Cracked Garnet

I couldn’t decide if this mani reminded me more of golden tree branches (which was the intention) or a broken gemstone (which is equally cool), so I went with gemstone! Either way, these nails ended up beautifully sparkly.

I seldom reach for my pure flakie top coats. Honestly, I feel like they overwhelm the color under them (which I suppose is the point) but I feel bad covering up my base color! In this case I used a purple I don’t like much, which made me feel overall better for the focus being on the flakies :-p

Colors:
~ Dark purple: Station – Happy Wine-y People
~ Orange glitter: Born Pretty – Raging Fire
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – XL472

Happy Friday, and I hope you enjoyed! Its >90 degrees in St Louis right now, and absolutely miserable with humidity. I don’t understand this weather, it was in the 40s less than a week ago!

Elegant Array

I love this stamp. I love love love this stamp. I didn’t even notice it when I bought the plate originally, but it is amazing! It also helps that the base color is elegant, but mostly the stamp is amazing.

Usually when I finish stamping I decide that the design just isn’t enough…that I need something else. Since it is me, this something else is usually dots. I did not even touch this design!

Colors:
~ Grey: Zoya – Yuna
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: MoYou – Porcelain 01

That’s about it. I am neck-deep in online estate sales right now trying to buy house furniture! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Ionian Arches

This was simple but a lot of fun to wear! I figured that pairing a magnetic polish (and magnetizing it sideways) with a weird 1920’s style stamp would look awesome. Voila! Of course, it also gave me an excuse to play with a cool new-to-me stamping plate from MoYou’s steampunk collection.

Colors:
~ Grey magnetic: Nails Inc – Trafalgar Square
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk|
~ Stamp: MoYou – Steampunk 06

Hope you enjoyed! I know there are only two photos, but when there is no sunlight AND my nails are tiny I don’t tend to take as many pictures!

(just FYI: I am moving these next two weeks, and there is a chance that I don’t get around to editing nail art and posting. I will be back! But if the blog is post-less for the next twoish weeks it is because I am moving and did not appropriately edit nail art in advance!)

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 😀

Archways

I decided to use a different gold for stamping this time as I have finally run out of my go-to stamping gold (Good as Gold by Essie) and this one does NOT work as well! The image actually picks up, it just won’t transfer because the polish dries so fast that I can’t stamp quickly enough. I need more Essie! I ended up having to hand-paint some of these gold lines, and since my nails were so itty bitty I wasn’t super invested. In retrospect, I am pretty unhappy about that because the manicure ended up quite pretty!

I also finally invested in some MoYou stamping plates (I owned none) when they had their cyber Monday sale….and I have to say I don’t love most of them. The designs are great and the etching is good (on all but one plate), but they are so small! I usually wear my nails longish, and the plates I got just won’t cover my whole nail. Maybe I should have gone with the fewer designs per plate setup, but then only the very center of each image would transfer. Its rather annoying!

Colors:
~ Black with glitter: KBShimmer – Dark & Twisty
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Liquid Gold
~ Stamp: MoYou – Steampunk 06

Overall, another manicure with a lot of potential and mediocre execution. I also only have two photos because I did these as I came back from winter break and was too busy unpacking to take many nail photos. Also, apparently St Louis does NOT get sun in the winter (I thought Boston was bad, this is worse!) so there are no sunlight photos for this mani…or for a lot of the upcoming ones as well. Sorry!

Interlocking Chevrons

I love the concept behind this nail art, but I’m honestly not sure I love the execution? I think this design is busy enough that it would work better as an accent nail and not a full mani. So, just pick one or two nails and stare at them I guess!

This mani was time-consuming because instead of using striping tape I used stamps and freehand to make everything. Basically, I stamped the initial gold triangle at my cuticle with Penny Talk and then filled in the design (which was hollow) with Juliette. Once that was top coated and dried, I did the rest. I stamped with a black creme polish the black chevrons, and then the rose gold chevron again (each was an individual stamp…so there are 4 stamps on each nail except my thumb which was 6). I then colored in the black stamps with Storm, and did my best to spare the crossing rose gold. I could have just stamped with Penny Talk after the black was all dry, but that would be ANOTHER layer of top coat and drying and I was feeling lazy. So I colored around it :-p….it probably took longer anyway.

