Flamingo Sunset

While in Greece in April, one of the polishes I found was a particular pastel neon coral, an orange-learning pink. I took one look at it and decided it looked like a flamingo (well, my first thought was “shrimp!” and my second thought was flamingo) and that it needed to come home with me. So, obviously, I used it in a flamingo-themed coral-pink manicure.

This is two thin coats of #152 by Studio Seven7een, a Greek brand. It covered beautifully and cleaned up beautifully, and fits right in with all the pastel corals that I have accidentally bought in the last year (…this is the third. Oops). The bottle is a bit funny shaped, but I like the color and the application, so that is fine. This brand appears to make mostly nudes/pinks/reds and the occasional purple, but they do know what they are doing with their consistency!

Colors:
~ Pastel coral: SEVEN7EEN – #152
~ Coral: L’oreal – Orange you Jealous?
~ Neon pink: WOW – #371
~ Holo glitter: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Moyra – 106 Picturesque

This gradient involves 2 foreign polishes! WOW is an Israeli brand. I love the overall neon coral sunset look, the fronds, the branches, and of course the flamingo on my pointer! I thought about adding more, but it was already a little…crowded. Overall, despite being a simple gradient and some stamps (ok, a lot of stamps) this came out quite pretty! And fits well with how awfully hot it has gotten. Hope you enjoyed!

Olives

I hate olives. They taste awful and salty, and they poison all food that they touch with their saltiness. They are more-or-less the only food that I not only will not eat, but also will not eat around (they spread their nasty flavor). Now, this is a problem since I married a Greek and he LOVES olives. Regardless, on our trip to Greece last month I learned the story about how Athena gave a gift of olive trees to the Greek people to have Athens named after her, beating out Poseidon’s gift of water (because he gave a salt water spring rather than a freshwater spring). In light of that, I figured I could stomach one olive-based manicure because Athena is a badass.

Colors:
~ Dark grey: Bordeau – #212
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Nude: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Light grey: Formula X – Delightful
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L21

The other fun thing about this manicure is that it features Greek polish! I have made it a goal of mine to find and buy local polish whenever I travel internationally; nail polish is a fairly cheap hobby and I find it fun. Some of my favorite neons are from Israel. I had also read online about this magical store called Hondos Center that has, in addition to regular makeup things, HEAPS of nail polish. Drawers and drawers of nail polish. Many are from Italy and France, but I found a few Greek brands with the help of the women who worked there! Once they saw my nails and figured out what I was looking for, it was off to the nail polish races. I was in heaven. I ended up buying (only) 9 polishes on two trips to the same store (oops), a mix of neons, jewel tones, and this particular find: a very dark buttery grey creme. I have been searching for a nearly-black grey for months without success. This one was PERFECT. This is two thin coats of #212 by Bordeau. I would assume that it was french given the name, but the back states “papadopoulou ariadni” who I’m guessing is a very Greek designer. I have no idea, I can find no records of this brand online, but the polish applies beautiful, dries quickly, and holds up well. Hope you enjoyed! And if you live in some place (besides Australia, since many of my favorite brands are Aussie) let me know some awesome local polish brands!

Abstract Leaves

Today is just a really simple stamping design with some shimmer, but it is fast and the effect is pretty! This was supposed to go up on Friday, but I was distracted by a new board game that needed to be played. Sorry!

The base today is a new-to-me (but quite old) dark green creme polish by Zoya. As is typical of Zoya cremes, Hunter went on buttery smooth and covered perfectly in two coats. I had been in the market for a dark dusty green to work in a gradient or ombre with Shawn, and I think I found it! I really do love Zoya creme polishes, they just go on so nicely and the pigmentation is perfect.

Colors:
~ Green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Gold shimmer: Emily de Molly – Goddess of Rays
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: Lina – @urbannailart collab

For all that this was a very easy manicure, I like how the gold shimmer looks with the dark green, and how well the white stamp continues to stand out. No complaints from me! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Pastel Leaves

Sorry about the lack of post on Friday, this was supposed to go up at that point but I ran out of time! So enjoy it today instead. The nail art today was just fun and cute! I wanted to make a pastel subtle leaf design, and I would say I was successful! Unfortunately it rather makes me look like I have lobster hands in photos…but in real life it was lovely.

