

I wanted to test out the orange jelly polish from Born Pretty. The color ended up being a little more brown-toned than I wanted, but since I picked it out myself I can hardly complain! It is a nice normal jelly so I am overall quite happy 😀

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red jelly: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ Orange jelly: Born Pretty – Arcadia
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Pink creme: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Orange creme: Formula X – Incandescent 
~ Yellow creme: WOW – #301
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L28

I should probably use this by itself at some point to give a better view of the polish, but I just enjoy mixing jellies with other jellies! Oh well. The tone is the brown-orange you can see by itself on most nails. To pick up this polish, you can find it here for $3.99. Enjoy!

Beaded Brown

Simple brown gradient with brown and then gold stamps! Of course with this type of stamp I always add some freehand dots to make it even prettier 😀

Colors: 
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L28 

I actually really like how this manicure came out. It was fast, easy, elegant, and fun to wear. Its also quite seasonally appropriate without being either drab or too orange/purple/green! 😀 Hope you enjoyed as much as I did! If you want to pick up this stamping plate (which I have to admit is actually a rather awesome one) you can find it here for $6.99.

Leaves on Woodgrain

I wanted to do a woodgrain manicure, but that was too simple! So I went and added some bright leaves. The base was a medium brown with lighter brown dry-brushed on. The stamp was two shades of darker brown. The leaves were advanced stamped (ooooh, aaaah) to make it more colorful, and to make them stand out. I like the end result and it is very appropriately autumn, but with the advanced stamping it took quite a bit longer! 

Colors:
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Darkest brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment 
~ Stamps: BM – 608, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I am so happy, the leaves on the trees in front of my house have finally started to change colors and it is pretty! I think last fall I was too caught up in life to notice things like the leaves changing. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed! 

Lava Flows

I just trailed a bunch of different colors with my red spotted polish until I got a mix I liked! This either looks like fall leaves of lava going around greenery. I went with lava. Sadly, all the yellow got swallowed by the orange and red! Either way, I do think it looks rather cool 😀

Colors:
~ Red: Dance Legend – Spot It Red
~ Orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda

I think I’ve been doing roughly one spot-syle manicure a month, which given how many polishes I have and that I only own three spot polishes is actually a rather high number. But its fun! And easy! And makes REALLY cool designs! Anyway, hope you enjoyed. 

Leaves on Stumps

You guys. When I made this I saw so proud of myself for layered stamping (this was last year) and now looking at it, it is way too busy and just NO. Also, my stamps are almost see-through and this whole thing is a mess. So you only get one photo…my indoor photos look like I forgot to add top coat and I am not forcing those images on you! Anyway, to make this overly complicated manicure I decided to use two different wood stump stamps that I had never touched. One as it turns out is negative space and the other is…positive space? Standard? Who knows. I didn’t like how it looked with just the wood grain, so I added fall leaves and then dots because I cannot leave well enough alone! 

Colors:
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Darkest brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment 
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B005, Moyra – 32 Nature, UC – Lovely Leaves 2 

Anyway, sorry about this mess. I have some prettier leaf-themed manicures coming up, I promise! 

Bronze Dotted Grates

I don’t know where I was going with this one. I used a magnetic polish as a base, but sadly it did not magnetize well (do magnetic polishes have a shelf life? I should look into this). I ended up just converting it to a weird dot+stamp thing. I tried to gradient the dots, and it somewhat worked? In real life you can see that the dots go up and autumn gradient, but in images it did not come through, I do wish I had used creme polishes not metallics, the gradient would have shown up better.

Colors:
~ Bronze magentic: Masura – Evening Before the Fireplace
~ Gold: Revlon – Hypnotize 
~ Dark gold: Catrice – Genius in the Bottle
~ Copper: Zoya – Penny
~ Bronze: Pure Ice – Magic
~ Red: Zoya – Isla
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: MoYou – Pro 02 

Regardless, this starts my month of fall-ish manicures (aka things in shades of copper and orange) so enjoy! 

Shimmer Leaves

Happy almost Thanksgiving! You guys almost didn’t get a post today because I almost ran out out of to edit my nails! As it stands this is going to be a bit less polished than usual (hah, nail polish puns) because there just wasn’t time! It’s pretty anyway, and hopefully you will all be too distracted by the epic color shift to notice anything else :-p

Colors:
~ Red/gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Red/orange/green glitter: POP Polish – Slick Days of Summer
~ Blue: Zoya – Blake
~ Stamp: BM – XL209

The colors for this were just perfect for fall! I don’t know why I never thought to stamp in dark blue over red/orange before, but it is one of my new favorite color combinations. Somehow it just contrasts a bit better than black! Anyway. By the time I get out of the hospital it will be tomorrow, and then there will be Friendsgiving time! My husband is abandoning me this year (he gets time off to go home) so I get to eat with all the other wonderful people in my life who want to potluck with me! Hope you guys enjoyed the nails, and have great meals wherever you are!

