Fanciful Abstractions

This is the plate I reach for when I don’t want to cover up too much of the underlying beautiful polish…and Turbulence really is a beautiful polish. At this point, my (nearly 10 year old bottle) is getting a bit dry and empty, so I layered it over a similar deep blue metallic, and it worked quite well! I love how this manicure came out, and I am glad I embellished a bit with silver holographic highlights.

Colors:
~ Blue metallic: Zoya – Ibiza
~ Blue glitter: Emily de Molly – Turbulence
~ Silver holo: Color Club – Harp on It
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 03

At this point in my nail polish journey, I have more or less stopped buying chunky glitter polishes like this one, because they just take so darn long to remove. As a result, despite having a full rainbow set (plus extras) of beautiful chunky glitters, I almost never wear them. It is a bit of a shame, as these types of polish are what got me in to the indy world in the first place! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!

Pink Jewish Stars

I also painted these for Hannukah, so they had to be both jewish and weird! And as a result I am also using them for passover :-p. I don’t know how I ended up with this color combination, and honestly I wish I had used a white stamping base not a silver one, but the end result was kinda cool! I don’t think I had noticed before that this particular stamp contained a jewish star, but now I have a hunch that at least once a year I will be doing a similar design to this but with different color combinations.

Colors:
~ Light blue: Zoya – Rocky
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Blurple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Stamp: EdM 17

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! And sorry for only two posts this week, I just got back from Greece and jet lag is real. As is me playing catch-up on Facebook and IG and posting all the blog posts from the past two weeks to my other sites since I definitely did not do that while I was on vacation!

Pastel Splotch Circuit

I have no idea where I was going with this, no plan, and no purpose (that appears to be a trend this week). I just went for it! I painted each nail a different pastel color, splotched the other colors over the base color, and then stamped in a white geometric-ish pattern. The end result was cool if confusing.

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pastel orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 11

You may also ask why I featured the entire rainbow EXCEPT for blue. I grabbed a nail polish for each nail (5 in total) and then didn’t have a blue nail. I absolutely should have put blue on anyway, but I did not do that. So here we are!

Ripples in the Dark

This is the second example this week of wanting to use a particular color (in this case the ultra-dark metallic chrome blue Sapphire) and having no idea where to go once the polish was on all of my nails. So I grabbed a stamp I typically love, and just…stamped. Ta-da, quick manicure, and pretty!

Colors:
~ Dark blue: KBShimmer – Sapphire
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 06

Sadly the sun did not cooperate and I was left without sunlight photos. Enjoy anyway!

Stamping Reel

Welp. I just spent 3 hours color correcting and editing nail art for the next two weeks, only for my laptop (that is, to be fair around 7 years old) to run out of battery at 30% battery life and delete all my work. So sorry, but the next few days of nail art just getting posted pretty much raw. I don’t have the emotional reserve to go and re-edit all of them 😦

Colors:
~ Blue glitter: KBShimmer – Sapphire
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: EdM – 06, 22

Unfortunately I did not manage to get any sunlight photos of this manicure because it was unbearably cloudy for a few days. So, only one (sad) photo today.

Layers of Trees by Night

This design was inspired by @nailqueenie. It did not come out perfect (I think I need more tree stamps) but I like it anyway! I also love the little wolf I added to the front. I painted these in summer but they are very wintery, so here you go!

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ibiza
~ Holo: Color Club – Harp On It
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 090, EdM – 07

I don’t know that I have really ever stamped the same design three times on each nail…I have a few more scenery plates than when I painted these over the summer (partially in response to painting these actually) so I want to try this concept again but with trees from different plates! gasp Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!

American Turquoise

I don’t know why but this pattern seemed quasi native american to me? So I felt the need to use a more traditional teal/gold/white palette. I actually really like how it came out, and the gold highlights actually help instead of detract (I usually feel like my little bonus silver or gold designs actually hurt the overall art)!