Colors:
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Green shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Orange: Zoya – Cole
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

I think I should start posting more brightly colored spring-like manicures at this point. Winter isn’t actually over (its still very cold) but it is time for flowers and bright colors. Stay tuned!

Grey Shimmer Fronds

Really simple but quite elegant in the end! All I did was color some white stamps in with a rainbow shimmer polish, and put it over a grey/gold shimmer base. The whole manicure took less than an hour, and really embodies dark cold days! The shimmer of the see-through polish picked up mostly green and orange tones from the grey base. In retrospect, the design looks a bit like the one I posted on Monday although they were painted months apart, maybe that is why I felt compelled to post them in the same week.

Colors:
~ Grey shimmer: Zoya – Yuna
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Rainbow shimmer: Different Dimension – Intergalactic Dolphin
~ Dark gold: ILNP – Sparks May Fly
~ Stamps: BPX – Floral L018

I need to use Yuna more, it is a pretty polish! And shimmery flakie-ish. I have a lot of grey polish, and I have slightly gotten out of the habit of wearing them! They are pretty, for all that they are not bright colors. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Winter Juniper

I saw this manicure by @coyarose and I was absolutely blown away by the idea of doing juniper bushes as a winter manicure! I tried to replicate the design and I mayyyy have gone a bit overboard. In multiple ways. I used too much glitter in my background and I added too many branches (and berries). The nails were supposed to be elegant and instead they are just complicated-look! That said, these were very fun to paint and fun to wear :-D. I’ll have to try them again (maybe a bit less…extra…) in the future!

Colors:
~ Nude jelly: Forumla X – Marvelous
~ Silver shimmer: Sally Hansen – Diamonds
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Dark green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Light blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling

Looking back at her post…she totally meant for these to be cedar bushes and berries. So they should be much smaller. Whoooops. I will bear that in mind next time! Either way these were fun, hope you enjoyed!

Red Winterberry

Guys this was SUCH a mess. I was inspired by @heipyh, whose manicure is lovely and elegant. I ended up creating this busy disaster and I am so embarrassed! I wasn’t able to make my new (and thus thin and runny) black polish make actual leaves, so I had to go find like 3 separate leaf stamps to use, and then I went WAY overboard with the berries. And couldn’t put them on thin elegant stalks because my black was too runny. These nails are just too busy! facepalm

Colors:
~ Nude shimmer: Picture Polish – Cherish
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Stamps: Floral BPX – L018, Nicole Diary – 090

I am going to have to do another rendition of this manicure sometime this winter, because the inspiration design is beautiful and I KNOW I can do better than what you see here. I need to get used to adding somewhat LESS dots not MORE dots when I am unhappy. Ugh!

Dying Leaves

Ok so this was fun. I wanted to make my nails look like a bed of dead leaves (ok that sounds bad) or bark without leaves on it, and I decided to have fun with brown and nude marble-spotting to do so! It actually looked really cool. Of course, the fall vibe is not complete without some red and orange leaves, so I added those as well. Voila!

Colors:
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Nude spotting: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Brick red: KBShimmer – Chia-huahua
~ Dark pink: OPI – Magala Wine
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I’m going to be honest: all of the halloween and fall nails that you guys have seen up to this point were painted a year ago. This year I did a bunch of halloween nails (that, true to form, you will see next year) but no fall nails yet! That means, however, that most of what is going to be posted between now and maybe Thanksgiving are going to be just random nail art that I have lying around. Sorry, no more theme! I do have a bunch of back-logged winter holiday nails to look forward to though :-p

Fall Fox

I decided to start this year with a less-spooky manicure, and went for something distinctly autumn but also cute! I spent probably an hour browsing the internet for something to inspire me, before ending up with the adorable fox manicure. I have seen multiple versions of this manicure and I mostly ended up tweaking bits of all of them to make my own. Voila! I also only used 4 colors which made me very happy.