Colors:
~ Nude: piCture pOlish – Cherish
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Gold glitter: ILNP – Juliette
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Black with holo: Zoya – Storm
~ Stamp: Moyra – 60 Cuts

Again, needlessly complicated, but in the end kinda cool? I’ve been back on a bit of a geometric kick recently. I wish I had time for some freehand, I’ve been feeling inspired! That’s all for today, for Friday we get back to colors and some flowers! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Golden Highlights

Kinda 1920s, yah? Honestly, if I had been thinking about it more I would have reversed the stamps, I like the idea of the spread fan shape coming from my free edge better, but too late! Also, my gold stamping polish has official run out and I will need more.

Honestly, I just wanted to play with 212 again, it is a subtle yet pretty polish, and one of the first I ever bought when I got into nail polish in 2012. My obsession with various types and finishes of polishes have varied over the years, and the dark vampy jellies with subtle shimmer and flakies (ok, I think in that particular family I really only own two polishes) don’t get worn very much at all! So here is some love, 212.

Colors:
~ Black with glitter: OPI – 212
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: MoYou – Steampunk 06

That’s it for today! Hope you enjoyed. Friday is…more stamping. I feel like I hardly have time to do freehand anymore, everything is stamps!

Working Machines

I have a degree in engineering from undergrad, and I have always loved putting little bits of electronics on my nails! There was no particular inspiration for this manicure, I just saw the image on the Matrix plate and decided I wanted to go for it 🙂

I also decided that the dark greenish-grey of Yuna would make a perfect base, especially with the scattered golden glitter! I think I was right. This mani is a bit busy but I kinda love it.

Colors:
~ Dark teal: Zoya – Yuna
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: BM – 415, Moyra – 54 Matrix

Again, a fast easy manicure! I swear I will have time to edit some of my more intricate nail art soon. I’m currently still in relax-from-step-3-but-freak-out-about-buying-a-house mode. It is a very complicated mode. Hope you enjoyed!

Abstraction in Gold

This mani only worked because my nails are currently short enough that I could turn the stamp sideways and use different parts on each nail! I Initially wanted to do gold on some pastel background, but decided that dark red would look better. It totally does. I also almost got in trouble at the hospital for wearing nail art too visibly! Oops!

Regardless, this nail art was incredibly easy and surprisingly striking. It took a total of 30 minutes (and most of that was waiting for the red base to dry). Success!

Colors:
~ Red: Zoya – India
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

That’s it for today! Simple stamps. Wednesday’s post is a lot more involved…stamping and gradients oh my!

Marching Copper Trees

To be fair, when I painted these (well, stamped them) it was a few weeks out from Christmas. I always thought this particular stamp looked rather like christmas trees if you only used half of it! Otherwise it looks like stylized stalactites and stalagmites.

Of course, any manicure using an awesome mutlichrome and a rose gold stamping polish is going to look pretty good. This was easy to make pretty!

Colors:
~ Red-gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

Short, sweet, and straightforward! If it helps, the reason this post is so short is that I am taking Step 3 of the medical board exam tomorrow. And Friday. Because of course it is a two day test *grumble grumble* but after this Friday I am free again!

Highly Contrasted

So, being honest, I don’t love this mani. I was a little pressed for time and wanted to both stamp something cool, and use the colors that the nail polish base was designed after. Since the polish is called You Look Like Seafood in honor of Tamatoa from Moana, that meant fuchsia and gold. And unfortunately, this is where I ended up!

This is three thin coats of You Look Like Seafood! by Dreamland polish. I love love  LOVE this nail polish…the blue base, the pink shimmer, the flakies, the whole thing is stunning. I also really only needed two coats, I added the third just for a bit more depth. That said, I hate the brush on the polish! There was no way NOT to flood my pinky as the brush was both wide and not curved. 😦

Colors:
~ Blue multi-glitter: Dreamland – You Look Like Seafood!
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Pink: OPI – Cute Little Vixen
~ Stamp: Moyra – 60 Cuts

This was also the first time I played with the Moyra Cuts plate, I have used it many times since but I was still working with how to stamp large swatches here! Luckily my polishes were quite opaque :-p. Hope you enjoyed this more than I did!

