Blocking Pink Blooms

You guys I have no idea where I was going with this. I wanted to make a green gradient, so I did. Then I wanted to add some geometric black lines, so I did. I decided that wasn’t good enough, so I decided to add some complicated flowers, so I did. This is the end result. The black lines did not come out as dark as I wanted so I went over quite a few of them myself (which is why they are a bit irregular) but it also allowed me to make some go on top of and others underneath the flowers! The end result is very strange, but for some reason my husband loved it?

The base beneath all this nonsense is a new-to-me neon green polish called Race Against Slime by KBShimmer. It is a very nice very bright green! This is two coats. It was slightly thick (as one expects from a neon) and dried down semi-matte, so it will need a shiny top coat. Overall though, decent application and excellent saturation!

Colors:
~ Neon green: KBShimmer – Race Against Slime
~ Pastel green: Maybelline – Green with Envy
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

All the flowers are from a stamping plate that I THINK I have shown before, but on the off chance that I have not, here is the link. Lots of leaves and flowers and it picks up quite nicely! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this neon pink/green confusion of a manicure! And happy inauguration day 😀 😀

Darkly Golden Gone

I have achieved the pinnacle of nail art…which is to say that a design I found in 2016 and was never able to paint (missing the correct color and could not do the striping tape needed due to time constraints and a desire to keep my sanity) has finally been completed! I have this file with all of my dream manicures (at least those that I might some day do…there are many freehand artists out there that I simply cannot hope to compete with) and this was one of the older ones in that file. Victory is so pretty!

So, this design came from @natalia_engineer, only her version was much much simpler: she used a magnetic polish to create her gradient, and her black pattern was made from water decals. I ended up using 5 polishes to create a similar gradient, and a stamping plate for the chevrons! I still count it as a win. Also now I want that magnetic polish.

Colors:
~ Dark gold holo: ILNP – Sparks May Fly
~ Gold glitter: Zoya – Ziv
~ Dark brown with glitter: Spa Ritual – Starry Night
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: MoYou – Pro 02 

I started with my darkest gold glitter, Sparks May Fly by ILNP. Its a nice honey-gold that actually looks terrible on me by itself. I then tried to do a gold-to-brown gradient using glittery polishes (Zoya Ziv, ILNP Sparks May Fly, Spa Ritual Starry Night) but all I got was glitter, and the brown from Starry Night didn’t transfer at all. So I decided to do a creme gradient with Zoya Dea and Louise to get the brown tones, and then just dry marble over them with a bit more of Sparks May Fly and Starry Night. Success! Although Ziv left a MESS at my cuticles (pretty polish, pain in the butt to clean up). When all of that was done I got to the stamping part, and voila! Awesome manicure :-D, and HAPPY NEW YEAR. We have a vaccine and a new president, so 2021 will absolutely be better than 2020.

Wintry Mix

I love this! How cute is that snowman? And the reindeer might be *ahem* oversized but its still adorable. Its a reindeer-with-its-face-in-the-camera. Lets go with that. This is probably overall my favorite winter manicure from last year (yes, I post around a full year delayed. I do not have my life enough together to post just after I paint).

Colors:
~ Blue metallic: Zoya – Tart
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Red glitter: KBShimmer – Ruby
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120 

Lots of colors and designs and I still cannot get over that snowman! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! I am going to finish up with some winter/New Years manicures this week, and spend the early part of next week on my top 10 posts for both polishes and nail art. Hope you enjoyed! 

Cute Santa

Merry Christmas! My husband just finished making me watch Elf (which is a horrible awkward movie, by the way) so this post is going up late. I figured it was only fair to humor him since his Christmas was so thoroughly downsized (to…just me) for COVID. 

Colors:
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – LE28
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: OPI – All Sparkly And Gold
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan

Anyway, I painted these cute minimalist santas last year, and I am quite happy with how they turned out! As far as impressive manis go, these are not that, but they get the point across. I am particularly proud of the weird stylized santa hat on my thumb. Hope you all had a great holiday season, whatever you celebrated, and stayed safe!

Powdery Gold Snowflakes

This combines a whole bunch of my favorite things: Zoya polish, snowflake stamps, glitter powder with stamping…and the end result was pretty freaking awesome 😀 I even added some textured polish dots to have something to play with! 

