Glowing Pastel Lights

This one was FUN. I got a set of glow-in-the-dark polishes from Serum N5 and could not wait to start playing with them! I decided to see how they all compared to each other by making pastel christmas lights that actually glowed in the dark. I ended up using a pink jelly over the white one to make it pink, but the yellow, blue, and green are their original colors. Also not going to lie: they glowed nicely but NOTHING can compare to the neon bright happiness that is Dayglow. The others, although pretty, seemed weak in comparison, and I could hardly tell their glow colors apart. A bit disappointing but still fun!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Cream gold glitter: Dear Rus – Sparkle Milk 21
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Yellow GITD: Serum No5 – Dayglow
~ Green GITD: Serum No5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Blue GITD: Serum No5 – Blue Blazes
~ White GITD: Serum No5 – Pure Glow Getter
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma

I am torn between wanting to buy more glow in the dark polishes, and wanting to just use the ones that I have more often, although they are a bit hard to use as base colors because they are just thick enough to be difficult! Next year I will have to do full-nail christmas lights I think.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and happy almost-Christmas! I have officially run out of seasonally appropriate manicures that I have previously saved up, so the next round of nail art is likely to be what I am currently wearing gasp or at least have worn in this calendar year.

Geometric Christmas Sweater

I have a secret: this design is from an easter plate, and was supposed to be for an easter egg. I have repurposed it and it tickles me. I added some dark gold glitter dots and stripes for a bit more interest, but otherwise this is just a moderately complicated stamp! I do wish there were more Hanukkah stamps though. Or even things I could PRETEND were Hanukkah stamps. Hooray for another year of hand-painted candles.

Colors:
~ Grey: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Gold: ILNP – Sparks May Fly
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B017

I have finished editing the rest of the designs for this week, and honestly, I feel like I need to up my Christmas game again. The ones I have painted this year will be posted next year, and at least I have a santa in the mix! I suppose this is what happens when I off-post by a full year. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Darkly Golden Gone

I have achieved the pinnacle of nail art…which is to say that a design I found in 2016 and was never able to paint (missing the correct color and could not do the striping tape needed due to time constraints and a desire to keep my sanity) has finally been completed! I have this file with all of my dream manicures (at least those that I might some day do…there are many freehand artists out there that I simply cannot hope to compete with) and this was one of the older ones in that file. Victory is so pretty!

So, this design came from @natalia_engineer, only her version was much much simpler: she used a magnetic polish to create her gradient, and her black pattern was made from water decals. I ended up using 5 polishes to create a similar gradient, and a stamping plate for the chevrons! I still count it as a win. Also now I want that magnetic polish.

Colors:
~ Dark gold holo: ILNP – Sparks May Fly
~ Gold glitter: Zoya – Ziv
~ Dark brown with glitter: Spa Ritual – Starry Night
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: MoYou – Pro 02 

I started with my darkest gold glitter, Sparks May Fly by ILNP. Its a nice honey-gold that actually looks terrible on me by itself. I then tried to do a gold-to-brown gradient using glittery polishes (Zoya Ziv, ILNP Sparks May Fly, Spa Ritual Starry Night) but all I got was glitter, and the brown from Starry Night didn’t transfer at all. So I decided to do a creme gradient with Zoya Dea and Louise to get the brown tones, and then just dry marble over them with a bit more of Sparks May Fly and Starry Night. Success! Although Ziv left a MESS at my cuticles (pretty polish, pain in the butt to clean up). When all of that was done I got to the stamping part, and voila! Awesome manicure :-D, and HAPPY NEW YEAR. We have a vaccine and a new president, so 2021 will absolutely be better than 2020.

Wintry Mix

I love this! How cute is that snowman? And the reindeer might be *ahem* oversized but its still adorable. Its a reindeer-with-its-face-in-the-camera. Lets go with that. This is probably overall my favorite winter manicure from last year (yes, I post around a full year delayed. I do not have my life enough together to post just after I paint).

Colors:
~ Blue metallic: Zoya – Tart
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Red glitter: KBShimmer – Ruby
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120 

Lots of colors and designs and I still cannot get over that snowman! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! I am going to finish up with some winter/New Years manicures this week, and spend the early part of next week on my top 10 posts for both polishes and nail art. Hope you enjoyed! 

