Midnight Blue

I wanted something simple but pretty to match a dress I was wearing to my sister-in-laws wedding. This is what I ended up with! The base is ILNP Downpour and the stamp is from Moyra plate 32, nature.

Unfortunately, the sun did not shine at all during the time I wore these nails, so this is the only photo I am posting! No sunlight photo = no second photo on my blog. Also, sorry for the prolonged absence. We keep either traveling, or having people visit every weekend! That takes away from any time I have to put together nail art posts. And upload phots. Or even think about my nails. I have a hunch that the rest of the month is going to be just as bad as the last month, so I will post whenever I have time to think about it. Sorry!

Clover All Over

Look, my title rhymes! I need to get my amusement somewhere. This manicure is both good and bad: it is good in that it looks clean and I had fun stamping it. However, the bad comes from the base polish. I have not worn Region Specific by Emily de Molly in (probably) a year, and while the color has gotten to be a more intense bright teal, the glitters are just gone!

It used to be a polish full of shards of silver glitter, and they have all faded to nothing. Still pretty, but not what I purchased and not what I wanted to use as a base. I ‘fixed’ it by adding a teal flakie polish over the top, which successfully made the base interesting again. The polish as it currently looks is the top photo, the bottom photo is how it looked in 2020…which is embarrassingly I think the last time I wore it.

Colors:

~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Region Specific
~ Flakies: Zoya – Maisie
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017, BPX – Floral L018

Have you girls ever run into the problem of glitter vanishing over time? It isn’t in the bottom of the bottle, it just appears to have melted away. I don’t know if I should reach out to the maker to let her know, or just move on. I don’t know if it is a problem with the base, the pigment, or the glitter itself. It is very odd! It also highlights the problem with owning 700 bottles of polish: I do not wear most of then often enough to empty a bottle before something like this happens. Whoops!

Leaves of Many Colors

Fall nail colors! Leaves! Terribly messy clean up! This design was inspired by @asp2016 and fully painted with stamping polish. This was excellent because it meant I only needed to passes with the makeup sponge to get all the vibrant colors on the nails, and the black negative space stamp actually WORKED. It was also miserable cleaning up that much pigmentation from around my nail beds DESPITE using liquid latex barrier. I easily spent 3x more time cleaning than I did gradienting and stamping.

Colors:

~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Red: Pueen – So Red
~ Yellow: Pueen – Bright Yellow
~ Green: Pueen – Amazon Moss
~ Black: Pueen – Black Jack
~ Stamp: Uber Chic – Lovely Leaves 2

I think I need to be more meticulous with my latex barrier in the future to make designs like this take less time. Enjoy!

Falling Leaves Overlay

Every time I try to make a manicure with a cool design and a multichrome with some negative space, it fails. This is attempt #4 (I think) and each time I want to bang my head into a wall. This took way longer than it should have and STILL does not look great. Oy!

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Red/orange multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Dark teal: ILNP – St George
~ Green/gold shimmer: Blush Lacquers – Nerida Singer
~ Stamps: Uber Chic – Lovely Leaves 2

I need to stop trying to make negative space manicures with multichromes, they are just too hard to get even on the nail in this setting. And stop picking designs that need to be colored in if I AM going to use negative space. Live and learn…eventually.

Dripping Roses

I hand-painted these nails with limited supplies while on vacation at the beach. As a result, the colors are not exactly what I would have chosen had I had my whole collection with me, but it came out alright despite that! I am quite proud of my roses.

Colors:

~ Grey flakie: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Pink: Zoya – Tobey
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Purple: My Mood – Dazzling
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda

I realize it isn’t flower season, but since I do regular nail designs (as well as seasonal nail designs) at all times of the year, I never have enough fully-fall (or winter, spring, or summer) nails to keep it appropriate. So, random flowers! And some more fun random stuff up until closer to Thanksgiving next week. Enjoy!

Leafy Greens

Everyone was all about leaf manicures for a while, and I decided I wanted to do my own take on one. Which meant tone-on-tone stamping designs and of course, dots! The base color here was purchased in Scotland, although I think it is an Italian brand. While I like the colors I picked out in Scotland, the polishes themselves are a bit trickier to use, and come in tiny bottles that did not cost much less than usual bottles much to my chagrin when I looked at how much I spent.

