Double Crazy Gradient

What better way to play with stamping polish then by stamping a gradient in one set of colors, and topping it with a gradient of a different set of colors? Especially if the stamp is absolutely bonkers. Voila!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: Pueen – Bright Yellow
~ Pink: Pueen – Neon Pink
~ Purple: Pueen – Charmed Lilac
~ Teal: Pueen – Mermaid Green
~ Red: Pueen – So Red
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – B03 mind blown

I had held off on buying bona fide stamping polish for years. I have been painting nails with nail art for approximately 13 years at this point (oh wow) and this is the first time I have intentionally purchased a stamping polish set. I have to say, it has been nail-changing. Gradients now take 5 minutes to create (although if I am not careful with my latex barrier they take 30 minutes to clean up due to the degree of pigment in the polish). Stamps that I could not previously use due to poor etching are now usable. Its great. If you are on the fence, I strongly recommend buying dedicated stamping polish, and Pueen makes good ones (these were purchased by me, I just like them)!

Illusion Twist

Very simple but came out looking very pretty! I have not used a shifty/multichrome base for an optical illusion stamp before, but I think it has become my new go-to idea when I am bored and want to do something fast.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on black
~ Pink/blue/teal/gold multichrome: Emily de Molly – Sea of Lies
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – B03 Mind Blown

Happy end to vaguely-purple week, next up is 4th of July! And then who knows. My backlog of nail art designs to post is rapidly shortening as I only paint my nails once a week, oops!

Hazy Crazy

This was my attempt at a very loose dry brush gradient. I don’t know why I made it and it didn’t quite work, but I still like the end result even if I wouldn’t do it again! I basically started with white, used a dry brush to apply yellow to my cuticle, orange just above it and overlapping it, then red, then purple. The yellow kinda got lost in the end.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: Zoya- Thandie
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

I said on Monday that it was time for some bright colors, and this seems like a fitting start! Friday (assuming I get it done in time) will be more glittery. Hope you enjoyed!

Psychedelic Illusion

I had such high hopes for this, and they fell short. I need to repeat this again with more patience to blend the colors together! Sadly, the nail that looks the best is my POINTER not even the cool design on my ring finger! Next time, jelly polish. I wanted to make it look like a crazy illusionary neon loop, but all I ended up with was a mess.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Neon yellow: Love&Beauty – Yellow
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Purple: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Holo: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

This is another design where I lost all the editing work I had done. Womp womp. So no editing of this nail art other than minimal color correction. Sorry guys.

Banded Hearts

I was looking through my own designs for Valentines inspiration (because if I am being honest, this holiday is cloying and I don’t really love hearts) and I came across “Hearts Galore” from way back in 2016. I decided I could do better than that, and remade it using modern tools (aka, stamps). If I am being honest I don’t know which design I like better. The 2016 has better lines and fewer hearts so the intent is clearer, but the gradient is much cleaner on the new version and I like the messy line look! I did add too many hearts this time around, and I don’t think my accent nails added much last time around (for all that they took forever to create!). 

I also made a much darker toned gradient this time because part of my desire was to swatch a new medium pink (my last medium pink ran completely out and I needed something for, as you see, gradients!). This is two coats of Sandy by Zoya. It is a lovely medium pink with slightly blue undertones, and works perfectly to replace my old pink (which was Pink Forever by Sinful Colors). I finally have a true medium pink that isn’t super old and clumpy!

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Veronica
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamps: Lina – Make Your Mark 02, B. Loves Nails (little hearts), BP Artist – L005 (little hearts) 

So, what do you guys think? Which version of the design is better? Also, yes, I need to work on free handing hearts! Ah well. Happy valentines-day-this-weekend, and I hope you enjoyed! 

Snowflake Ripples

You guys, I magnetized a stamp! And it kinda sorta worked! How cool is that. Its honestly a bit hard to tell but the darker teal (the snowflakes) are magnetic. It doesn’t help that I actually forgot that I made this manicure, it doesn’t help that I think I used this exact snowflake stamp maybe 5 times last year (I almost don’t want to count in the coming weeks as I post them, but I know that I will).