Cute Santa

Merry Christmas! My husband just finished making me watch Elf (which is a horrible awkward movie, by the way) so this post is going up late. I figured it was only fair to humor him since his Christmas was so thoroughly downsized (to…just me) for COVID. 

Colors:
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – LE28
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: OPI – All Sparkly And Gold
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan

Anyway, I painted these cute minimalist santas last year, and I am quite happy with how they turned out! As far as impressive manis go, these are not that, but they get the point across. I am particularly proud of the weird stylized santa hat on my thumb. Hope you all had a great holiday season, whatever you celebrated, and stayed safe!

Red/Green Mix

So, this was a bit of a disaster but I do like the fluid nail art! I basically just grabbed a few colors and made things up as I went along. I think it shows, but honestly I don’t care :-p

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Red fluid: Dance Legend – Spot It Red
~ Red glitter: China Glaze – Ruby Red Pumps
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Halloween L004, Valentines L002, hehe – 028 

Today it went from 65 and sunny with lots of wind to 28 and pouring out. I don’t even know what winter thinks its doing at this point? Oh well. One more Christmas-appropriate manicure after this one. Hope you enjoyed!

Green/Red Mix

So, it turns out I must have at some point deleted the entry I wrote where I stated which polishes I used for this design an why. I can take a very educated guess, but I am winging it! Regardless, we have entered formally into christmas nail art week, so all this week will be reds, greens, golds, and a santa to cap it off :-p

Colors (my best guess):
~ Red glitter: China Glaze – Ruby Red Pumps
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120

And thats it for today! I hope you guys have all come up with some fun (socially distanced) way to celebrate the holidays. Enjoy!

Holiday Vines

How about some festive vine designs? Really I just wanted to use this base polish because it is almost perfectly holiday, green with lots of red and gold shimmers and flakes! Of course I just went and covered up 90% of it, but its the though that counts :-p 

Colors:
~ Green glitter: Rogue Lacquer – Princess of the Underworld
~ Red: Covergirl – Forever Festive
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold 

Hope you enjoyed! Happy end of Hanukkah (even if I didn’t post any super hanukkah nails this year) and start of the ONE WEEK that is christmas (as opposed to my husband who believes that christmas starts the moment thanksgiving ends). Harumph! 

Menorah and Circles

I wore these for Hanukkah LAST year because I never manage to get my nails together in a timely fashion! Anyway, I was testing some new blue polish (which is to say I was playing with polishes I bought on black friday) and decided that dark blue would be a perfect base for a menorah. Unfortunately, none of the swatch photos of my background polish came out in focus! In fact, I only had maybe two in focus pictures out of the whole set. Silly camera!

The background of this manicure was two thin coats of Ryan by Zoya, a beautiful deep dark blue. It was almost a one-coater. What makes this better is that the polish stayed on without cracking and with minimal tip wear for 5 days! I think at this point I am just hooked on Zoya blues…I own almost all of them. Since the whole point of the timing of this manicure was Hanukkah, I freehanded some menorahs. However, once I painted my menorahs, I was at a loss. I didn’t have the time (or the patience) to paint a menorah on every nail…and then I decided to just go with weird sketchy circles. Don’t ask me why. But honestly, it came out pretty cool looking! I had been wondering why these circles even existed on that stamping plate, and now I know 😀

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ryan
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Light blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Gold holo: Sparkly Vernis – Gilded Lemon Drops
~ Stamps: Lina – Make Your Mark 02

So, happy Hanukkah even if it is a bit (a lot) delayed to the point of being the following year! Hope you enjoyed, and have fun not setting things other than candles on fire :-p Also Merry Christmas because, yes, I decided to be different and post Hanukkah nails on Christmas Day 😀

Embellished Green

I wanted to use a multichrome that I hadn’t touched in a while, and so re-discovered Mutagen! This polish is so old that it is still in the ILNP round bottle. Anyway, I decided that since mutagen looks variably light or dark depending on if you get the deep green or the pink/silver flash, that it made sense to do a pastel-to-dark stamping gradient. I do honestly love how this came out, it was subtle but depending on the angle of the nail you could see different parts of the design.

