Flowers Trailing Dots

This was a brushstroke marble, and it only kind of worked. I used different wet polishes gently brushed over each other to make a sideways pattern, and then transferred it with a stamper. The pattern looked cool on my mat, but when it transferred it got blurry! This was a class example of an over-engineered design. I wish I had just stamped without adding glitter. Oops!

Colors:
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Neon teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Grey glitter: Emily de Molly – Shadow on the Moon
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

Of course, the sun also did not want to cooperate with me during the days I wore this manicure, so unfortunately all you get are indoor photos! I swear the flowers were glittery…they were just leo smushed. To make up for this poor showing, on friday you get neon rainbows! Ok? Ok.

Sea Storm

My birthday is the end of this week! It is also the first day of my end-of-intern-year-break. It is going to be amazing to actually be doing my speciality after the end of this month. Regardless, I decided to celebrate by posting a week of some of my more favorite recent manicures! Starting with this one.

In addition to looking like fancy lightening, this mani showcases a fantastic base color! What you see here are three thin coats of Narrow Sea by Illyrian from lat years March PPP. Yes, I wore these almost a year a go and never posted them. I was saving them for something special, because omg I love this color. I honestly could have gotten away with two coats of the polish, but I wanted more shimmer! My only complaint, and it is a tiny one, is that the polish is a bit thicker than I expected, but leveled well regardless.

To get the nail art I dabbed on some white and covered it with a dark grey-green and grey-purple to make the clouds and surf, and freehanded some lightning strikes! I wanted them to glow, so I added some shimmery polish. I am so happy with how this came out!

Colors:
~ Dark teal shimmer: Illyrian – Narrow Sea
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Dark grey-green: Zoya – Evvie
~ Dark grey-purple: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Holo shimmer: ILNP – Rosewater

That’s it for today. Stay tuned for more of my favorite manis on Wednesday and Friday. Hope you enjoyed!

Pagoda and Maple

I love this mani. The leaves are upside-down from where they should be (oops) but it still looks awesome. Also, I finally did a stamp transfer to make a mirror image! That has NEVER worked for me before!

The base polish here is a new-to-me beauty called Darling, Red Isn’t Your Color by Cadillaquer. It is an off-white jelly base filled with tiny red glitters and small and medium black glitters. It is subtle and amazing and I love it. I am always looking for more off-white crellies and this is a success! This is three thin coats.

I then stamped in black, colored the leaves in pale grey and the roof in two different shades of red (you can’t really see the gradient but it made me happy), and voila! Next time I do this (cause lets be honest, this combination of designs is happening again) I will make sure the maple leaves point DOWN not UP. Oops!

Colors:
~ White crelly: Cadillacquer – Darling, Red Isn’t Your Color
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamps: MoYou – Porcelain 01

That’s it for today! Happy Friday. It is currently only in the low 80s in St Louis…I hope this cooler weather holds until I have a few days off next week!!

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!)

Purple Bulls Eye

I mean, if you can call something off centered and purposeful off-stamped a bulls eye :-p

I wish I had captured more of the silver under lighting! I was so proud of myself for yet another successful double stamp. I think I only had to completely restart one of the nails once! Success.

 Colors:
~ Grey glitter: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur Renaissance
~ Stamp: B. Loves Plates – B03 Mind Blown

Not super exciting, but I liked it! Hope you enjoyed. I am on vacation next week (!!!!) so I should have some posts set up while I am away, but I won’t be responding to messages!

Pink Along the Circle

I have no idea. I just started playing with things and ended up here? I wanted grey, red, and pink, and somehow wound up turning to this pattern.

I started with a light grey base and layered one coat of a glitter polish overtop, to give it some flakies. I then stamped, and dotted the rest of the pattern. The only really fun part of this design is that I mixed red and white and just swirled them together, so the dot color is variegated.

Colors:
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Grey glitter: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – S101

That’s it for today! A bit of an odd design with a bit of an odd collection of colors, but overall not terrible :-p.

Gently Swirled

This mani is a mess. I wanted to make something subtle and swirly, and decided to give Sandy a second shot. The first time I used this polish it took 4 coats and was still barely opaque…and since it has a lot of glitter and flakies, it was quite thick. This mani ALSO took 4 coats and honestly I give up. Sandy is moving to my “pretend this is a topper” section in my nail art room.

It also doesn’t help that on my easier-to-image left hand I decided to plan out where each part of my swirly stamp was going to go…and on my right hand I just winged it. The right hand looked much better in the end! But I took very few photos because the photos of my left always come out better. Silly me.

Colors:
~ Grey shimmer: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 Ornaments 3

In the end, this mani was a bit of a bust. It fulfilled its purpose, which was to be subtle, but I didn’t love it. Ah well, on to next week!

Icy Winds

I wanted something that looked like icy wind blowing, so I ended up with this! Just the stamp over the (admittedly awesome) base wasn’t interesting enough, so me being me, I added some dots. I kinda love it!

It also ended up accidentally being incredibly timely, as we are supposed to have a “massive” (about 1ft) snow storm in the next 48 hours and they are making beds at the hospital for the doctors to sleep there if we need to. Luckily, I live walking distance away. I cannot imaging having to sleep in the hospital (if I am not on overnight call)!