This is 2-3 coats of #333 by Kiko. It is a nice medium-dark green creme (almost a crelly). Unfortunately, the top of the bottle brush is broad and flat and hard to hold to paint nails, which resulted in me flooding 2 of 5 nails despite the tiny size of the brush head. Overall nice color (and many other nice colors) to this brand, but difficult to use and very small. I can understand why rectangular polish bottle tend to have removable cap holders!

Colors:
~ Dark green: Kiko – #333
~ Green stamping: Pueen – Amazon Moss
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Pink holo: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Stamps: Lina – @urbannailart collab

I think I will need more practice with this polish and its sister polishes from Kiko, since most of my unhappiness with this came from the extra clean-up as a result of me not being able to maneuver the brush to my satisfaction based on the broad brush holder/cap. Hopefully I get that figured out!

Vampy Pumpkin Fail

The inspiration for this manicure, looked awesome. Dark, with leaves and cobwebs, and some cool pumpkins…and I cannot show it to you because I have lost the link! I think it came from Pinterest, which means I am never ever finding it again (if this looks like your nail design from halloweens past let me know and I will give you credit, sorry!). I will say I had success with the pumpkins (I even got some highlights and low-lights!) but the rest of this was an abysmal failure. My grey was too bright, so I ended up adding a sheer black jelly to darken the top but it just looked messy. My cobwebs were stamps, and thus not etherial enough to capture what I was going for. And my leaves…no. My husband told me it looked like I made “dirty baseballs” and I totally see where he was coming from. To add insult to injury, I was working in and out of liquid nitrogen while I was wearing these and shattered a nail due to cold. Bad Eva!

Colors:

~ Purple-grey holo: ILNP – Long Walks
~ Red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Black to Black
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Light orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Stamps: UC – Lovely Leaves 2, Born Pretty – Halloween L002, BM – XL472

So really this is just a fail all around. I cannot find the inspiration photo to credit the original (amazing) artist, and my own rendition is frightening, and not in an intentional way. Whoops. Live and learn!

Browning Leaves

Pretty flakie base? Layered leaf pattern? Sounds like autumn! Despite looking complicated this was actually a really easy manicure. It ended up a bit dark with the dense black stamping, so I went back and added some rose gold dots just to lighten it up a bit. Voila!

Colors:

~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Brown flakie: Night Owl Lacquer – Leaf Peeping with Sasquatch
~ Orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush

~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Stamp: Uber Chic – Lovely Leaves 2

I need to remember how excellent Leaf Peeping looks over Dea, this is a combo I should use again! I also need to maybe stop overusing this set of stamps, it just is so pretty! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Splatters and Leaves

I just wanted some orange and some leaves, so I decided splatters were in order! Once all the stamping was done I was not happy with the distribution of color, so true-to-form I went and added in some extra orange dots. Voila! Not the best nail art ever, but certainly very fall-like.

Colors:
~ Orange with shimmer: BKL – Not Such a Fungi
~ Black: Maybelline – Black to Black
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Pastel orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 156

I am actually quite pleased at the moment, and it has nothing to do with my nails. Fall has FINALLY reached St Louis, and we are past the days where the temperature reached a high in the near-90s! Now, we appear to have skipped temperatures in the 70s entirely (it jumped from highs of >85 to highs of 65 or so in the span of two days) but I will take sweater weather over shorts and tank tops in OCTOBER. Hooray autumn!

Butterscotch Bunches

I mayyy have gone overboard on this. I wanted to mimic this nail art by @paulinaspassions, but in the end I added too many flowers and dots! It is still fun, just a bit busier than I intended. I made this manicure to play with my new butterscotch yellow creme, Honey by Zoya. My pinky and pointer have two thin coats, and (as with all zoya creams), it covers like a dream. It also has the PERFECT name. I don’t like yellows much, but this color is both pretty and unusual, and I quite like it!

Colors:
~ Butterscotch yellow: Zoya – Honey
~ Grey: Formula X – Delightful
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Light yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

I think I may have to try this design again with a different color palette (knowing me it will be purple or periwinkle) and a lighter touch with all the dots. Maybe next summer. I am glad I managed to post this before summer ended altogether! Enjoy.

Green and Gold Vines

I was inspired by @urbannailart to create green-on-green swirly vines with gold. I still like her original better, however, these came out ok! I would never have picked a neon pastel green base but it works well, so I am glad I had my inspiration to go off of.