Colors:
~ Grey: Forumla X – Delightful
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BM – XL472

I should add that most “paw print” nail art is not any particular animal. I had started making my paw prints when I decided to look at what fox prints actually look like, and was mildly horrified at myself. I ended up not changing the pad of the foot design (since it was already on the nail) but I did give the poor fox some actual claws. I like it, and I hope you do too!

Pumpkin and Green

I don’t know when people started calling October “spooky season” instead of just “Halloween season” or you know, October (with the implication of working-towards-Halloween) but I find it odd. I love Halloween and fall and the general existence of October and November, but it doesn’t need a “season” name? Anyway, prepare for the rest of this month to see fall- and halloween- themed nails! This particular design was inspired by @nailart_bygracie, because sometimes cute inspiration is all you need for a lovely fall manicure! Of course I had to go complicate things by adding some more gradients to the orange and trying to make it appear to have depth, but oh well :-p

Colors:
~ Nude: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Green shimmer: Cult Nails – In a Trance
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: Forumla X – Incandescent
~ Light orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Pastel orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Gold: Zoya – Ziv
~ Gold holo: FUN Lacquer – Million Dollar Dream
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise

These were fun to make and fun to wear, and I will likely do another set this year of something similar. Yes, these are from LAST fall :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

Caged Birds Sing

I wanted some bird nails. So, I scoured the internet for cool bird nails and came up close to empty (I didn’t want to do a phoenix or peacock), so I turned to my trusty stamping plates and came up with this!

Colors:
~ Blue/grey holo: ILNP – Timeless Vow
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: BP – L067, Whats Up Nails – B017

The end result is maybe a bit simple: black on blue, but I think the dark of the black against the rather pale blue is cool, and I added gold dots (because of course I did) and this is another case where I do think it helped! Hope you enjoyed!

Sunflower Morning

Omg I love this manicure! Look at the detailed stamp! And those ladybugs! This is basically the perfect summer manicure and I am proud of myself. It helps that the stamped worked perfectly (that happens to rarely!) and that the base color somehow just complimented the whole thing. I feel as though I usually reach for a complicated holo/glitter background and it ends up detracting from the final design! But this totally worked. Score 1 to Eva!

Colors:
~ Pink holo: Femme Fatale – Mr Pinchy
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L21

I wanted to post a link to the born pretty store plate because it worked so darn well…but they stopped carrying it! I guess the good ones sell out fast. Anyway, hope that you enjoyed this summer nail art, stay tuned for more this week!

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! 

Leaves on Woodgrain

I wanted to do a woodgrain manicure, but that was too simple! So I went and added some bright leaves. The base was a medium brown with lighter brown dry-brushed on. The stamp was two shades of darker brown. The leaves were advanced stamped (ooooh, aaaah) to make it more colorful, and to make them stand out. I like the end result and it is very appropriately autumn, but with the advanced stamping it took quite a bit longer! 

Colors:
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Darkest brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment 
~ Stamps: BM – 608, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I am so happy, the leaves on the trees in front of my house have finally started to change colors and it is pretty! I think last fall I was too caught up in life to notice things like the leaves changing. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed! 

Leaves on Stumps

You guys. When I made this I saw so proud of myself for layered stamping (this was last year) and now looking at it, it is way too busy and just NO. Also, my stamps are almost see-through and this whole thing is a mess. So you only get one photo…my indoor photos look like I forgot to add top coat and I am not forcing those images on you! Anyway, to make this overly complicated manicure I decided to use two different wood stump stamps that I had never touched. One as it turns out is negative space and the other is…positive space? Standard? Who knows. I didn’t like how it looked with just the wood grain, so I added fall leaves and then dots because I cannot leave well enough alone! 

Colors:
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Darkest brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment 
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B005, Moyra – 32 Nature, UC – Lovely Leaves 2 

Anyway, sorry about this mess. I have some prettier leaf-themed manicures coming up, I promise! 