Colors:
~ Purple/grey shimmer: Emily de Molly – Shadow on the Moon
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur Renaissance
~ Purple: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Stamp: BP – 21

That’s it for today! Icy winds on my nails and outside 🙂 Hope you enjoyed!

Swirling Flakes on Grey

I just keep wearing this polish! Grey Opal might be my favorite buy from Polish Pickup Pack (its from probably a year ago at this point), because it is amazingly shimmery and flakie-y, but it still just subtle enough to totally get away with in the hospital!

I also finally used up my bottle of the original Excalibur (my go-to silver polish for just about anything), and about a year ago bought a replacement (this is the best stamping silver ever), but now it is “Renaissance” because they replaced Excalibur with some weird gold/silver flake combo which, while pretty, does not at ALL serve the purpose of the original bottle. That said, this formula is still fantastic 😀

Colors:
~ Grey flakie: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur Renaissance
~ Stamps: BP (asian) – L008, BP – 185, BM – 319, BM – 232

Super simple, but quite pretty! And work-appropriate as long as no one notices all the colors hidden in the flakies. Win for everyone! Hope you enjoyed and happy Friday 🙂

Feminine Circuitry

I was at a loss for what to call thing or even think about this mani…I don’t personally like it, which is a bit annoying since I know just how long it’s going to take to remove all that glitter! Anyway, my husband said it looked like a motherboard for women, so here we are

Colors:
~ White/pink/black glitter: Emily de Molly – Sakura
~ Nude sheer: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Grey holo: A England – Fated Prince
~ Stamp: Lina – Make Your Mark 02

I used three coats of Sakura, which I still love. But I decided that was a little stark for the hospital, so I added a coat of a nude-clear before top coating. I also messed around with 4 different colors of stamp before choosing a deep grey holo…and I still don’t like. I should have picked a different stamp! Anyway, only two photos because I ran out of time. Oops!

Shower Curtain

This title is odd. I was trying to figure out what this mani looked like, and my husband thinks it looks like ikea furniture. Honestly, I can kinda see it. I got a new stamper for free for buying farrrr too many stamping plates from Whats up Nails during their stamping sale. Ooops! Anwyay the stamper is huge and squishy and SUPER see-through and honestly worked perfectly on the first try. It is also amazing for layering. My older (and beloved) clear stamper couldn’t have aligned these so easily!

So anyway I wanted to stamp this fun triangle pattern in black, and then go over it shifted in white to make a funky striped triangle pattern. I did that on my middle and ring fingers (and it was so easy to align, it was almost unfair, this stamper is awesome). Then I decided that I liked the design better with just the black stamp alone! So I left my other three fingers without any white at all.

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Moyra – Matrix 54

The sad end to this story is that I got a bit of polish on the covered end of the stamper, and I tried to wipe it off with acetone. I should have known better. DO NOT USE ACETONE ON PLASTIC…now it is no longer opaque! I want to cut the end off so that the whole thing is hollow (and useable) but I can’t find my hand-saw. So, sadly, I am now back to one useable see-through stamper.

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!

Swirling Wind

I don’t know what I was aiming for with this mani! I wanted something that looked cold and windy (it snowed for the first time on Friday, and is supposed to snow again today) and it felt appropriate! I started with a grey-white shimmery base and added some stamped swirls, and then colored them in. I don’t know if this was the best idea, or if I should have gone for some creme polishes to color in the wind!

Regardless, the base color her is a new polish called Sandy by KBShimmer. It is from the August PPP. The swatches I saw made it look beautiful, which it is, but I didn’t look correctly at the layer count. This is three THICK coats, and the second time I wore it, it took 4 coats! No one has time for that. So, while I do like how it looks, I think I am relegating it to a topper. Fail.

That said, the polish is a pretty pale grey with lots of purple shimmer than shits to blue, and tons of silver holo shards. I am currently into polishes with silver shards, for whoever reason! The base is a crelly for ease of sparkle, but I know (because I own) crellys that are 2-3 coats and not 3-4 coats. This polish is not easy to use.

Colors:
~ Grey with shimmer: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ Purple shimmer: OPI – Ink
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Shadow on the Moon
~ Stamp: BM – XL213

So, windy and long-winded (I think I’m funny). Overall, this mani was more time-consuming than pretty, and most of that is due to the base color. Live and learn! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Grey Dragonscale

I need to preface all of this with the fact that i don’t like this mani. my initial idea was to stamp in white over the shimmery grey base but I thought that would be too boring….in retrospect i definitely wish i had gone that route! this color combo is a bit drab.

I bought this color by KBShimer off of one of the monthly sale groups and I am honestly disappointed! The polish is a bit thick and despite that this is 3 coats and I could still see nail line. I usually trust KBShimmer, and I am aware that they have been doing a visible nail line thing for the last release or so (which is why I haven’t bought any of their polishes in a year other than this) but pooh! I am not happy. I’ll have a post with an actual polish review hopefully sometime soon. But the polish is a bit of a flop and the nail art is ALSO a bit of a flop.