Green on Golden Gateways

This was INTENDED to be my New Years manicure, but I decided it made more sense to post my Top 10 early and these late! But, they are sparkly, shifty, and weirdly colored (which I think will end up being a theme this week).

I am not sure why I decided that Walrus went well with Chance, but I was fiddling with colors and I ended up here. Orange with green is not my typical go-to but I kinda like how it turned out! I also really like this stamp 😀

Colors:
~ Gold/Copper multichrome: Enchanted Polish – I am the Walrus
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Stamp: Moyra – Ornaments

That’s it for today! Wednesday is going to be more weird glittery shifty things that kinda don’t go with their corresponding stamp color. *shrug* happy New Year?

Golden Hoops on Red

I feel like this is a very descriptive title. And I feel like this mani would have been boring…if not for the fact that the red base is a thermal! I didn’t bother trying to catch all the color shifting, since this is an old one that you guys have seen before. BUT, I did capture it how it existed 90% of the time: as a gradient!

This was basically just me having fun with thermal polish and a swoopy stamp. Of course, I used gold, because what else does one use with red? As a result it accidentally came out Christmas-y!

Colors:
~ Red thermal: Bow Polish – Hex
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: Moyra – 54 Matrix

So, super simple for today. Hope you enjoyed!

Dotted Circles

This mani took a bit of work because of the double stamping! And also because working with sheer polish makes me nervous so it takes a lot longer to get anything done.

The steps to this one were basically sheer polish, stamp with gold dots, then stamp with rainbow dots. The exciting part was that I got a liquid metallic polish from Sally Hansen (back when mirror nails were all the rage) to stamp! It is such a perfect shiny gold but it usually dries to fast for stamping. Which goes to show that this plate is well etched. And since I was stamping in colors over it, I didn’t care if every part of the design was 100% filled in. I’ll have to play with it some more in the near future!

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Liquid Gold
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Teal: OPI – Stay off the Lawn!!
~ Stamps: Moyra – 54 Matrix

That is a LOT of colors. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Maybe I’ll actually have some seasonal nails up starting next week? I have a bunch of snowflake and dark color manis done, but I haven’t even put them on my computer much less edited them yet!

Flowering in Gold

So this mani came out better than expected! I wanted a copperish-green and I almost missed entirely! I started of with a coat of Dragon, which is of course totally opaque in a single coat…and then decided it was too dark! So I topped it with a thin coat of a different green and then STAMPED with Dragon (and some gold). Voila!

I did have to scour a bunch of plates for actual designs though! And with the combo of green and reddish-gold I think it totally works for a quasi-thanksgiving manicure 😀

Colors:
~ Dark green holo: A England – Dragon
~ Lighter green with copper: Blush Lacquers – Nerida Singer
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B005, BPX – L018, BP – L067, BM – XL472

Luckily, I have part of tomorrow off, so I can at least join my husband and some of our residency friends for dinner, although I am on and overnight call on Friday into Saturday, so I have to hope that whatever awesome nail polish sales happen Friday will be ongoing until Sunday! I also need to apologize for some of the atrocious spelling and grammar at the end of Monday’s post, I should not write blog posts while exhausted. Oops! Hope you enjoyed!

Moroccan Tiles in Nude

Copycat Claws posted a blue-and-white moroccan tile design that I love and want to copy… but while I am in the hospital I should probably avoid bright blue nails! At least as I started out. So I decided that if I couldn’t do blue, I could at least try nude! (To be fair I pained these back in July, before I realized no one would care much about my nails). That said, these came out well if I do say so myself!

I used four nude-toned polishes and two shimmery toppers to make this. Since I only have one clear stamper that works well, I had to do each nail individually. It wasn’t DIFFICULT but I did take a long time!