Butterflies on Pink

In retrospect I have no idea why I went with a bright pink base for this manicure, I think something a bit more subtle might have looked better! That said, this ended up colorful and fun. I also ended up using most of my bright yellows, greens, and oranges all in one place, so that was fun? I wanted to post this in 2020, and since we have entered October I figured this was my last chance! Time to start on fall manis next week 😀

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Shimmer: Different Dimension – Intergalactic Dolphin
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Pastel orange: Forumla X – Incandescent 
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi 
~ Pastel green: OPI – Did It On ‘Em
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

This manicure features a set of stamps from a plate sent to me for review from Born Pretty, the Nicole Diary stamping plate L21. It has a lot of fantastic leaves and flowers, and seems to be right up the alley of what everyone else is doing (lots of leaves). You can find it here for $6.99. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the last of summer manicure!

White Petals

I don’t know what the aim was with this one? I wanted to do sort of a purple-and-white wallpaper look with leaves? But they ended up looking more like flower petals? and I decided it was too one-dimensional so I added some shimmery purple-grey dots in the smaller leaf buds? Again, I made this up as I went and the end result is a bit odd. If I am being truly honest on review of this: I hate the design and this may be my least favorite nail art I’ve done in the last year. Yuck. So you only get one (ugly) picture today).

Colors:
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Dark grey: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Grey-purple shimmer: Essie – For the Twill of it
~ Stamp: Lina – @urbannailart collab

Sorry it was awful! Friday’s is also bad although at least I tried? This ended up being rather a fail week…in preparation to start the 31 day challenge and all the upcoming pretties associated with that next week!

Shimmering Purple Leaves

I feel like IG has been full of pretty leaf manicures. I don’t know why and to be honest I didn’t get it at first, but the simple delicacy eventually won me over and I had to make my own. Of course, green is boring and pink is (oddly) overdone, so I went for purple! Ta-da. I do love the way the glitter fits with the shimmery pink highlights in the base color. Ok lets be honest I just really love shimmer polishes :-p

Colors:
~ Pastel purple shimmer: Ethereal Lacquer – Little Oysters
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Silver/pink holo glitter: ILNP – Rosewater
~ Grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ Stamp: UC – Lovely Leaves 2

The surprise with this manicure was using a grey stamping polish rather than a black one. I almost always reach for black/white or silver/gold (they stamp well); I didn’t want this to be super bold (especially since this plate works so well) so I actually used a grey! Surprise! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Cyanotype Leaves

I got this idea into my head and I just could not get it out until I tried it! I love the concept, but I don’t adore the execution. I wanted to do a grey creme on a grey glittery base for subtle contrast, and then white leaves in a cyanotype-print style. It kinda worked? In retrospect, I think I needed better leave stamps! **which I now have so oh well, I guess I’ll just have to repeat this mani from last winter all over again, poor me**

Colors:
~ Grey flakie glitter: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BM – 208, XL472, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I have so many stamping plates, but I never seem to have quite enough of exactly what I want! So once I complete a manicure missing the correct and perfect designs, I go out and buy a plate that would have made the manicure excellent. Only, I’ve already done the manicure, so what do I do with the plate at this point? I should likely start repeating manicures using proper plates that I have selected, but there is always more completely novel nail art to do instead!

Rowdy Roses

Technically, I painted these around Valentine’s day. However, roses are good any time, so they are being posted now! In retrospect, I wish I had not made the backgrounds holographic, I think the art would have popped more against a creme background. Live and learn! Besides, I like making my backgrounds more sparkly than would otherwise be indicated :-p

Colors:
~ White holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Red creme: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BP – L067, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

On a separate topic: things are going sideways in the US. At the moment, the city that I live in has a curfew, and honestly all but one of the 4 cities I have lived in at any point in my life are doing the same. The systemic racism and violence is (finally) being called out, which is (sadly) provoking violence. To all my readers in the USA: stay safe, stay strong, and do what you can to support your community. To my international readers: yes, all of this is exactly as terrible as it looks. If you feel so motivated, please encourage your leadership to sanction the USA; sadly I don’t think Trump listens to anything except his pride and his wallet, so if his income can be hurt we might actually see some change.