Dark Indian Corn

I made two styles of indian corn, this is the darker version! You saw the lighter version a week ago. I started with a yellow base and dry-brushed on a lighter shade of yellow. Then I stamped with white, and vaguely colored in some corn bits with grey and red. Then I stamped again in brown. Sadly my brown stamp was not nearly as opaque as I would have liked!

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Momen
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red: OPI – Vision of Love
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Stamp: Moyra – 32 Nature

The husk is hand-painted, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that neither the white nor the brown were dark enough to work. Maybe if I had actually colored in the corn kernels on the stamper this would have worked better, but as it stands it just looks messy. Oh well, other corn for the win! What are your thoughts?

Light Indian Corn

I made two styles of indian corn and this is the lighter one! The other one will likely be posted in the next two weeks. This one was made using a light brown base, over which I stamped the corn image in white. When that was dry, I then smushed a bunch of colors (yellow, light yellow, red, and grey) onto the stamping plate and stamped over the white with the colors. The end result is less identifiably corn, but still cool! However, it looked too pastel, so I used a yellow jelly polish over the top to deepen the colors.

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Momen
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red: OPI – Vision of Love
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Pale nude: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble
~ Stamp: Moyra – 32 Nature

Of course, one cannot just have kernels, so I added some hand-painted husks. Overall this was quite fun to make and wear, and I enjoyed comparing the two manicures! You guys will have to let me know (after you see the other one) which one you prefer! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Windblown Leaves

Yet another fall manicure! Maybe I should start interspersing some random non-fall themed ones at some point. I am still enjoying this, so you all must be too! Of course, it helps that yesterday was the nicest day we have had in weeks. That said, it is forecasted to snow today. The weather is very confused!

Colors:
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Shimmer: ILNP – The Magician
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BP – Halloween L004

I was a bit sad after I bought The Magician because I had been hoping for a topper with a little more kick. All the photos that I had seen of this polish online made it look like wonderful shifty magic, yet all it ever did for me was add a subtle red scattered shimmer. I have since learned to enjoy the subtleness if i want something slightly more than a cream polish but less than a glitter overload! Anyway, thats all for today. Hope you enjoyed!

Red Forest Leaves

Halloween is over…so it is back to standard fall manis! This is one of my recent favorites. I honestly don’t even remember if I showed you guys this polish yet (I don’t think I have…) but I used this crazy glittery multichrome over a dark green and voila, magic! I really should post my nail art in order at some point. Basically it is a green/gold mutlichrome on its own, but over a dark polish it turns into red/gold/green and its fall magic in a bottle 😀

Colors:
~ Dark green: ILNP – Ski Lodge
~ Red/gold/green shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I am not usually brave enough to stamp negative space designs, because I don’t have true stamping polish (i just use mostly dried up bottles of black and white standard polish)…but uber chic plates are just so perfectly etched that they work anyway. That’s it for today, hope you enjoyed!!

Fall Bloom

There isn’t much better than fall-themed flowers! This was chosen after I modeled a few other possible designs over this pretty gradient. In retrospect, although I like the end product, I wish I had picked a different stamp that let through more of the underlying colors! Because fall gradients are the best gradients 🙂

Colors:
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

I feel like I probably overuse floral stamping, but I can’t really find it in myself to be upset about this. Flowers are pretty! Gradients are awesome! Combining them is fun! Anyway, that’s all for today, hope you enjoyed and happy Friday!

Yellow and Purple Meshwork

This was just a simple yellow-orange-red-purple gradient, with a dark purple holo stamped over it! I have been waiting for the right time to use this particular image, and I quite like how it came out. It also is suitably fall-themed so I have saved it for now 😀

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Purple: Zoya – Lael
~ Purple holo: A England – Let Me In
~ Gold: Zoya – Faye
~ Stamp: Moyra – 54 Matrix

Ugh I miss gradients. Although, I always hate when my nails are curved! Square (or squoval I suppose) or bust. None of this oval nonsense! Hope you enjoyed, stay tuned for MORE autumn nail art this Friday! Although it isn’t orange/red because I can, occasionally, vary my pallet :-p

Autumn Canopy

More fall! This was one basically just an excuse to make a whole bunch of dots. And we all know how much I love dots! The design was inspired by Snacks on Rotation although mine are much darker since I don’t have a gradient leaf stamp!

Colors:
~ Brown holo: Darling Diva – Brown Diamond
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red shimmer: ILNP – The Magician
~ Stamp: EdM – 07

Hope you enjoyed! Happy fall weather, and pumpkin spice everything if you are into that!