Colors:
~ Teal holo: Powder Perfect – There be Mermaids!
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Dark teal magnetic: Nails Inc – Whitehall
~ Stamps: L078, B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown, BM – 323

Anyway, I hope you enjoy! It hasn’t snowed yet but it is really beginning to get cold out. I hate scraping the frost off my car, but life is life! Stay safe and warm. 

Optical Halloween Illusion

Happy almost-Halloween! I actually have a better halloween manicure than this…but I didn’t get a chance to transfer the photos to my computer so you guys will just have to wait till next year :-p. Meanwhile, enjoy orange glitter and adorable zombies! At least it finally gave me a chance to use the darn zombie stamp.

Colors:
~ Orange glitter: A England – Gloriana
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Lina – Make Your Mark 2, B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown, BP – Halloween L004

Of course, there is a funky dripping skull on my thumb, but none of the photos which included my thumb were in focus! So you’ll just have to trust me. Bwhahaha! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Purple Bulls Eye

I mean, if you can call something off centered and purposeful off-stamped a bulls eye :-p

I wish I had captured more of the silver under lighting! I was so proud of myself for yet another successful double stamp. I think I only had to completely restart one of the nails once! Success.

 Colors:
~ Grey glitter: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur Renaissance
~ Stamp: B. Loves Plates – B03 Mind Blown

Not super exciting, but I liked it! Hope you enjoyed. I am on vacation next week (!!!!) so I should have some posts set up while I am away, but I won’t be responding to messages!

Love Above

This mani is a bit of nail art, some swatching, and a small amount of comparison. When Zoya did their New Years sale, I bought 4 new polishes that I intended to replace some terrible polishes that I own, and to fill a few gaps. This is the first of them!

What you see here are three thin coats of Jordan. I bought this polish to replaced Tickled Pink by Wet n’ Wild which takes 4 coats and is incredibly thick. I wanted to compare the two, so I put Tickled Pink on my ring finger, and Jordan on all the others. I cannot tell the difference! Which is to say that the swatches of Jordan online are accurate. I was hoping Jordan would be a two-coater, but for a pastel 3 isn’t terrible. This is just a nice pastel pink creme. No frills.

Colors:
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled pink (ring finger only)
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Dark pink: OPI – Vision of Love
~ Dark pink holo: A England – Let Me In
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates (from the tiny heart next to the plate name)

I then added a gradient, and stamped a tiny pink heart near my cuticle. Super easy, but quite pretty! I do wish I had started the gradient a biiit close to my free edge, but it still looks nice! It was a really quite fitting manicure to wear right before Valentine’s day…so I hope you guys all have a great (and chocolate-filled) tomorrow!

Ups and Downs

To me, this ended up looking a bit like a red-and-black topographical map, ergo the title!

I don’t have much to say about this…my nails were short, I wanted to use Blaze by Zoya, and this stamp looked interesting. Blaze always ALWAYS goes on darker than I think it will! I still like the polish, but I don’t know how frequently I am going to keep wearing it, I have other prettier burgundies (and Zoya just isn’t the best at scattered holos).

Colors:
~ Red: Zoya – Blaze
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

Only one more pre-posted mani after this, I should be returning from Hawaii on Wednesday! I have a hunch that I won’t WANT to come back, but oh well.

Hope you enjoyed!

Illusionary

Day 8’s prompt is ‘metallic’ which is an odd one. I ended up using a metallic flakie/holo polish as the base for this mani, so I’m posting it here!

The actual reason for this mani was the stamps…I’ve been wanting to use the optical illusions from this particular plate for a year (which is how long I’ve owned the plate). I love how it came out! I am also quite glad I did not use a simple white base as I had initially planned. That would have been boring :-p

I don’t have much else to say about them, since they are simply stamps. I do now want to go use all the other fun designs from this plate! I’ve used some of them before, but I actually like how good this looks with just a simple stamp (being me, its usually over a gradient).