Colors:
~ Gold shimmer topper: OPI – Ski Slope Sweetie
~ Pink shimmer topper: Sally Hansen – Platinum
~ Pastel nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ Medium pastel nude: Essence – I Nude It
~ Mauve nude: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Holo shard nude: piCture pOlish – Cherish
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

I’ll meet o keep in mind that I have to try this in blue at a later point! I do admit though, it isn’t very harvest-y, and unfortunately I have to admit I didn;t have time to put together a real Thanksgiving mani! But the rest of this week is at least fall-themed :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

Purple and Gold Galaxies

This mani tried so hard, but ultimately fell to the age-old adage: do not stamp over glitter with glitter (use a creme or a metallic). I started with a purple/gold multichrome but I was working too fast and my nails bubbled! So obviously I had to make a galaxy…but every time I tried to sponge on a new color I ended up hating it! I ended up just covering all the other sponged work with a dark purple glitter and some gold. Oh well!

As mentioned above, I also wish I hadn’t stamped with a glitter. Metallics just work much better. I was trying to make everything sparkly but the end result is that it is difficult to see the designs! I’ll need to re-use this stamp again soon, it is super cool.

Colors:
~ Purple/gold multichrome: ILNP – Masquerade
~ Grey with gold shimmer: Zoya – Yuna
~ Purple creme: Zoya – Margo
~ Purple glitter: Zoya – Valerie
~ Chunky gold glitter: OPI – All Sparkly and Gold
~ Gold glitter: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Stamp: BM – XL213

Every time I work with Valerie I wish I used it more, but I am always afraid to! Zoya keeps discontinuing their prettiest polish. Zoya: MORE GLITTERS! YOUR GLITTERS ARE GREAT! Anyway…hope you enjoyed! And let the moral be do not stamp with glitter over a glittery base!

Rosey Copper Golden Patterns

Rose AND copper AND gold (oh my)! Between the nude and the shimmery metallic-tones of Frohe Feiertage I didn’t know what to call this mani at all. I love how the nail art looks, a bit tone-on-tone and a lot glittery, but naming it was a challenge!

If I’m being honest, there isn’t much to say about this manicure, other than ‘ooooh shiny’ because its mostly just a stamp over a sparkly base. Sometimes, however, that just works!

I should probably start writing down some of the tone-on-tone color combos that I like; it isn’t something that I would reach for if left to my own devices, but it works great in the hospital! However, it does fail pretty regularly (and then I have to restart my whole manicure, which is time-consuming).

Colors:
~ Rose Gold Holo: CbL – Frohe Feiertage!
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

Anyway, thats it for today! Wednesday’s post is far more colorful. Hope you enjoyed!

Bronze Leaning Leaves

Although I don’t think the photos came out that well, I LOVED wearing this mani! The dark olive green with copper and stamped with copper…and just ugh. It was so shimmery!

I don’t have much else to say about this mani really? It has double stamping, which I remain proud of, and I absolutely love Nerida Singer when I can talk myself into wearing this polish. I still own too many olive green polishes and I refuse to part with any of them!

Colors:
~ Green: Blush Lacquers – Nerida Singer
~ Copper: Pure Ice – Magic
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B005

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Friday’s post is a bit less exciting (I don’t like the mani, but I feel compelled to post my failures so others do not repeat them!) so I wanted something pretty in advance!

Pumpkins and Webs

Happy almost-halloween! This year my husband and I ended up at two different pumpkin carving events, so now we have four pumpkins. Which is double our previous yearly count of pumpkins. I carved a set: a dragon and a castle. My husband carved a pokemon (because of course he did)…and a pumpkin. Into his pumpkin. He is an absolute dork!

Anyway, I have a bunch of fall manis lined up, but I only did one halloween manicure this year! I kinda forgot that October meant Halloween. Oops. I’ll do better next year! This year’s halloween mani is decided to stamping jack-o-lanterns. I received another plate to review from the Born Pretty Store (which was thankfully well-etched) and went to town! Unfortunately, the dark orange I used for the pumpkins is more a jelly than a cream, but I still got away with single-pass stamping on some nails (thumb and ring finger). That said, I am not surprised I had to double stamp, I need to stop using glitter polish bases! But when trying to pick a base color my head just went ‘GOOOOLD’ so here we are!

Colors:
~ Gold: ILNP – Fame
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Bright orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – Halloween – L004

Hope you enjoyed! And I hope everyone gets lots of candy and tasty treats. If you want to pick up this pumpkin and web-decked plate, head over to the Born Pretty Store where you can find it on sale for $2.99.