Colors:
~ Green multichrome: ILNP – Mutagen
~ Light green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Stamp: BM- XL158

I wasn’t thinking about this when I made the design, but it almost looks like ornaments on a christmas tree? If you squint? Anyway, hope you all enjoyed! Happy Friday 🙂

Candystripped

You guys, I am terrible! I am sorry it has been a week since my last post…I just didn’t have time to put together any of this since then! I was at my in-laws for Christmas and then my sister (and her adorable puppy) came to visit me, and there wasn’t time for photo editing! I am wearing the same design on my nails that I placed a week ago. A WEEK. And it is chipped and awful. Sorry nails!

Anyway, this design was supposed to be candy canes, and was intended to go up last Wednesday just after Christmas. I failed. But I am going to post it anyway!

The base color here is three thin coats of Aphrodite by Zoya, which is a pretty orange-leaning bright red with glitter, but unfortunately is not QUITE opaque. I will likely end up using this as a jelly rather than a glitter crelly due to the three coat problem! But I love how bright it is. I bought Aphrodite (and like 15 other polishes) during black friday/cyber monday deals.

Colors:
~ Red glitter: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Born Pretty – Halloween L004

Sorry for the late post, and I hope you enjoyed anyway! Happy new years!!! (I swear I also had a real new years post but of course it isn’t edited yet. C’est la vie!)

Swirling Flakes

Snowflakes! More snowflakes! Snowflakes on a windy background! I decided I wanted more color so on top of Downpour (the dark blue) I dry marbled some Party Favor (teal), then stamped with Yummy (lighter blue) before stamping with silver.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, for some reason most of the photos came out blurry. So today there are only a few photos (although 3 does tend to be normal for me now) and I did my best to pick in-focus ones!

Colors:
~ Dark blue holo: ILNP – Downpour
~ Dark teal holo: ILNP – Party Favor
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur (Renaissance)
~ Stamps: BM – XL213, 323, BP – 185

Maybe I should have posted something a bit more Christmas-y today, but all my manis got pushed back a day, so my official christmas mani will go up on Wednesday and holiday nails will continue through Friday. Oops! Enjoy anyway :-p

Red and Green Strokes

One day closer to gift-day (aka Christmas) and one more red/green manicure!

I started with red glitter, then double stamped with a white-to-green and green-to-white gradient (I don’t know why) and when that just looked messy I stamped with dark red. Despite the completely unplanned and frequently ugly nature of this manicure as it developed, I actually quite like the end result!

Colors:
~ Red glitter: KBShimmer – Ruby
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamps: Lina – Make Your Mark 02, BM – XL205

I think that is all for today. If you haven’t yet, please go vote for flightofwhimsy at the Nail Art Canada holiday contest! Hope you enjoyed!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

This is my entry for this years nail art canada holiday challenge! I have entered for the past 5 or so years, and last year I won the internal competition! Most years I just pick my very favorite holiday mani that I had done up to that point…but this year I painted something specifically for the challenge. I have to say I am quite pleased! The design itself was based off a press-on nail set by Project Nails.

I started with a blue holographic base (mostly because I wanted to use a one-coat base and the halo hues collection from Color Club are basically magic). I then brush-gradiented using blue and purple scattered holo crellies and splotched on some dark teal jelly. Once that was all top coated and dry, it was design time!

I basically freehanded some rooftops, then a moon, then snow, and finally windows and sled. The hardest part of the whole thing was certainly the reindeer, I still don’t love them but without using acrylic I think this is the best I can do! The only part of this mani that isn’t free-handed is the stars: those are stamps. The top of the moon was made from playing with variations of white and yellow to make a little gradient.

Colors:
~ Blue holo: Color Club – Over the Moon
~ Blue scattered holo: Milani – Cyberspace
~ Purple scattered holo: Milani – Hi-Res
~ Teal jelly: Zoya – Frida
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Light orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
~ Stamp: BM – XL213

Please go vote for this entry in the challenge, it would be amazing to win! You can find the link here and sprinkled throughout the rest of this post. I will keep posting the link for the remainder of the contest. Hope you enjoyed, and thank you for voting!!

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!

Interlocking Greatness

Yes, it is a pun off the name of the polish, yes I am a goofball! Also, today formally begins the series of holiday-appropriate nail art. This one was painted during autumn but is honestly more red/green than orange/green which was the initial intent!

