Midnight Blue

I wanted something simple but pretty to match a dress I was wearing to my sister-in-laws wedding. This is what I ended up with! The base is ILNP Downpour and the stamp is from Moyra plate 32, nature.

Unfortunately, the sun did not shine at all during the time I wore these nails, so this is the only photo I am posting! No sunlight photo = no second photo on my blog. Also, sorry for the prolonged absence. We keep either traveling, or having people visit every weekend! That takes away from any time I have to put together nail art posts. And upload phots. Or even think about my nails. I have a hunch that the rest of the month is going to be just as bad as the last month, so I will post whenever I have time to think about it. Sorry!

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!

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!

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!

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…

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!

Gingerbread Fantasy

I really wanted to make some elaborate gingerbread nails, to celebrate one of my favorite snacks over the holidays (and the only holiday treat that I am good at baking…despite being Jewish, even the latkes fall to my husband to make)! I was inspired by @nbnailart to create these absolutely fantastic nails, and I have to say I am pleased with how they came out! They are 100% freehand and took a little over two hours to complete.

Colors:

~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ White glitter: Emily de Molly – Pale Landscape

I hope you all had a wonderful (and gingerbread) filled holiday! I can’t promise that there will be any post on Wednesday because I will be driving most of the day tomorrow to get home from my in-laws, but hopefully my New Years post ends up completed shortly! Enjoy!

Glowing Christmas Lights

This is the second time I have done glow-in-the-dark Christmas lights, but the last time I made the individual lights glow, and this time I made the whole nail glow! These were a lot of fun to put together, and made me smile in the dark. Just a win all around! And I think the green shifty shimmer added an extra dazzle factor 🙂

Colors:
~ White GITD: Serum No 5 – Pure Glow Getter

~ Green shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Neon red: Emily de Moly – LE 199
~ Neon orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Neon yellow: Emily de Molly – LE 196
~ Neon green: KBShimmer – Race Against Slime
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads

Look at that awesome glow! I charged these in the sun, and the white was bright enough that you could see the color of the overlaying lights in the dark 🙂

Only one more Christmas post this year, coming (hopefully) on Christmas Day! Hope you enjoyed and that you either have some fun colorful lights up or see them around town. Enjoy!

Axonal Neuronal Proteins

This is the other (more interesting) hand from the last neurology conference that I attended! Of course I had to have appropriate neuron nails. Since much of what I am doing now involves making my neurons glow green or red, I decided to mimic that on my nails. But I couldn’t do something simple, no. I started with a black/red multichrome to evoke the red bleed-through and background that appears on a lot of immunofluorescent imaging. I then painted on a neon green neuron, added a blue nucleus (since the typical nuclear DAPI stain is bright blue), and added tiny red dots in what I decided were the long axons of my neurons. Voila! Somewhat scientifically appropriate neuron nails.

Colors:

~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red/black multichrome: ILNP – Eclipse
~ Green: KBShimmer – Race Against Slime
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Red: Emily de Molly – LE 199

I think I am only attending one neuroscience conference this year, which is a bit sad since I like having more than one set of nails that are neuron/science each year. I suppose I could do this without the provocation of attending a conference, but this type of hand-drawn art takes hours! Oh well, enjoy!

And just for fun, this lighting made the red/black shift in Eclipse look particularly excellent, so I am including it. Enjoy!

Jewish Star-Flakes

Happy Hanukkah! It is always a struggle to think of a unique and pretty set of nails for Hanukkah. Candles alone look a bit silly, Jewish stars are hard to paint, and menorahs are overdone. I did a menorah anyway. But then I had a genius idea…many of the snowflake stamps I have look like 6-pointed stars, so what if I hand-drew a Jewish star around the snowflake?! Genius. It looks a bit silly, but I was happy. It also helps that my base polish (intended to look like flecks of candle spark) was stunning!

Colors:

~ Blue with iridescent squares: Emily de Molly – LE 302
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Orange shimmer: POP Polish – Slick Day of Summer
~ Yellow: Toyoko – Yellow
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120

I finally purchased a Hanukkah-specific stamping plate (maybe the only of its kind?) so for next year I will have more uniform nail art, and easier to paint. Stamps really do make life easier. Enjoy!

Snowman Expression

These came out very cute! I am not sure if I ended up liking the decision to add scarves to their necks at the end, but otherwise I am happy. This design was inspired by @nbnailart, only her’s are cuter and her nails are shorter. Overall I may try this again if I ever end up with very short nails during the winter!

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush

~ Orange: Julie G – Tangerine Dream
~ Purple: Alpha Beauty – 68
~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105

It is interesting that I almost never think to matte my nails unless I see a design I want to mimic that is itself matted… but almost all winter nail art looks better matte! Oy vey. I will have to think on this, and decide how much matte top coat I want to invest in this year.

Blue Vibrations

This design was to match a dress which was, shockingly, the EXACT color of the base polish! But I could not leave well enough alone (I cannot think of a single time in the past 10 years when I have intentionally worn a solid color on my nails with no nail art at all) and so of course I added a design. Sadly, the design (which was based on one by @ba_nailz) did not show up well at all! Black, dark blue, light blue, and white abstract waves. But really only the white and lightest blue were visible. Oops!


