Subtle Patina

This ended up looking like a pretty pattern with a patina over it! Like, copper underneath (hence the flecks of gold) and then rusted. I don’t know, maybe thats too poetic?

Although this was painted for and worn to the hospital, I think it is pretty enough (and not pink!) to count as just a regular mani. Despite how subtle it is, I actually really like it! For once, adding dots was actually the right move :-p

I need to remember to use the random full-design square plates I have more often when I am low on time, enjoy the randomness of the pattern that ends up on my nails.

I also need to keep reminding myself that pastel of just about any color should be acceptable in the hospital, no need to limit myself to pink! Or purple. Mint is a current favorite nail color of mine so I’ll keep trying to work it in 😀

Colors
~ Grey: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Teal: Zoya – Tiana
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – S101

That’s all for today…but the later part of this week is another Disney heroes and villains set-up!

Grey Trimmed Lace

Ok, so this is super boring. Like really really painfully boring. That said, it came out nicely and no one noticed any of the art in the hospital so I’ll cal it a win. It also gave me a chance to use that darn stamp…its been staring at me for years and I never figured out why someone would need some angled lace pattern!

I don’t have much to say about this. Pink. White. Grey. Some lace. I sound like a broken record…I really hope my current stint in the outpatient clinics is more forgiving of manis! I think it will be (I am barely getting graded for this, it is for my own edification).

Colors:

~ Pink: ULTA – Baby Doll

~ Grey: Zoya – Dove

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Stamp: BM – 323

I hate posing for bottle photos with anything but Zoya or rectangular bottles. I don’t know why, but the shape fits well in my hand. This awkward straight-edged bottle? Not so much. So, thank you brands like Zoya and Emily de Molly for making easy-to-hold bottles :-p

Thats it for boring pink manis! There is one more subtle mani but at it least it isn’t pink or nude. Oy.

Variations on Grey

This mani was the result of me just playing around with black, silver, and grey. I wanted to re-test my black holo base…which of course is actually a grey. That is always disappointing!

I ended up adding a silvery white stamp, and then covering around half the nail with grey matte polish. In the end I decided I was going for some type of fancy clothing (a vest over a shirt? I don’t know)…and then I added dots. Because when in doubt I always add dots. Sometimes it helps!

The design was mirrored over my hands, which is to say one had the V-shape starting at the cuticles and the other had it starting at my free edge. I am biased in which I liked better, mostly because I really like square-shaped nails, not rounded ones!

Some day, some polish maker will come up with a black holo that is both wonderfully holographic AND is not grey. To be fair, I have no idea how that would be achieved, but a girl can dream!

Hope you enjoyed! On a personal update: I can bend my elbow again! So editing for the rest of this week should be alright 🙂

Silver Leaves and Pink Berries

I really like how this mani came out, but it took forever to plan! I knew I wanted something with white, grey, and pink…and trying to figure out what to use for the stamp vs the background took forever. I think I used all 5 nail demos on my silicone mat! Worth it 😀

The stamping plate I used here was sent for review from the Born Pretty Store, but it is full of fun leaves and flowers…both of which are a pain to free-hand. So, I am really glad this plate works as well as it does! It’ll be VERY useful come fall. The geometric pattern is from an Emily de Molly plate though.

You also cannot tell, but I actually used both a white and a silver to stamp, just to see how the variation looked! It’s most noticeable in the non-sunlight photos.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Stamps: Floral BPX-L018, EDM 03

If you want the floral stamping plate, head over to the Born Pretty store, it is currently on sale for $2.99! Don’t forget to use my code, LY5X31…although I don’t think it can be applied to things already on sale, sorry!

Clouds and Stars

Another adventure in thermal polish! I was going to do another hills-and-sky thing, but since the thermal I used goes from grey to black (it is supposed to be clear to black; I really should get over my paranoia and add a single coat rather than two over the base color and see if I can get it to show instead of just grey), but the color scheme ended up different so I made a night sky instead!

The clouds are one thermal polish and the background is a different one. I didn’t think the blue of the clouds stood out enough against the grey, so I added a dark purple boarder. Funnily enough, when the nails are in their coldest state, the purple border on the clouds is actually LIGHTER than the clouds themselves! Triple thermals are awesome.

I did try to make a moon peeking out behind the clouds, but it mostly just looks like a messed up star. That said, the stars came out quite nicely!

I don’t have much else to say about this mani. I feel like I had high hopes and was somewhat disappointed. I should have just gone with my second choice and made a rainy day with raindrops and the clouds! Oh well.

Hope you enjoyed!

Monochrome Color-blocking

I’ve been wanting to do a comparison between my blue-grey-with-gold-glitter polishes for a while now, and I finally figured out a way to do it that shouldn’t get me in trouble in the hospital! Elegant color blocks.

The design was loosely inspired off Sassy Shelly’s post, obviously with different colors. I ended up doing different design on my two hands, mostly because I didn’t feel like worrying overly much about line placement on my right hand (which as you can see currently has teeny tiny rounded nails).

Sadly, I actually think I like the random placement from my right hand better than the planned-out design on my left! Whoops.

Regardless, as you can see, the lightest polish (Memory Palace by Cadillacquer) is a pale grey with a blue tint, holo sparkle, and copper flakies. The medium dark (Timeless Vow by ILNP) is a blue with a grey tint, completely filled with holo sparkle and a smattering of gold flakies…it is more of a metallic-finish than the other two. The darkest (Yuna by Zoya) is a deep grey with a blue tint, filled with gold-green shimmer.

I thought the sparkle in these colors would all be complementary, but they are actually all different! I still think the design works :-). I also don’t think I had ever quite focused on the pretty golden flecks in Yuna before!

So there you have it! Memory Palace and Yuna are both grey-with-blue, while Timeless Vow is a blue-with-grey that has a much more metallic/holo finish. I am glad I own them all!

Hope you enjoyed!

Wafting Folds

Something about monochrome is just so…elegant. I usually prefer using colors, but I had a hunch that I could get away with a bit more of a daring design in the hospital if I stuck to a colorless (but not glitter-less) design.

I basically just made a gradient of my subtly holo monochrome polishes, and then stamped over them in black. I decided to alight the ‘folds’ in the stamp along the length of my nail, just for fun.

So, very simple mani in the end, but I like it! Its far classier than most of my more recent attempts 🙂

Colors
~ White: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Grey: A England – Fated Prince
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Stamp: BP – 21

Hope you enjoyed! We will return to my regular method of Paint Things Colorful with the next post, I promise!