Colors: 
~ Purple: Zoya – Valerie
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black (with gold powder)
~ Gold textured: Zoya – Solange
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – 120

The plate I used, Nicole Diary 120, was awesome. I love the huge variety and sizes of snowflakes! You guys saw some of this plate last week (during my first installment of purple-with-gold for winter) and I have only kept using it. I love not having to freehand the flakes, and they are so pretty and complicated! Happy purple snow-time, hope you enjoyed! 

Tarnished Locks

I don’t know why exactly, but for some reason this pattern reminds me of fancy engraved padlocks? The end result was pretty cool looking! And it was an almost perfect internally slightly skewed double stamp 😀 In the sunlight it almost looks like the silver is glowing through the black, which is one of the cooler accidental effects I have ever achieved!

Colors:
~ Purple with pink shimmer: Quixotic Polish – It Rubbed Off From Friction
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur (Renaissance)
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L049

I have a whole collection of stamped manicures on backlog, which I need to get through before I can start posting a lot of the newer stuff, which is a whole bunch of freehand! We shall see how long this takes :-p. Hope you all enjoyed! 

Abstract Succulents

Guys I don’t know. I wanted some teal-on-teal action, and for some reason I gravitated towards this stamp. I like what the nails ended up looking like, but I cannot decide if I think they are more succulnet-like or alien-head-like! So I went with the plants :-p

Colors:
~ Nabi – Ocean Blue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Stamp: MoYou – Frenchy 14 

Even staring at these again to edit and color correct them, I have no idea what I was thinking here! Oh well, it was fun anyway. Hope you enjoyed! 

Bird Shadows

These nails are intended to honor the adorable doves that built a nest on the windowsill in my bedroom and had to baby birds! It was great, as the babies learned to fly they stuck around the house for almost a week. They finally flew away near the beginning of fall but I will not forget them 😀

Colors:
~ Grey speckled: Cirque – Hatch
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Whats up Nails – B017

The nails also ended up being almost-spooky, so I figured they were appropriate for immediately after Halloween! Even if the inspiration was sweet instead. Hope you enjoyed! 

Haunted Sunset

This is one of the best designs I have made in a while, and it was for Halloween! Oh well, still worth it :-p. I saw these beautiful nails by @nails4cocktails and I just knew I had to recreate them! Sadly, I own none of the stamps that she does so it took me a lot longer to freehand everything, but it was very rewarding! I need to remember to do more freehand…when I have more time. These came out awesome and they only took a few (~2) hours!

Colors:
~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange you Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?|
~ Teal: Zoya – Rocky
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Blue: Zoya – Ryan
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Holo glitter: Wet n’ Wild – Kaleidoscope 

Anyway, happy Halloween! I hope you all have safe and socially distant plans for tomorrow night, and that everyone gets to enjoy both candy AND not catching the plague :-p.

Spooky Flames

I had to freehand the black because for some darn reason all of my fire stamps require me to stamp the FLAMES rather than the space around the flames! Which is unfortunate because none of my polishes are pigmented enough that I can stamp a gradient over black (other than metallics but that hardly counts). So, freehand black around a spooky flame. They came out quite well if I do say so myself! This begins the real lead-in to Halloween 😀

Colors:
 ~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange you Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Blue: Zoya – Ryan
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

I do wish I managed to get my timing right…I have done at least 4 more manicures this year, but I haven’t had time to edit them. I guess you will see them next year! That said, this year’s actual Halloween manicures is probably one of my favorites from the entirety of 2019! 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!

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! 

Flower Out

This is a bit of an odd one? Beautiful base, fun stamp, and somehow it ended up looking halfway between etherial and too bulky (due to the black at the tip). I don’t know if I like it! Either way, it is appropriately fall-themed (which reminds me that I should wear this polish a BUNCH this month).

Colors:
|~ Orange pastel multichrome: POP Polish – Slick Days of Summer 
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L052 

Hope you enjoyed! Today’s post might be simple, but I promise wednesday’s post is nuts and super colorful to make up for it 😀 

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! 

Butterflies on Pink

In retrospect I have no idea why I went with a bright pink base for this manicure, I think something a bit more subtle might have looked better! That said, this ended up colorful and fun. I also ended up using most of my bright yellows, greens, and oranges all in one place, so that was fun? I wanted to post this in 2020, and since we have entered October I figured this was my last chance! Time to start on fall manis next week 😀

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Shimmer: Different Dimension – Intergalactic Dolphin
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Pastel orange: Forumla X – Incandescent 
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi 
~ Pastel green: OPI – Did It On ‘Em
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

This manicure features a set of stamps from a plate sent to me for review from Born Pretty, the Nicole Diary stamping plate L21. It has a lot of fantastic leaves and flowers, and seems to be right up the alley of what everyone else is doing (lots of leaves). You can find it here for $6.99. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the last of summer manicure!

