Pink Petal Gradient

Oops! I meant to post this on Friday but I ended up accidentally throwing a party instead and forgot. Sorry! Anyway, This was just a fun little floral! Fitting for almost-summer.

The new polish here is called Morgan by Zoya. What you see here is three thin coats, although I could have gotten away with two thicker coats. This is a bright blue-leaning pink, and it is quite pretty! I have been hunting for more medium tone pink cremes, and although this one is slightly darker than I was hoping for, the color borders on neon and it was fun to wear.

Colors:
~ Light pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Stamp: Moyra – 32 Nature

I don’t have much else to say, I like gradients and flower petals! At least on nails. In real life, flower petals would make me sneeze terribly. Hope you enjoyed!

Succulents

I’ve just seen so many people doing complicated double accent nails, and I wanted to try it! Also I love this purple.

I feel like I cheated with this because the complicated nails are just water decals. This whole mani took under an hour, and as usual, most of that was waiting for the polish to dry! Unfortunately, the decal nails did need a white base (instead of just applying them over a base-coated nail) because the decals are not opaque. They are beautiful regardless!

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Painted Polish – Just One Look
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Water decals: Born Pretty Store – A055

The link for these decals is here. I seldom use water decals unless I have to review them, and I am regretting that decision! They are pretty and so darn fast. Hope you enjoyed!

Golden Sheaves

This is another old one, I painted these back in the fall too! They were supposed to be wheat sheaves or something, but the look mostly floral-y and very sparkly. Honestly, I keep forgetting that I own this base polish and it is so darn stunning!

I have an intense love/hate relationship with glitters. On the one hand, they are beautiful, and most of them have this jelly depth that leaves me staring at my nails whenever I wear them. On the other hand, they are a pain to apply (since, lets be honest, you have to place a lot of the glitters, especially larger ones) and the are REALLY a pain to remove!

Eleven at least isn’t that hard to get on the nail, the glitters are well-dispersed, uniform in size, and smallish. But it costs so much time to take off!!

Colors:
~ Burgundy glitter: Illyrian – Eleven
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: Floral BP – X43

I think that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed 😀

Sprouting Purple Blossom

Hand-painted floral gradient time…happy Spring! It certainly feels like it here, we had a truly impressive lightening storm followed by monsoon-level rain. I spent a large portion of my evening just staring out the window in a dark room!

Anyway, it is also new polish time! This is three coats of Little Oysters by Ethereal Lacquer. This was a limited time buy (from one of the custom groups I am a part of) and I love it! I am actually wearing it (again) as I write this. The polish itself is a bit thick, however it is very opaque and I probably could have gotten away with two coats! It is a greyed-out pastel lilac with copious pink shimmer that shifts to yellow-gold at sharp angles. It looks grey, purple, pink, and sometimes yellow.

I decided I wanted to replicate some of the cool designs I had seen online with this particular stamp, but using purple rather than a multi-color gradient. In retrospect it would have been much easier to actually do a gradient, rather than hand-painting each layer of petals directly on the stamper head! But the end result is pretty cool.

Colors:
~ Pastel purple shimmer: Ethereal Lacquer – Little Oysters
~ Light purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead
~ Purple: L’Oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B005

Hope you enjoyed! It is a lot of fun to do stamping with just a touch extra, although in this case it took much longer to complete!

Blooming Purple Blossom

Flowers! I feel like it has been a while since I posted something floral. Of course, it is the beginning of March so I figured it would be warm-ish out. I was wrong. It snowed yesterday and is likely to snow again on Sunday. Oh well! Flowers anyway :-p

I wanted to make a flowers-fanning-out-in-purple appearance, but the base I used has copious yellow/pink shimmer (I forgot to post the swatch before the nail art, oops!) so it kinda looks yellow-to-purple. I like it anyway but it has a very different flavor!

Colors:
~ Pastel purple shimmer: Ethereal Lacquer – Little Oysters
~ Light purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead
~ Purple: L’Oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Darkest purple: Zoya- Monica
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B005

I hope it is warmer wherever you are! Happy Friday!

Blooming Mauve

This mani is halfway between winter and spring: winter colors but with flowers and a butterfly! Given how cold (and snowy) it continues to be, I thought that was fitting.

This is a new-to-me polish, and I love it. For some reason I am super into shimmers right now, and this is subtle, elegant, and loaded with shimmer! What you see here is three thin coats of Quixotic Polish – It Rubbed Off From Friction. This polish is one of my only purchases from Hella Handmade Creations (I usually stick to Polish Pickup). The polish is is a beautiful dark grey-mauve swimming with pink shimmer, which also has a scattering of holo glitter. That said, while I love the color of the polish, it was a little thick and hard to work with.