Colors:
~ Teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B039, EdM – 03

I feel that it is also fitting to inform all of you that I actually wore copper and turquoise today, so these nails (although they are not currently on my fingers) would have matched my jewelry choices for the day quite nicely! Hope you enjoyed :-p

Orange Abstraction

When I want to use a needlessly complicated polish and don’t want to cover all of it with a design, I always reach for the same stamping plate. I think this is the most frequently used plate that I have, and I think these two stamps might be the ones I use together more often than not. What can I say, I know what I like! I also only use this one orange polish maybe once or twice a year, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it because I was so HAPPY when I found a true-orange glitter! 

Colors:
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence 
~ Light orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: EdM – 03

In other news, I have somehow ended up desperately grant-writing while being on some of the hardest service blocks of my year, which was poor planning on my part. So, if I miss a post here and there over the next few weeks please excuse me! Anyway, hope you enjoyed this orange sparkly-ness!

Blue Stained Glass

This is not the first time I have used this stamp, and it will not be the last. Some day I will have enough time to color in each individual tile, but not today! This time I (again) reached for a flakie-filled polish and just stamped over it 😀

Colors:
~ Blue flakie: KBShimmer – Gaia
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 01 

Very easy but also very pretty! I occasionally feel bad about just stamping over a color with my years of nail art-ing…but with stamps like this I just sit back and enjoy the design 😀 Hope you enjoyed too!

Teal Snowflake Echoes

I have NO idea where I was going with this. Pale snowflake with a darker central snowflake? What if snowflakes made ripples? Who knows! I do, as always, love the base color though. Gets me every time.

Colors:
~ Teal with pink shimmer: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Dark teal: A England – St George
~ Stamps: EdM – 09, BM – 323

In retrospect I wish I had managed to center these a little better, but the end result was actually pretty cool! I don’t usually try to line up my contrasting double stamps and this is why. But I do like it! Happy MORE snowflake  mani :-p

Summer Sky

This is simple but I really love it! Hot air balloons and birds 🙂 I figure if I am stuck in the absolutely frigid hospital I should at least be able to enjoy the warmth on my nails! The birds, clouds, and hot air balloons are all stamps, so this was also pretty easy as far as nail art goes :-p

Colors:
~ Blue shimmer: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Bright pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 122, EDM – 07

Just looking at these nails makes me feel calm. Which, to be fair, is nice right now since at the moment I am on a 24 hour shift in the hospital (again…). Anyway, summer! Enjoy :-p

Interwoven Cheers

This was another pick a polish and a stamp manicure! I own a lot of polishes (no, really?) some of which are great for nail art (cremes, jellies, neutrals) and some of which are just so darn complicated on their own that all I can really get away with is stamping over them with one color. Cheers to the Holidays is one of the latter types of polishes, but it does make for a pretty manicure in a pinch! That said, this is one of the few polishes I own that I was really disappointed by: it is a holographic multichrome but it isn’t SPECIAL (I have maybe four multichromes that I would consider special for one reason or another) and I thought it would be. The photos on the FUN Lacquer website honestly made it look more spectacular than it is.

Colors:
~ Purple multichrome: FUN Lacquer – Cheers to the Holidays (H)
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

Not much else to say today. I don’t know if others have been misled by polishes in pictures in the past! Its why I love it when brands send to multiple swatters, although there are some people who can literally make anything look good. Regardless, something like 95% of my polish collection is exactly what I expected it to be, and a fair number of the remaining 5% were drugstore polishes that just smell funny but work fine :-p. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Pointed Periwinkle Gradient

This was just for fun! I had a full afternoon off (that never happens!) and decided that meant I had enough time to play with stamping tape. I used a three-color gradient and then a two-color over it (my darker purple was not transferring enough hue so I used a darker blue and then covered it with the purple again). Then I decided I wanted more design so I stamped a diamond at the bottom. I quite liked these!

