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!

Dreidel Dreidel

I figured I couldn’t let Hanukkah pass without at least some type of nail art, so here we are! Dreidel nails.

This design was inspired by Emi’s Manis, but her’s came out MUCH better. I love the color combo and I glad I based mine off of what she did! The nails are the hebrew letters on the dreidel, a spinning top game that is played for pennies or candy (sometimes gelt, candy shaped like coins), where the letter facing up decides what you do with your coins/candy.

I didn’t actually get to play dreidel this year, since I will have spent over half of Hanukkah traveling to interviews (and I don’t have a dreidel in my apartment, I don’t think). The letter’s don’t look quite right, we are going to ignore how small my nun is (pinky), and how fat my gadol is (ring)…and how weirdly shaped my shin is (pointer). As I said, the inspiration photo is just much much better, go check it out! Although I am going to blame the lack of thin lines on how cold it is and so my polish is all gloopy!

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Light blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Silver: Revlon – Metallic

That’s all for today, and for Hanukkah. But, if you are feeling awesome can you please head over to Nail Polish Canada here and vote for “flightofwhimsy” so I can win some polish? If you click on my photo there it will take you to my post for Friday, but they are some pretty adorable nutcracker nails 😀 Thank you!!!

Hop On!

It’s the friday before easter! This only matters because it means I have to take a plane tonight :-p. Somehow, I’ve been wearing these nails all week and none of the fellows, residents, attendings, or patients noticed! My fellow med student did, at least!

The art was inspired by this pin. I just really like the periwinkle color coupled with the egg pattern! Of course, I had to add an easter bunny. The nails on my other hand don’t quite match (and don’t look very easter-y so they’ll be posted at a later point).

My ACTUAL easter nails are red, like the eggs used to crack each other at a greek easter party. It’s an odd tradition, since there are easily twice as many eggs as people at a given party and no one wants to eat them after they are all smashed up!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Teal: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

Anyway, happy friday and happy easter if you celebrate! I’ll be busy trying to avoid chametz (bread things) since it is still passover, but hopefully there will be chocolate mousse or truffles for me to eat for dessert and not just cake!

Valentines Dotticure

I wasn’t sure if I was going to use this as my day-before-Valentine’s Day mani or not…because there are no hearts! But really, I didn’t paint any hearts this year, so have some pink and red and gold dots 😀

This mani was inspired by @badgirlnails…which really just seems to be a trend for me right now. I think I accidentally browsed her last approximately three years worth of manis and pinned them all to my to-try folder on pinterest. And they are all somewhat simple (like, 1-1.5 hours of work, rather than 3 hours of work) so when I don’t want to stamp I just keep turing to them! I would say whoops, but I honestly like her nail art a bunch so I don’t feel too bad about continually turned to it for inspiration.

Sadly, I haven’t actually edited the mani that includes the swatch of the base color I’ve used here, Cherish by Picture Polish. I’ll see if I can’t get posted next week or something! The nail art that went with it is a bit boring, but it is a pretty polish. So, stay tuned for that!

Colors
~ Nude: Picture Polish – Cherish
~ Hot pink: WOW – #371
~ Bright pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Gold: OPI – All Sparkly and Gold

Regardless, happy almost Valentine’s Day! I hope you eat a lot of chocolates and your lives are filled with flowers. Personally, I love going to the grocery store the day AFTER Valentine’s and grabbing all the half-price chocolate :-D. There is one more pink mani coming on Wednesday (just because), and then on to less girly pastures!

I am a little curious myself…this is my first Valentine’s day since I got married. I don’t think my husband and I are doing anything we don’t usually do (small gifts, fancy dinner, and not-flowers), but will it feel different? I highly doubt it :-p. Hope you enjoyed the nail art!

Fade to Pink Floral

There are basically two versions of this mani…which I wore on opposing hands. I’ll be posting one today (clearly) and the other next week. They are, in fact, different manis…it just turns out when you try to gradient with white and red, it looks like a lot like using different shades of pink!

This is a triple-pink gradient, with a pink holo stamped on top. I honestly thought that Ciara (the darkest pink in the gradient) would not end up being so dark, so the pattern would show more at the tips. Clearly, I was wrong! It still looks cool. I was aiming for a Valentine’s Day color palette…so yah.

The design is from a stamping plate that I was sent to review from the Born Pretty Store…and I have to say I love it. Some of their plates can be hit-or-miss, either in terms of design or etching. This one is perfectly etched, and the designs are all really pretty! everything on this plate is vaguely stylized floral patterns, but they are all large enough that you can fit them in different orientations (see, for example, my pointer vs. middle fingers…same stamp just rotated and it still covers my whole nail). I have to say I’m impressed!

Colors
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Dark pink holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Stamp: BP – L052

If you want to pick up this stamping plate for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, where you can find it for $2.59. Don’t forget about my discount code, LY5X31! Enjoy!