Colors:

~ Blue white glitter: Emily de Molly – Mantra
~ Black: Pueen – Black Jack
~ Dark blue: Pueen – Royal Blue
~ Blue: Pueen – Baby Blue
~ White: Pueen – Pure White
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L28

I may try this stamping design again over a more boring base, but honestly I don’t love it overall. I may let this one rest instead. Enjoy!

Blue on Blue Mountains

There is a better version of this manicure. Actually, there are many. I created a 4x gradient mountain scene 3 times in the span of a month to try and get the spacing right. This was attempt #2, and was by far the worst. Mostly because you cannot really see the distinction between the colors, and since it takes hours to MAKE all the colors, that is a real shame! I will shout out the original artist when I post the first set of nails (which looked quite a bit better than these…) hopefully in a few weeks.

Colors:

~ Blue base: Zoya – Rocky
~ Dark blue: Pueen – Royal Blue
~ Light blue: Pueen – Baby Blue
~ Vibrant blue: Sinful Colors – Endless Blue
~ Teal: Pueen – Mermaid Green
~ Black: Pueen – Black Jack
~ Holo: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur

In my defense for these particular nails, I was planning to wear a blue dress to a wedding, and these nails would be coming with me. However, I did learn some valuable things: it does look better if you only add holo glitter to the “sky” not the whole design (which I did the first time based off the inspiration photo); use contrasting colors (pink/orange vs blue/purple would look nice I imagine), The three mountain ranges really do need different colors (blue, dark blue, black….otherwise they blend together too much); don’t make the mountains too distant from each other, overlapping is good!

Minty Pumpkins

I saw so many cute posts with tone-on-tone pastel pumpkins (although it @onenailtorulethemall’s purple one that really caught my eye) and I decided I need to do my own take. But if I was going to use unusual colors for pumpkins and they were going to be pastel, I should absolutely also make them glow in the dark! So here we have minty glow in the dark pumpkins on a super shimmery base. My husband actually really liked these, but could not figure out why I made them teal. Or glow for that matter.

Colors:
~ Teal base: Ggal – No Worries
~ Teal/red shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Teal GITD – Serum No5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Black: Maybelline – Black on Black

Being honest, I painted these in 2022 (most of my nail designs are posted at least a few months after I actually wore them, if not a year or more after they were painted) and have been waiting to post them since then. When I went back to look at these, I liked them so much that I made the same manicure (with a slight twist in pumpkin placement) in blue! I need more glow in the dark polish.

But I think this may officially turn into an annual thing, at least until I run out of glow in the dark polishes (and I only have 4…so two more years I suppose)! Hope you enjoyed!

Creepy Eye Rings

Dear Eva, what were you thinking? Why did you do this? Why did you keep adding dots and make it weird? This looks like possessed evil eye atomic rings and I am freaking myself out. I think I liked it at the time? But in retrospect, no. Given that I painted these in early spring, it is no surprise that I had no idea what to do with them…but now Halloween is just around the corner! And they are rather perfect for ‘spooky season.’

Colors:
~ Purple flakie: Polished for Days – From the Land of Oz
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Purple: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Stamp: Hit the Bottle – Material World 01

I do love when weird accidental wtfs turn into something perfect for a completely different time of year. Voila! Hope you enjoyed. Also, the base color for this manicure looks really similar to what I posted on Monday? Go figure.

Sunset Gradient Verticies

For my birthday, I received a dress that I had wanted for months, which looks like an excellent flow-y sunset (if you are confused, check out the dress here). It didn’t fit as well as I hoped, but the colors were nonetheless excellent. Which means, of course, that I had to make a matching set of nails!

Colors:
~ Neon orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Neon red: Emily de Molly – LE 199
~ Dark red: KBShimmer – Chia-huahua
~ Purple: Zoya – Monica
~ Blue: Zoya – Ryan
~ Dark blue: Pueen – Royal Blue
~ Black: Pueen – Black Jack
~ Stamp: Moyra – 32 Nature

If anyone has suggestions on how to make thicker-than-expected pleats sit well I would be glad to hear it! The colors are so lovely but it makes me look…large. Anyway, enjoy the nails!

Glowing Teal Intricacies

This was a great idea that was poorly executed. I started with a great base and a great stamp….and it got lost in the colors I used. Oops! I will need to repeat this using colors that do not that blend with my base polish! Of course I had to add dots to rescue it, and I don’t think that worked either. Oh well, I did try?

Colors:
~ Glowing teal/purple: BKL – Doomicorn
~ Teal stamping: Pueen – Mermaid Green
~ Purple stamping: Pueen – Charming Lilac
~ Teal glitter: Emily de Molly – Sea of Lies
~ Stamps: EdM – 06

I am going to put this one down as almost-a-success (but a failure nonetheless). Live and learn! Hope you enjoyed some part of this anyway.