Colors:
~ Grey shimmer: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ Dark purple creme: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Dark purple multichrome: Essie – For the Twill of It
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B025

Anyway, happy Friday! I am somehow falling wayyy behind and have none of th art lined up for next week yet so lets see what I end up posting!

Holland

The final day of the 31 Day Challenge of 2018 is here! I only participated in about half (a little under half if we’re being honest) of the total and I am still exhausted. Major kudos to all of you who were following along, and to my past self who somehow managed to post daily!

Anyway, today is “honor nails you love” and I have a bit of a different thing happening. Probably 25-30% of all my nail art is based either loosely or exactly on designs I have seen other people do. This time around, I decided to do a design off of the website for a product! Although it is also the nail art used by that product.

What I am trying to say is that today’s post was inspired by, of all things, the stamping plate website itself! I cannot find the original artist (and trust me, I’ve been looking) but I literally bought this plate because this image showed up in my email and I needed to replicate it! So voila. I think I’ve done a pretty good job honestly!

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Blue shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Dark grey: WOW – #333
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

And that’s all for the 31 Day Challenge! Hopefully I will still be around and posting next year, but as residency gets harder we shall see! I am still painting my nails and enjoying it, so I am hopefully. As it turns out, yesterday was my 6 year blogaversary, so I have been blogging for longer than I thought! Go me?

Floating Feathers

As it stands, this is my least favorite mani that I have pre-set for this month. I was trying to go for something cute and whimsical…but it honestly just came out boring. Sorry!

I did stick to the black/white/grey theme at least, unlike in previous years when I added color pops. Maybe that is why I don’t like it though, color is my jam!

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Lina – Make Your Mark 02

Anyway, this post is a bit lackluster but next weeks is much better, stay tuned for gradient day on Monday! Happy weekend 🙂

Rungs

This mani ended up boring and almost ugly. I like the base polish a lot but every time I try to come up with some color to use over it, I turn to dark purple-grey or gold! And for some reason most of the designs end up wonky looking.

I don’t know why I picked this stamp (which seems to be a trend this week) but it ended up looking like rungs on a ladder or maybe the straps on a fancy jacket? If fancy jackets came in murky purple tones? I don’t know!

Colors:
~ Purple-grey: ILNP – Long Walks
~ Dark purple-grey: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Stamp: EdM – 01

Anyway, leaving all this aside, the 31 Day Challenge starts this weekend! I am not going to be participating every day because I don’t have enough manis backlogged and I certainly don’t have enough time to paint and edit that much, but I am going to keep to posting three times a week and matching my nails of the day to that days prompt! I think there will be a few where I jump a day forward or backwards, but I should have most of them sorted out. I love seeing what everyone puts together for the #31DC2018!

Trailing Flowers

YOU GUYS. This polish is amazing. And I quite like the design I ended up with as well! I am drooling over my own photos. This is rare.

The polish here is called Grey Opal by Polished for Days. It is yet another excellent example of why everyone should join the Polish Pickup Pack! Grey Opal covered perfectly in two thin coats, and control of the polish was excellent. Honestly, I have been painting my nails for years and even so I almost always need to clean around my cuticles with acetone after I am done applying my base color. With this polish, I had no need…it went exactly and ONLY where I wanted it to go! I am impressed.

The polish has a grey jelly base with lots of silver shards, coral shifting flakies, and teal shifting flakies. It is very fun to look at, between the orange and the teal and the glitter! It somehow manages to be both fun and elegant. I loved this polish so much I ended up checking out the Polished for Days store and OMG it is amazing. I want most of it (many of the polishes seem to have as much depth to them as this one, which is just incredible) and I officially have a new indie polish crush for jelly/flakie/shard combos!

Anyway, I ended up making floral stamping decals using a coral polish that more or less matched the pink-orange shade of the flakies, and just going with it. I did paint in some green leaves, but they barely ever made it onto the nail (they were all off the edge, oops)! I want to say this is fitting because yesterday was the first day of spring…but it is 32 degrees out and snowing!

Colors:
~ Grey glitter: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Coral: L’Oreal – Orange You Jealous
~ Teal: Essie – Naughty Nautical
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

Hope you enjoyed! And seriously, if you are as addicted to polish as I am (which if you are reading this, I assume you are) go check out the Polish Pickup Pack. And thank me later 😀

Encroaching Stone

A lot of the time, I go into a mani not knowing what I want…other than that I have a new tool to play with (in this case, a stamping plate) and that I want to use one of my favorite polishes that I wear infrequently.

After I put Shadow on the Moon on my nails (and wow these photos never do it justice, I love this polish!) I messed around with which stamped design I wanted to use. I ended up settling on one that looked like bare tree branches…but stamping them in silver and black to look like veins in stone.

The photos did not come out as well as I would have liked, and the sun did not particularly cooperate! But I loved wearing this mani and it was different from my usual designs!

Colors:
~ Grey glitter: Emily de Molly – Shadow on the Moon
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL472

Happy Friday! I hope you enjoyed 🙂