Colors:
~ Gold holo: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for RAINBOWS 😀

Lit Up Neon

COLOR. Oh my gosh you guys I AM SO EXCITED. I wore these when I went to San Francisco for my first vacation after hospital time! Also for my birthday :-p

I was trying to recreate a gradient from ilaeti but I think I need more blue! I love how the colors came out though, so I imagine I will be trying again…and this time showing a gradient-only photo, it was so pretty! Don’t get me wrong, I like the stamping, but that gradient.

I wish my nails were longer, the hint of neon green you can see at the tip of my thumb made me happy.

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Blue: Zoya – Rocky

~ Purple: Sephora X – Ignition

~ Pink: WOW – #371

~ Yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow

~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

That’s all! More colors and fun designs next week. I am so happy I had a least a month to wear whatever I wanted on my nails! Residency is going to be painful if I need to keep my nails ‘tame’. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have time for nail art, just color and a stamp if I’m lucky. I don’t know whats going to happen to the blog next year. Yikes…

Twilight Zone

Do-do-DO-do….*cue creepy music*. This was a super fun mani to put together! My nails are unfortunately short, but I wanted to do something twisty and strange (and purple). Voila!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of double-stamping or two-design-on-one-mani stamping recently. I don’t know why…its almost like a single design isn’t challenging enough? Which is unfortunate since I don’t have much time to paint my nails anymore!

I know some people don’t consider purple a halloween color, but I totally do.

Colors
~ Purple holo: LA Girl – Purple Effect
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: B Loves Plates – Mind Blown, Bundle Monster – 415

Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Rose Golden Hills

I was trying to do a black/rose gold alternating pattern, and I think it worked almost too well! You can barely tell that one side of each nail was gold while the other was black.

I had hoped this mani would be super optical-illusion-y (look at all those dashes), but instead it just looks boring. Ah well, live and learn!

This is also why I enjoy using more than two colors in my manicures :-p

Colors
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

Sorry for the boring design today, tune back in on Friday for something prettier and sparklier!

Dizzying Descent

Another week of chrome-based manis. Today’s is the simplest, but also rather cute! My nails were still short from being in the hospital, but I picked up a new glitter topper polish and I wanted to play with it!

Frosted Cupcake by whim (which I got at ULTA) is a mix of variously sized white matte glitters and holo glitters. It is somewhat sparse, but easy to work with. The bottle is smaller than usual, and usually costs wayyyy too much money (by my standards) but I got this for $2 so I consider it worth it! The clearance section at ULTA is my best friend.

I thought Frosted Cupcake would make a decent star-base for a galaxy mani, and somehow turned that into going through a warp zone? At least, that is what I was going for. The awesomely dizzying nested squares from a stamp on B Loves Plates 03 caught my eye and I just had to try it! I maybe should have added a bit more of a galaxy-like feel rather than just using a blue metallic polish as my base, but it was late at night and I wanted to see how much glitter Frosted Cupcake had. Voila!

Colors
~ Blue: Zoya – Estelle
~ White glitter: whim – Frosted Cupcake
~ White: Mentality – White Opaque
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

Despite how quick and easy this mani was (polish, glitter topper, stamp, done!), I still think it looks pretty cool! I tried to center the stamps on each nail around a central empty spot or glitter piece in particular, I don’t know why. It worked out in the end!

Stars and Stripes Half Moon

Happy 4th of July! Have some patriotic and sparkly nail art. I also have no excuse for why I am posting this so late…I forgot it was a Monday and thus didn’t post when I woke up!

This design was inspired by chickettes although she used gel polish, which is totally cheating! Which is also to say that I’m sure mine took longer than hers to dry.

As it turns out, I have the same stamp she used, but it doesn’t work super well. Since I already knew this (I’ve tried using it before), I turned instead to one of the awesome stamps on B Loves Plate plate 03, Mind Blown. I also grabbed some tiny stars off Bundle Monster plate 307, because despite all my myriad stamping plates I have none with stars on them!