Anyway, this is a very very simple manicure (as many are during things like residency). Just a polish and a stamp. Now, the polish happens to be a multichrome, and the stamp is a holo. Honestly, I didn’t think this color combo would work that well, but Dragon stamps amazingly well (I just need to acknowledge that A England makes polishes that stamp like magic).

Colors:
~ Copper/purple multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Green: A England – Dragon
~ Stamp: EdM – 17

That’s it for today! Hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for progressively more snow-themed and Christmas manis! My one hanukah mani is getting punted to next year :-p

Mind the Grey Gaps

Happy New Years! This was not intended as a New Years mani since I wore it early in December, but it is sufficiently glittery, and all that I really have on deck at the moment so here we are!

The design was, yet again, inspired by Sveta Sanders. I should have just gone with the naked nail base, but I thought the purple and grey would go well together! I regret that decision, as it made the whole design look much darker than intended. Also, I should probably have done this mani with longer nails! And I was trying to decide between ALL of my multichromes for this mani…and ended up going with a holographic multichrome.

I feel like I should probably let you all know that I will not be responding to comments or anything for a little over a week, as I am on a cruise boat somewhere in the Caribbean! Given how cold the east coast is right now, this whole beachy summer boat thing is pretty darn awesome, or so I assume 🙂

Colors:
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Purple holo multichrome: Emily de Molly – State of Mind

The one biggest triumph here though is the design on my pointer: I need you all to know that I used striping tape to make that triangle base. And a little bit of creative polishing. I do not own those cool triangle stencils that everyone else seems to have! Anyway, happy New Years and I hope you guys all had fun last night!

Holiday Mix

I’ve probably seen 15 versions of this mani floating around the internet, but I have no idea who originated the idea! So I won’t be crediting anyone.

This was basically a “lets see how many holiday creatures I can fit onto my nails” idea. So, we have a gingerbread man (with bow tie painted first! I can learn!), a snowman, an elf, santa, and a reindeer (yes, that is what is supposed to be happening on my thumb). All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with how this all came out!

I used enough polishes that I’m not going to list them all here. Back when I painted these, only the light green was new (but you guys have already seen a swatch of it at this point). These were painted in December 2016 because I am a loser who never edits her nail art.

I think of all these nails, my favorite was probably the snowman…but they were all cute! No one figured out the reindeer without being prompted though. Except maybe my husband. I’m pretty sure he can read my mind at this point.

Hope you enjoyed, and happy holidays!!

Nutcracker

I actually wore these to Thanksgiving, but that is when the Christmas decorations go up! The story here is that my mother-in-law collects nutcrackers. She probably has around 100 total, it is pretty incredible. I wanted to do some nails that she would enjoy!

As such, these were inspired by the adorably painted and carved toys, not the ballet! Usually I would be doing the ballet, but not this year. I should mention that this was a little bit of striping tape and a LOT of freehand, and I am quite proud of his face!

This is only 5 colors, and a lot of different golden studs. You have no idea how many photos of nutcrackers I looked at when trying to decide what to make what color and which body part to paint.

Also, because I am a dork, there are three sizes of studs on here! Caviar beads on my pinky, normal sized studs on my middle finger, and some small ones on my thumb. I finally have enough different sizes to do stuff like this!

Colors:
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco

If you liked this or want me to be happy (either works!) please go vote for this design at Nail Polish Canada so I can win some free polish! The link is here. Thank you guys!

All That Glitters

This nail art looks rather…bad, and is very old! These are from LAST Christmas, but by the time I got them onto my computer it was January so I didn’t post them. The photos were also taken 4 days after the design was painted, which is why there is so much growth at my nail bed, sorry!

For some reason, when I went for a week to celebrate Christmas with my husband’s family last year, I basically only brought glittery polish. No, I don’t know what I was thinking. So, I had to put together a Christmas mani with nothing but glitter….no stamping plates, and very little else. Honestly, this is actually too much glitter for me. I never thought I’d say that, but sometimes it happens! You can hardly see the design edges for the glitter!

Colors:
~ Gold: Zoya – Ziv
~ Green: Zoya – Ivanka
~ Red: KBShimmer – Ruby

As you probably figured, this begins my Christmas manis…I’ll have another one on Friday and next Monday. Please go vote for me at Nail Polish Canada so I can win some pretties here, and hope you enjoyed!