Glacier Cove

Well guys, I forgot to post yesterday like I meant to, but this post fits better with “inspired by nails you love” rather than “tutorial”, also it is the last day of the 31 day challenge. Also it is apparently my 8-year blogaversary (wow). Anyway, on to nails. I adore this manicure. This was fully inspired (read: copied) from Ruth’s Nail Art, only I managed the whole darn thing with polish and she used acrylics. This took hours to create but I do love the end result! It reminds me of the last time I went on an actual vacation (left the country) to visit Iceland almost a year and a half ago. 

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Pastel blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Pink: Love & Beauty – Pink
~ Grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

The only thing not free-handed was the circle of the moon, which was ultimately painted over in a mixture of white and pale purple polish. Voila! Happy end of the 31 day challenge, and I hope you all enjoyed! Since this blog is probably only read by nail artists, I hope some of you participated as well! Some of my favorite nail art of the year pops up from other artists during this month :-D.

Neon Bonds

This manicure ended up far exceeding my expectations. I saw a super pretty accent nail (by an artist that I can no longer find, and despite KNOWING that I saved it on either pinterest or IG it is just gone, sorry original artist!) and decided I needed to make it happen. Instead of free-handing lines, I decided to paint a bunch of polish onto one of my larger stampers (although I could have just used my mat), wait for it to try, and then cut it into strips. The strips were imperfectly sized but not hard to work with, and they gave the end design some fascinating depth! I almost wish I had taken photos before top coat. Of course, I then finished it with matte coat because that is what the original artist had done. I do love it, but the depth is lost! I am posting it today because it reminds me of the LGBT flag, and that deserves to be on my blog for the 31 day challenge Flag Day.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Neon pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Neon orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Neon pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia

I repeated the same basic pattern on my thumb, and then was at a loss. The original design called for a matte black pinky and shiny neon orange pointer and middle fingers, but I am morally opposed to mixing gloss and matte nails. I also don’t like having that many boring empty nails. I ended up playing with adding stripes of color vs black vs a mix to the other nails, but it looked too busy. I settled on this, two simple black stripes of different sizes on one nail. Of course, I matted the whole thing as well. This was a surprisingly quick manicure, mostly because once the nail were ready for the stripes, the polish was already dry, and there was no free-handing at all. Just scissors and some creative cutting! Hope you enjoyed! 

Milky Way Over the City

Honestly, this was not inspired by a movie (as it should have been for Movie Day in the 31 day challenge) but there are so many movies with pretty nightscapes of cities (and this was not a particular city) so I figured I could post it today! The design itself was inspired by Urban Nail Art. I loved her milky way idea and the colors, so I went for it! The manicure is free-handed other than the stars (which were stamped), and it came out pretty darn good! 

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Blue holo: Milani – Cyberspace
~ Pink holo: Milani – Digital
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence 
~ Gold glitter: Cult Nails – Walk of Shame
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Star stamps: BM – XL213

Making this manicure reminded me how much fun the Cult Nails glitters were; the polish company no longer exists (funny how many polishes I own at this point that the parent company doesn’t create polish anymore) so I somewhat hoard my few Cult polishes. I should honestly use them before they dry out; look at that glitter!!! Hope you enjoyed. 

Vivid Gradient Divided

It has been a (shamefully long) time since I did a dramatic gradient with striping tape. Partially because it takes so darn long to place the striping tape, and partially because I have been doing a lot of hand-painted scenes recently! Oh well. Enjoy geometric day in the 31 day challenge!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Pink: Zoya – Veronica
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black 

I am not going to lie, this is one of my favorite gradients. I do love blues and greens and purples in general, but for an eye-catching gradient, sunset colors are where its at! Hope you all enjoyed 😀 

Fishing at Sunrise

Rainbow day is my favorite day in the 31 day challenge! This time I pulled some nail art from the vault and went with a weird combination of stamping gradient and advanced stamping (kinda). This particular design was inspired by Sylvia Lopic Nails. By far the hardest part of this mani was getting my yellow polish to gradient. It just isn’t pigmented enough!

Colors:
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Hot pink: WOW – 371
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Zoya – Josie 
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! This was fun to make and fun to wear. I want to play with this plate again sometime soon; I do love easy panoramas!