I then made some stamping decals/advanced stamping (aka coloring the stamp in while it is on the stamper) using silver and purple. The color combo could have been a bit better, but it wasn’t terrible. I rather wish I had used black not silver! Or maybe simply white.

Colors:
~ Mauve: Quixotic Polish – It Rubbed Off From Friction
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B005, BM – XL204

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

Top 10 Nail Art of 2018

With the help of my ever-tolerant husband, I have picked out my top 10 posts of this year (well, 11 really). They are, surprisingly, not the most loved on instagram, but IG users have some weird preferences! Without further ado, here we go:

May 21st: Aloha (which uses one of my top 10 polishes of the year, Traverse the Skies by Emily de Molly)

June 20th: Down the Incline, because multichrome gradients are amazing

July 30th: Ocean Surf, because this might be the first 3D manicure I made that actually looked awesome. Also, beach!

August 3rd: Messy Green Blue Gradient…I felt like I needed at least one gradient stamped with some combination of designs from Make Your Mark 02, since I did a whole bunch of them! Among the lot, I think this was my overall favorite.

September 3rd: Mountain Sunset. This begins the set from the 31 Day Challenge this year, where most of my favorite manis tend to live!

September 5th: Porcelain Roses, which have the dubious honor of having taken the longest of any nail art done in 2018 (that actually looked good) at ~4 hours. But they are SO DARN PRETTY!

September 10th: Peek-a-Rainbow, which I think wins the ‘most ridiculously rainbow’ award for the year, and also has the pleasure of being the nails I was actually wearing for my birthday.

September 14th: Gnarly Blossoms. Probably the second most time consuming manicure, and possibly my overall personal favorite. Yet again features Traverse the Skies because apparently my intricate floral nails must exist on a blurple shimmery background 😀

September 28th: Cascading Rainbow Dots, which is possibly my most original nail art of the year? Inspired by an awesome teacup. Almost equally rainbow-y to my rainbow nails two up.

October 1st: Holland, which was a direct copy from someone else’s design but is such a pretty reverse stamp scenery piece that I had to include it!

Sadly, I didn’t post any designs that I loved after the 31 Day Challenge, although I have a few saved up that I should get around to putting up shortly (if I can get my act together)!

And finally my honorable mention, because this was super easy (its just advanced stamping) but it came out so beautifully…March 21st: Trailing Flowers

Did I miss any of your particular favorites? I had an initial list of 16 that I wanted to post so there are 5 manis floating on my blog this year that almost made the cut!

Orchid over Purple

More blurple! I don’t know…I haven’t had a chance to transfer a lot of my newer designs onto my computer yet and I am running out of options. These are from early fall. And, of course, feature a darker periwinkle.

I wanted to play with floral stamps because, in general, I either want to be playing with stamps that are flowers, swirls, or purely geometric. I have a LOT of similarly themed stamping plates!

Colors:
~ Purple glitter: Polished for Days – From the Land of Oz
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BP – L067, BM – XL472

This was fun just because the base is so SPARKLY and how often do you get to color in orchids? Not often! Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and hopefully I will get my life together enough that I can post something more winter-themed come Wednesday!

Sheer Black Floral

This was actually the base to a much longer and more complicated manicure that you guys will see…at some point. Not now. But it is one of only two times in all of 2018 (the other being a perfect rainbow gradient that I was loathe to cover up) that I actually took pictures of the under-art nail, because it looked cool!

Which is really just a long-winded way of saying that I would have worn these even WITHOUT the glitter and pastel swirls that I ended up painting over them. Honestly, I was impressed that I liked these; that is a LOT of naked nail to be seen! I did use 3 coats of a very sheer nude so my nails don’t look as yellow and mildly stained as they really are, but still. Very naked. And not actually bad!

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – 616

Hope you enjoyed! Friday I have somehow another set of blurple nails…although they are closer to periwinkle than the ones I posted on Monday. Oops! I maybe should have delayed them but I like them, so oh well :-p

Flowers on the Diagonal

More flowers! And yes, these were supposed to go up on Friday after Thanksgiving, and instead I was distracted by buying too much polish. And too many stamping plates (who am I kidding, no such thing!). Regardless, this makes me feel better about not posting black nails for black friday :-p

More places that I love ended up having sales than I expected, but I wasn’t too terrible? I think I ended up with 9 new polishes and 7 stamping plates. Oh well!