Colors
~ Red: Emily de Molly – LE28
~ Blue: Nicole by OPI – A Lit-Teal Bit of Love
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Silver striper brush
~ Stamps: B Loves Plates – 03, Bundle Monster – 307

Despite the wonderful fireworks slated for tonight, I need to get to sleep early…I start on my surgery rotation tomorrow. This also means that, tragically, I just cut my nails to little tiny nubbins…and left the poor things bare. No nail polish in the surgical suite! As a reminder from here on out until September, all the posts will be scheduled rather than posted when I wake up in the morning (because I will likely forget at 4am, which is my very saddening wake-up time for surgery). The posts should continue through my return on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, assuming I’ve timed everything right. Happy July, and I’ll see you guys in a few months!

Creamsicled

I don’t even know. I was trying something and it looked boring so I added some more and then some glitter…and somehow we ended up here.

My first mistake was using a coral. I love the look of my coral polishes…I just don’t like how they look on ME! Oops. I knew there was a reason I never wore them. Then I made some black and white stamping decals and cut them into strips. The strips looked ok.

Then I added another thinner set of strips. But now it looked weird again. So I added some gold glitter dots. And this is just too much. I kinda hate it and kinda don’t mind it. Yay…?

Colors
~ Coral: L’oreal – Orange you Jealous?
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: B. Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

That’s really all I’ve got today. No more coral for me! Friday’s post it better, I promise!

Encased in Diamond

My nails are so tiny! And so sad. I went to New York City this past weekend to hang out with some friends, and in the process slightly broke two nails and completely devastated a third. I cut both of my hands down…but you can still see the devastation on my pointer finger here. It ripped halfway down into my nail bed 😦

Despite this terrible tear (which I am going to attempt to patch up and grow out, if I can), this mani came out quite cute! I had been looking at this diamond pattern on B. Loves Plates plate 03, but it was a tilted diamond…however, since my nails are so short I was able to apply it vertically!

The stamp has two colors on it, a lighter blue in the middle and a darker blue on either side. I thought it was rather fun!

Colors
~ Silver: Darling Diva – Diamond
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Dark blue: Maybelline – Midnight Swim
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

Hope you enjoyed, despite my nubbins, and wish me luck growing out my poor destroyed pointer!! (Also to note – this is the first post that actually survived the great save failure that you guys will be reading about shortly. Yay! I am posting super out-of-order)

Teal Spirals

I jazzed up an earlier manicure! My silver spiral staircase mani from a few weeks ago was a rushed job, but I had something in mind when I did it! So, this is the ‘full’ version of that mani (aka I went back the next night and added more things).

Luckily, the original design was 100% dry when I went to add color and gemstones, which does tend to happen when you sleep on it! I colored in the whole nail with one coat of a thin jelly teal, and then put a second (maybe even third, I actually don’t remember) over alternating spirals for contrast. Jelly polishes = awesome fun! I need more.

I went ahead and added an AB-coated crystal stone for even more glittery goodness. Luckily, my nails were long enough to actually get a bit of the spiral-like appearance from this stamp!

Colors
~ Teal holo: A England – Saint George
~ Silver: Mentality – White Opaque
~ Teal jelly: Zoya – Frida

Hope you enjoyed! Tomorrows post is a bit…terrible. You’ll see!

Mesmerizing Maze

I might have messed this up a teeny tiny bit. But it still looks awesome!

This was yet another “Eva plays with awesome stamps that can finally be centered, yay!” only I accidentally reversed the one on my pointer finger. It’s still centered…just upside-down. Oops!

In my defense, my lovely boyfriend and a friend of ours were downstairs making me cookies (yay!) but kept yelling about spilling melted butter all over the microwave, dropping milk, creating giant monster blobs of cookie dough…I was getting a bit nervous about the state and survival of our (admittedly tiny and sad) kitchen. So I messed up a stamp.

Colors
~ Multichrome: ILNP – Masquerade
~ Black: Mentality – Black Opaque
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – Mind Blown

So anyway, please forgive the upside-down stamp. The colors of the ILNP multichromes continue to make me drool. And the cookies were decent! Although now I should maybe start cleaning the kitchen. 😀