Vines Through the Swamp

Don’t ask me about the title. I thought that as lovely as the base is, it looks like a swamp. And then I got stuck into thinking about Shrek and now “I’m a Believer” is stuck in my head on repeat.

Anyway. This is one of the A England polishes that I picked up a few months ago during the color4nails sale (because I couldn’t resist) and it is LOVELY. Now, at least part of that is because I simply love this type of murky green-brown, but a lot of it has to do with the polish itself! (Actually, I have a post that I’m working on that compares the three green-brown polishes I own. Yes, I own three of them. Because this color is magnificent).

Shown here is two thin coats of Fotheringhay Castle by A England. I almost could have gotten away with one! Adina’s version of this particular color is a deep murky green-gold with scattered fine holo shimmer. The holo is less noticeable than most other A England holos, but the finish is stunning and you can certainly see the shimmer! I’m quite happy with this 😀

Colors:
~ Green: A England – Fotheringhay Castle
~ Gold shimmer: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold metallic: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: ULTA – Babydoll
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist

I ended up triple stamping with two Bundle Monster plates: once with a gold shimmer that ended up very faint because the plate was not etched well, once with gold metallic swirls, and then over that using black polish and the same swirls. It came out pretty well for all that stamping madness!

Hope you enjoyed!

Purple Fade Out

Nail polish websites NEED to stop putting things on sale! A England went on sale for a few days, and Adina makes some of my favorite polishes, so I just and to grab a bunch! I don’t know what I was thinking, I already have >10 untried polishes sitting around. I am a mess!

When I was looking for which colors I wanted (since I already have 10 or so A England polishes) I ended up buying half the Elizabeth & Mary collection. The two I wanted and this third one, a purple! In retrospect, I should have passed on the orange/red glittery one. That being said, THIS polish is stunning and I am glad it caught my eye!

This is two thin coats of Crown of Thistles, a pretty red-toned purple holo. The sunlight photos are the most color-accurate, the others make the polish look more blue than it really is. Crown of Thistles is a bright magenta-purple with copious scattered holo shimmer and a pink-purple shimmer that almost makes the polish look like a duochrome. I am impressed! Even better, it is basically a one-coater. If I had just been a little more careful, I would not have needed two coats at all.

I ended up applying a gradient stamp over the polish, which worked out better than I expected but doesn’t look great in the photos. I mostly needed something to blend in…I am getting tired of having to think in terms of what I can wear in the hospital! Just a few more months I can put whatever I want on my nails again.

Colors:
~ Purple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

At this point, I also have 9 (!!) Disney-themed manis built up that I’ve been working on over weekends (when I am free to do what I want with my nails). Do you guys want to see them soon, or should I keep going until I can do a whole month of Disney? 😀

Spring Stripes and Buds

Unsurprisingly, I painted these back at the beginning of spring, when it was still exciting to put flowers on my nails. Oh well! They are still cute, and came out oddly colorful 🙂

These came about because I just wanted something fun a floral! I was going to use striping tape to make the lines, but the base took 4 coats (which reminds me of why I NEVER USE this polish, ugh) so I couldn’t use striping tape because my nails never dried. So, freehanded stripes! Pain in the butt…but not half bad. More of the story is that I have almost mastered straight lines? I think only one of these is my right hand, but I actually managed all these lines on BOTH hands.

The only reason I find that amusing is that I recently discovered I switch off hands when doing a physical exam in the hospital…which the rest of my team was super impressed by! I’ve always been somewhat ambidextrous, but I think its only gotten stronger since I started painting my nails way back at the beginning of my PhD!

Colors:
~ White jelly: Revlon – Cala Lilly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BC – 06

Ok, that went very off topic. Suffice to say, these ended up colorful, cute, and a bit strange! And Cala Lilly is a terrible polish that I should get rid of before I try to use it again and spend 2 hours waiting for my base color to dry.

Negative Space Flowers

These came out cute! Although, sadly, they were cuter in my head. I just wanted something colorful and spring-y! I do wish that I had a left a bit more space between the flowers on some of my nails, but oh well.

The art is inspired by @lifeisbetterpolished, who has apparently changed her ID to @withlovekarissa and I had to hunt around and make sure I wasn’t tagging someone who stole her photos!

Anyway. Flowers, and negative space. I don’t usually go for negative space designs, but putting this on a white background seemed too…jarring.

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ Blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead

It is amusing that 90% of the colors I used came from two pastel collections (Wet n’ Wild and Essie)! I should go back to buying collections that come out with rainbow colors with the same finish, it makes for the best nail art! Hope you enjoyed!

Pink Peonies

Spring means flowers, right? So have some flowers! Even if the real ones make me sneeze.

This design was inspired by Copycat Claws although her stamp was far superior to mine! And I really need to find a suitable green jelly polish :-/. Any recommendations?

I do at least like how the pink and teal came together! Although I wish I had focused a bit more on some yellow/pink. I don’t usually like yellow, but it looks pretty with the pink jelly nearby!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink: Zoya – Paloma
~ Teal: Zoya – Frida
~ Yellow: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble
~ Green: Zoya – Jace
~ Stamp: BM – XL209

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed and happy Friday!

Forest Vines

It’s a Monday, which means more nail art! This particular post has it’s origin in a rather weird place: my name.

I decided that, since Zoya makes the best creme polishes, it was about time that I buy the polish closest to my name which happens to be Evvie. Apparently there used to be a polish named Eva (!!!) but it has been discontinued so I won’t ever own the polish that is ACTUALLY my name. But this is close!

Shown here is two thin coats of Evvie a darkened teal-grey. It is not a color I would ever choose normally, because I tend to go for jewel toned dark colors, not greyed-out dark colors! That being said, this polish ended up being really elegant and somewhat subtle. I like it!

The art was inspired by La Paillette Frondeuse. However, once I was done free-handing the vines and flowers on my left hand, I decided I didn’t want to spend all that time replicating it on my Cinderella hand…so I tried to stamp instead! The colors came out a bit different (because stamping) but I actually like it better! Unfortunately, I didn’t decide that until after I had removed the mani so I don’t have as many photos of my right hand as I would like.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Light green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Light blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Pink: Sinful Colors – Pink Forever
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! It’s probably odd that I bought a polish just because it has a name similar to one of my nicknames, but still. It’s fun!

Poppies on Teal

I just really really wanted to use Pending Perfection again (this polish CALLS me…yes I rewatched Moana last night) and so I grabbed a vaguely floral plate and went to town! It just so happens that I ended up putting together a super Spring-y mani that I am using now leading up to Easter! (Yes, I also know its the first night of Passover, but I don’t wanna make matzoh nails again.)

I ended up using a poppy stamp with black polish, and then coloring in the poppies with a pink jelly. Once that was done it looked a little boring, so I added a border of yellow jelly polish inside the flowers. It ended up pretty cool!

If I had to do it over, I think I would have started with the yellow, since the few flowers that have visible yellow are my favorite (rather than mostly pink with a bit of orange), but oh well!

Colors
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink: Zoya – Paloma
~ Yellow: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble

Which is better, the rounded nails or the straight edge nails? I think I like the straight better on this (unsurprisingly), but I got better photos of my rounded nails! Whoops. Hope you enjoyed, and happy Seder!