Colors:
~ Purple glitter: Polished for Days – From the Land of Oz
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BP – L002, BM – 616

Hope you enjoyed these glowing blurple flowers and lines, and had fun picking up deals!

Pink and Brown Floral Mix

I have no idea where I was going with this. Two nails stamped in pink and three in brown? Over two different bases? And some other browns? This was poorly executed. However, I had just chopped my nails off so I wasn’t feeling drawn to doing something very involved on these tiny nails!

It also looks vaguely harvest-y with the brown and the nude, so I figured posting it now wouldn’t be too strange. I just need to remember to stick to stamping, at the very least, with the same color on every nail OR different colors on every nail. This mani is a bit of a color and contrast disaster!

Colors:
~ Pastel pink: OPI – Be there in a Prosecco
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optomist
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Stamps: BP – L084, BM – S107

So, not my best work. Not quite a fail, but close. Don’t make my same mistakes!

Leave for the Tropics

These are one of my favorite nail designs that I have done recently (…that was not in the 31 Day Challenge, which is where I usually put my favorites). It is a bit of the wrong season, but it was 70 degrees out yesterday so it totally still feels almost-tropical! Basically I love these and I wanted to post them now :-p

These nails are based around water decals from the Born Pretty Store: all the leaves are decals! Which is absolutely amazing because they have white backgrounds and beautiful cut out edges and show up perfectly against a dark green base. I love when I don’t have to use a white base for water decals!!

The flowers I added by hand, because what is a mani with fun leaves without a few dotted petals? I like how colorful it is 🙂 but really I cannot wait to use the rest of these decals, maybe in spring when it is appropriate! But who knows. Snow leaves? I can make that a thing, perhaps!

Colors:
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara

Hope you enjoyed these tropical nails in the Fall! I think the rest of this month will be a bit more Autumn-themed. I even have some pumpkins! October rather snuck up on me thought, so I only really have one Halloween manicure (which, the holiday is next week, how did that happen)! Hopefully I remember next year in advance and can put together some more fun seasonal manis :-p  Anyway, these decals are currently on sale for $1.59 for a set of three sheets, and I strongly recommend them.

Pinned Petals

This idea got into my head and I just had to run with it! I wanted to make a purple-white-floral overlay, and then add a rectangular stud to make it look like they were being buckled together. Ta-da!

I made nail art using the full nail water decal that you see spread across the tips of my nails here, but honestly I like the way this came out better. Don’t get me wrong, the whole decal is stunning, but there is something about this mani that keeps me coming back to it.

Also the base color here is yet another polish pickup pack shade, this is called Just One Look by Painted Polish, and it is from the August options. This is three thin coats and I adore this polish! It goes on a little thick, but the pastel purple is stunning and I love the linear holo background with the larger holo glitters!

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Painted Polish – Just One Look
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Decal: Born Pretty – A055

The born pretty store is having a rather impressive sale right now, so you can find this set of decals (with two others) on sale for 99 cents here! Gotta say, I love that these are opaque and yet thin, so if you are into decals I recommend them! Enjoy!

Neutral Quilted Flowers

This might be neutral and nude-toned, but it is at least moderately interesting! However, it was a challenge to put together.

I have to say that while I love the designs on this plate, the version of the plate that I was sent is very poorly etched! I managed to get the designs to pick up but it took a lot of finagling. Also, one of the reasons I wanted this plate so badly was the two-step stamping flowers, and with plates that are not deeply etched there is no hope of getting large areas of solid color (and even if you could you would need 2-3 coats of the stamp to be opaque) so the primary reason I wanted this plate doesn’t work. That said, the designs are pretty and I can hope it is only the copy I got!

Colors:
~ Pastel pink: OPI – Be there in a Prosecco
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optomist
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Stamp: Born Pretty – Flower Yarn S002

That’s it for today! Hope your day goes well, and if you want to invest in some pretty quilted-looking flowers for yourself you can find them at the Born Pretty Store for $1.99. Enjoy!

Soft Pink Floral

I was torn whether to post this for flower day or color day, and I realized that the whole purpose of this mani was that it was pink. Lots of pink. And a few colors that go well with pink, like gold and white. So voila! Inspired by the color pink and things one wears with pink.

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin. However, when I finished trying to mimic her, I decided I didn’t like how boring my white nails were! And as previously mentioned, gold looks good with pink, so I added some gold glitter to the top of my all-white nails, and I kinda love it!

My only real complaint about this mani is that I used red striping tape to make the negative space lines and it kinda bled? So my naked nails look a little red-der than usual and the white has a red tinge. Oh well! Still looks cool :-p

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold glitter: Sephora – I Found a Pot of Gold!