Shining Leaves

It’s fall! The 31 Day Challenge has ended, so it is certainly October. More than that, the weather in St Louis just went from the 90s (it was TERRIBLE) to daily highs in the 70s! Hurray!

In honor of the newfound cold and frosty world (ok, there has not yet even been close to a frost, but still, not sweating in tank tops because it is chilly out makes me very happy), I am going to finally start posting Fall manicures! Beginning with this one. Basically, I just double stamped silver, then a smooth of red and orange polishes. Voila!

Colors:
~ Grey flakie: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Stamp: BP – 19

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And I hope this weather lasts, because it is the only time of the year that anyone will voluntarily find me outside!

Falling Rosy Leaves

Well, this is absolutely a fall manicure…that I am posting in the summer! Oops. I need to put the rest of my nail art (basically everything since Feburary or so) on my computer and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet! Hopefully the importing of more seasonally-appropriate nail art will happen tomorrow, but I didn’t want to leave you all without ANY designs today!

This was a very straight forward manicure, but it uses one of my favorite polishes (I do feel like I say this about every third mani…) so I like it regardless of its simplicity! It was also a fun color combo, deep murky red-blue and rose gold.

Colors:
~ Teal multichrome: Illyrian Polish – Narrow Sea
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: Floral BPX – L018

Sorry for the late post, and I hope you enjoyed! I’ll try to get back to pastels, neons, and florals by Wednesday :-p

Flowering in Gold

So this mani came out better than expected! I wanted a copperish-green and I almost missed entirely! I started of with a coat of Dragon, which is of course totally opaque in a single coat…and then decided it was too dark! So I topped it with a thin coat of a different green and then STAMPED with Dragon (and some gold). Voila!

I did have to scour a bunch of plates for actual designs though! And with the combo of green and reddish-gold I think it totally works for a quasi-thanksgiving manicure 😀

Colors:
~ Dark green holo: A England – Dragon
~ Lighter green with copper: Blush Lacquers – Nerida Singer
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B005, BPX – L018, BP – L067, BM – XL472

Luckily, I have part of tomorrow off, so I can at least join my husband and some of our residency friends for dinner, although I am on and overnight call on Friday into Saturday, so I have to hope that whatever awesome nail polish sales happen Friday will be ongoing until Sunday! I also need to apologize for some of the atrocious spelling and grammar at the end of Monday’s post, I should not write blog posts while exhausted. Oops! Hope you enjoyed!

Bronze Leaning Leaves

Although I don’t think the photos came out that well, I LOVED wearing this mani! The dark olive green with copper and stamped with copper…and just ugh. It was so shimmery!

I don’t have much else to say about this mani really? It has double stamping, which I remain proud of, and I absolutely love Nerida Singer when I can talk myself into wearing this polish. I still own too many olive green polishes and I refuse to part with any of them!

Colors:
~ Green: Blush Lacquers – Nerida Singer
~ Copper: Pure Ice – Magic
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B005

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Friday’s post is a bit less exciting (I don’t like the mani, but I feel compelled to post my failures so others do not repeat them!) so I wanted something pretty in advance!

Foiled Foliage

I think I am pun-y! Well, it isn’t a pun, the title is basically just alliteration but it still makes me happy. As does this mani! It is technically still autumn…and currently the ground in Philly is completely covered in leaves. It is pretty, crunchy, and utterly ridiculous. When I walk outside I feel like I am eating leaves!

The base polish here is intended, I think, as a topper…but I wanted to make it opaque! This is three coats of Raging Fire by Born Pretty over one thin coat of a dark red base. Honestly, this polish was almost completely opaque at two coats! The final coat was mostly for my pinky, which I had painted more sparsely than the others. Despite looking uneven, the glitter was actually quite smooth after one coat of top coat. That said, the polish itself is thick and a bit goopy…good for dense flakie placement but it would have been difficult to get a light coat of polish.

The flakies themselves shift from pink/red to orange/copper to gold and emerald green at sharp angles. Since the flakes are at slightly different angles to each other, it is actually easy to get the whole color shift! It was mesmerizing.

I then made stamping decals using a left design from plate Floral BPX-L018 with Essie Good as Gold and colored in between the leaves with OPI Visions of Love. It looks quite fun and glittery! I know I could have instead just painted the leaves of the stamping decal with flakies…but this was so much more fun :-p

And, surprisingly, this was pretty easy to remove! Since they are flakies and not true glitter, they dissolve with acetone. The dark red was more painful since the color tends to stain my cuticles. If you want to pick up this flakie polish for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, where you can find it on sale for $3.69. Enjoy!