Angled Echos

Every year, around Valentine’s Day, I reach for The Unloved by Emily de Molly. I don’t quite know why, but its become ingrained! I also DO NOT understand the name of this polish, given how striking it is. But I digress.

This year, I felt like starting of the pink/red/HEARTS manicures that tend to spew out around Valentines Day with something sharp and geometric. So, ta-da! I double stamped over The Unloved with the same stamp twice…first in black and then in gold. The idea was to make it looks like an echo or shadow of the original design. I like it!

I also wanted to use another new stamping plate I was sent from the Born Pretty Store. This plate is the best. I love love LOVE geometric designs, but freehanding them never works out well (too many straight lines) and using striping tape takes literally hours. The best solution seems to be plates, and this one is chalk-full of awesome geometric designs! I ended up using different ones on each nail (well, same pattern on my ring finger and thumb because I made this decision after I already did those two). I love them all.

Colors
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – The Unloved
~ Black: Mentality – Black Opaque
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BP – L054

In warning: the next few posts are going be either heart-themed or red/pink themed. They are still pretty (in terms of the art) but it might be overwhelming (especially since I usually post rather varied colors in a given week). Anyway.

If you want to pick up this awesome geometric stamping plate (and I do recommend it, the designs are really awesome and well-etched), head over to the Born Pretty Store where you can get it for $2.59. Don’t forget my 10% off code, LY5X31! Enjoy!

Pink Explosions

Happy (belated) new years! This was not my actual new years mani, but I haven’t actually had any time to edit nail art over break! So much for relaxing and free time. Yikes.

So, the last of my Christmas and my New Years mani will just have to wait till next year? I can probably post the new years one as just a random glittery thing, but i don’t think that santa and elves are anything but christmas!

Regardless, for this mani I was going to stamp…and then I just did dots instead?? It isn’t the best, but it is certainly glittery! And maybe a bit like fireworks if you squint.

Colors
~ Black holo: Zoya – Storm
~ Black creme: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Pink: Zoya – Alegra
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme

I was thinking of doing top-10 posts sometime soon (my favorite nail art and polishes of 2016) but I realized I haven’t posted what is probably my favorite polish of this year! Oops. So maybe I should put that post together first :-p

Falling Flakes

Happy after-Christmas and third day of Hanukkah! I need to get a move on making some menorah nails if I want them edited within the next 5 days :-p.

These were inspired by @simplenailartdesigns, although its a bit hard to say anything with a blue gradient and snowflakes was inspired by any particular person, its such a common design!

Regardless, I like how these came out. I added little silver glitters to the center of the snowflakes a few hours later, so the sunlight photos have glittery bits too 🙂

Colors
~ Dark blue: Maybelline – Midnight Swim
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Light blue: Zoya – Blu
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BM – 323, Born Pretty Plate – L008

Hope you enjoyed!

Holly and Branches

This is by far not the end of my winter and christmas manis…this is just the last one I got done ahead of time to be able to post 😀

These were also the nails I submitted to the Nail Art Canada holiday nail art challenge, but I lost the link somehow so I didn’t get them posted until one day before the contest closed. As a result, I didn’t win, but I did somehow make top 5 for the people-who-submitted-to-vote (let’s see how that one goes!), but thanks to all of you who voted anyway!

I put these together using stamping decals for the holly and simple stamps with dots added for the branches nails. Overall quite easy!

Colors
~ Bright green: Darling Diva – Green Diamond
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Dark green glitter: Butter London – Jack the Lad
~ Red: Zoya – Isla
~ Stamps: BM – 302, BP – 43

Hope you enjoyed, and merry almost-Christmas!

Gingerbread

Gingerbread men are totally more Christmas-themed than penguins! Unfortunately I did the spacing a bit strangely (note to my future self: do bow ties before buttons) so I don’t love these quite as much as I could but still, cute.

The designs were inspired by Ana’s ManisAna’s Manis and ka_yee_or. I wanted to do all the gingerbread things, and so I went with it! Honestly, the houses came out MUCH better than I expected.

Strangely enough, although matting down the nails didn’t actually change the color (and I did love the look afterward) it changed how my camera interpreted the color…so the matte photos needed quite a bit of color correction to make the nails look brown and not grey. They are still a little off, sorry!

Colors
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme

That’s all for today! Go eat some cookies 😀

Win me free polish please!

Hi everyone!

In my mad dash to finish my pediatrics rotation and thus not search through my spam folder in my mailbox, I ended up missing the invite to this years Nail Polish Canada challenge! However, I found it (like, 30 minutes ago) and have really quickly edited up a single photo for submission.

So, because hopefully you like me, and because I like free polish, please head over here and vote for my blog so I can win free polish! If I win I will likely end up doing my own giveaway as well 😀

THANK YOU and happy Friday! The actual post of how this mani was done will go up sometime next week.