I am kind of amazed that the 31 Day Challenge is almost over! I remember this being a LOT harder to keep up with…but then again this is the only year that I didn’t post daily. This M-W-F posting schedule really makes my life at lot easier! And hopefully I can keep it up. Thus far in residency no one has made a fuss about my colorful nails (then again, I haven’t been painting rainbows or neons yet).

Gnarly Blossoms

I know it isn’t spring anymore, but I got the PERFECT base color and I just had to make this! I’ll likely do it again next year so it fits :-D. Also, flower day anyone? 😀

This awesome design was inspired by ruthsnailart which I have recently become obsessed with. If we are being honest, I added too many cherry blossoms (I like her slightly more minimalist design) but this still looks pretty epic!

The base is a stunning periwinkle blue/purple polish with copious pink-gold shimmer and silver flakies called Traverse the Skies by Emily de Molly. I have had my eyes on this polish ever since it came out, and it does not disappoint! I love it. It is super interesting (both in terms of color and finish), and is just close enough to purple that I’ve also already worn it to the hospital. This is three thin coats, although I probably could have gotten away with two if I was more careful.

What you probably can’t tell is that there are THREE colors of brown in the tree branches (and an additional three colors of pink in the blossoms) and putting this all together took longer than I thought it would. That said, it was worth it! I am impressed.

Colors:
~ Periwinkle: Emily de Molly – Traverse the Skies
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark pink: Clinique – Pinkini
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll

That’s about it for this one! I’ve never made cherry blossoms this way before (usually I try to make little flowers rather than dots) but I really like this. Hope you enjoyed it, happy flowers day!

Toned Down Frills

I will never give up on nail art! Even if it becomes increasingly harder to manage due to time and responsibilities. Anyway. When I started residency I knew I needed nails that were subtle and pale pink and all that appropriate stuff, but also fancy and fun enough that I wouldn’t be disappointed in myself. Voila!

So yes, this is the nail art I had on for my first few days of residency. TECHNICALLY I think we are not supposed to have any type of design on our nails? But I don’t remember exactly the rules and its not like I’d ever paint something disrespectful so, we shall see. Hopefully no one gets angry about painted nails!

Colors:
~ Nude: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: BP – 181

I ended going for a nude with a design that is tone-on-tone, and unsurprisingly I suppose not a single person noticed! I have since then worn less subtle designs and so far its been good!

Anyway, hope you can appreciate my pain at short and subtle nails! Happy Friday!

Lavender and Pink Petals

Today is something pretty but very very simple: water decals! And really nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if these were opaque or not (I have been burned too many times not to assume I need a coordinating pastel-colored base polish), so I started with a base of Royalty Reinvented by L’Oreal. Truthfully, I didn’t need it. These water decals are 100% opaque and amazing. I soaked for 40-60 seconds and they came off easily, repositioned well, and stretched to fit my curves nails without ripping.

I feel like it is rather rare to find full-nail water decals that just work, so this was quite refreshing. Both thin enough to follow nail curves but thick enough to maintain their color and consistency. Win all around!

If you like these, or think you might just want to play around with some quick easy nail art a-la-water decals, head over to the Born Pretty Store. These particular decals are currently 99 cents.

Pink and Gold with Flowers

How about something pink and gold? I figure with the flowers it is suitably summer-y too!

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin but my pink base is an AWFUL polish that takes 3 coats and never dries (I need a better barbie pink) and so I wanted to do more things with those nails. I don’t know if this  counts as over doing it, but I actually liked it!

Using Erin’s nails as a template got me very excited about gold dots. I love adding dots to things. In this case, added too many gold dots to things…specifically my middle finger. Oops. it would have looked better with more white space 😀

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

I am quite proud of the roses though! I hope you enjoyed them too.

Trellis of Roses

She what I meant by how I have enough flower manis? But they are so pretty!

Anyway, this mani harkens back to mid-2017 when I briefly had oval nails. That was mostly because the sides of my nails had cracked on 3 fingers, but I kinda hated it! I know a lot of nail artists (and really just people with nails in general) who can pull off and look good with oval nails, but I don’t think I’m one of them!

The pretty trellis design was inspired by @mvargas_nails. I am glad I went with a pastel blue base, it pops nicely with both the lines and the flowers! I am also quite proud that I freehanded these lines (although tbh you can kinda tell).

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Hot pink: WOW – #371
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Light pink: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn

That’s it for today! Happy Friday and I hope you enjoyed this week of manis that I’ve been saving in the vault because I really liked them 😀