Colors:
~ Light periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Periwinkle: Zoya – Danielle
~ Blue: OPI – Yoga-ta Get This Blue!
~ Stamp: EdM – 03

I feel like I go through cycles with colors. Sometimes I will end up using reds for a whole month, then purples. I try to remind myself to vary it, but I end up stuck in a color-loving rut! These, clearly, happened in a purple-centric time for me. Friday’s nails did too :-p stay tuned! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Golden Eye

I feel like this might be the closest thing to a new years manicure that I have done in the past few weeks, it is semi-geometric, evocative of the 1920s (rather than 2020 but who is counting), and glittery. Also, my husband loved this and so it deserves to be the first nail art post of the new year!

Colors:
~ Gold shards: ILNP – Juliette
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Holo diamond: Sephora by OPI – I Found a Pot of Gold!
~ Stamp: EdM – 09

Not much else to say today, hope you enjoyed! Hopefully I can get my act together and get designs edited for next week; i go onto a night rotation for two weeks and I doubt I will have time to do the edits I would otherwise like to do!

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!

Pink Swoop Gradient

I was sent to pink polishes to review from the Warm Tea Series from Born Pretty. These are very small bottles of quite potent stamping polish. I do wish I had been given two different color families, but theses ones gradiented together well! I wanted to test them over a dark base to prove that they, especially the lighter pink, would work. Voila!

Of course, in retrospect, it might have been a better test of their ability to not put them over something quite so glittery, but I have to admit the effect in the sun was dazzling! This has also convinced me that at some point I really do need to go out and buy some more dedicated stamping polishes. My regular cremes would never be able to do this!

Colors:
~ Purple holo: Emily de Molly – State of Mind
~ Light pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea, Cherry Blossoms
~ Dark pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea, Crimson Cheeks
~ Stamp: EdM – 21

Hope you enjoyed! If you want to pick up either the lighter pink or the darker pink stamping polish you can find them here for $1.99 each. That said, keep in mind that these are very small polish bottles, only 6ml!

Nude and White Splatter

This one is…interesting? I don’t honestly know where I was going with it, but I wanted rose-gold-on-nude and some splotches of white. I guess I achieved that? Regardless, it was somewhere between subtle and fun, which works! The stamps are from two different plates but they worked pretty well together.

Colors:
~ Nude shimmer: Picture Polish – Cherish
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: EdM – 03, Lina – Make Your Mark 02

Short and sweet! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Copperized Patterns

A post! Sorry its so late. Today was my day off and I still barely got everything done! Also the Blues won the Stanley Cup and now the whole city is honking and cheering. I suppose I should be posting blue nail art but I have nothing prepared at the moment! The stadium (well, both hockey and baseball) are about a mile from my house and there are helicopters circling overhead at the moment.

Anyway, this was a very fast manicure. Beautiful multichrome holo polish and a matching stamp. Ta-da! It helps that this stamp is both playful and elegant :-p

Colors:
~ Red-gold holo multichrome: Enchanted Polish – I Am the Walrus
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Stamp: EdM – 06

Hope you guys enjoy, despite the late-ness! I am already dreading my shift in the emergency room tomorrow morning, I assume it will be full of people who over-indulged following the hockey win!

Risen on Wine

This manicure was SO straight-forward that…I kinda forgot to take photos of it. 80% of the photos that I have are oddly out of focus and 15% are badly framed. Oops! At least it is a simple one I suppose!

Colors:
~ Dark red: Confetti – Masquerade Ball
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Stamp: EdM – 06

So…that’s all for today. Not much to say! Friday’s manicure is a bit more exciting I promise :-p

Subtle Purple Engraving

Super simple and super tiny nails today! After the Christmas holidays my nails broke down to tiny nubbins. Which means I was too lazy to do any real nail art on them, and just went ahead and stamped! And for some reason I was in a tone-on-tone mood (I think I wore these at the same time as Monday’s nails). Voila!

Colors:
~ Dark purple: Station – Happy Wine-y People
~ Purple holo: A England – Let Me In
~ Stamp: EdM – 06

So, not the most exciting manicure in the world, but cute enough! Hope you enjoyed. I remain incredibly jet lagged but quite happy (well, not to be back in the hospital, but certainly to be sleeping in my own bed)!