Colors:
~ Neon pastel green: KBShimmer – Lime All Right
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Gold Leaf
~ Gold holo glitter: FUN Lacquer – Million Dollar Dream
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 Ornaments 3

I am always surprised when I have over 150 stamping plates (although about half of them are the mini circular plates that came in sets of 20) and don’t have a stamp that is a very close approximation of something I see someone else using. The creativity of what designers think to etch into these metal plates is really astounding. Hope you enjoyed!

Well-Defined Leaves

I did this manicure almost as a dare. I had seen a beautiful manicure on the Emily de Molly website where someone stamped Goddess of Rays over black. Goddess of Rays is a multichrome but is not the most pigmented polish ever….but the result was STUNNING. So I decided to try it myself. This was the result, and I am BLOWN AWAY. Now I need to go find other ultra shimmery multichrome polishes to stamp over black and make beautiful nail art that shifts color and somehow comes out perfectly.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold multichrome: Emily de Molly – Goddess of Rays
~ Stamp: BPX Floral – L018

I decided to post this now, because I am longing for the cooler weather of fall. It is far too hot and humid out (it went a month without rain, and then we got torrential downpour for 4 days straight)! Hope you enjoyed.

Lotsa Ladybugs

I feel like I make a ladybug manicure just about every year, but they are so pretty it is hard not to! This one was jointly inspired by @nbnailart and @yasminhasunhas, who had very pretty ladybugs and flowers-with-ladybugs. These are just about the only bugs I actually like, other than fireflies, butterflies, and dragonflies! I would say its everything “flies” but I hate actual flies :-p

Colors:
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Grey shimmer: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L21

I should probably start doing some dedicated summer nail art, but it is too hot out for me to want to paint things that make me think of heat! Other than fire. Maybe I can just paint fire until August, in different colors, to express the gross that is outside. Oh well, enjoy the ladybugs!

Periwinkle Flowers

Some pretty layered purple flowers inspired by @zirkuswoelkchen_. I had not used this stamping plate in far too long! I also really like the color palette inspiration for this.

Colors:
~ Pastel purple glitter: Painted Polish – Just One Look
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Pastel mint: Zoya – Tiana
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Stamps: Moyra – 45 I Fill You, Lina – Make Your Mark 02

It is getting almost TOO hot outside for flowers, it has been over 90 degrees for over a week and I am not happy about that. Poor flowers. Poor people outside. My poor black dog who ends up collapsed and panting after her walks :p

Cyanotype Leaves

I remembered having a kit growing up that would let me press leaves and flowers in white-on-blue and I thought it was really pretty. Turns out it is called a cyanotype. So, I decided to make something similar on my nails! This is what I came up with. Since it is only stamping, it was quite fast. It also let me demo a new polish that I got in Greece.

This is two thin coats of 412 by GT Cosmetics (the brand is called “Perfect Nail Lacquer”). It is a pretty and quite pigmented teal cream, and I am glad to own it! My only other dark teal (Cecilia by Zoya) takes 3-4 coats to really work and is not useful for things like stamping or even ombre as a result of its poor pigmentation. But I think this polish will work fine! We shall see.

Colors:
~ Teal: GT Cosmetics – 412
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: UC – Lovely Leaves 2

Of course, I am posting this as I just got back from the UK and Ireland, where I went and purchased yet another polish in this same color range. So who knows at this point. I need to keep better track of my polish colors! I hope you enjoyed this nail art!

Simply Stunning Leaves

I don’t think I have ever made a bad manicure with this stamp. Its just pretty and well balanced. So I put a pretty and well balanced base under it and called it a day! I had already spent 2+ hours working on the art on my opposite hand so I was not interested in spending a long time thinking about what to do here.

The base color which looks so stunning here is two coats of Theres a Nap for That by Nailed It! from Polish Pickup. I missed this polish the first time around, which is why I love the July throwback that they do yearly where everyone votes to decide which favorites are returning. I cannot get enough of neutrals with crazy shimmer, and this one certainly delivers! It is subdued enough to wear in the hospital, while bright enough to keep me happy. And it goes on easy. Win all around!

Colors:
~ Grey with pink shimmer: Nailed It! – Theres a Nap for That 2.0
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Stamp: Lina – @urbannailart collab

I think this nail art was just an overall win, between the polish, the stamp, and the dots (always dots!). I am also excited that it is starting to get warm (I see daffodils outside!) which means it is time to grab all my floral stamps and get to work. Unfortunately, it means that global warming wins this year, and we had no good snows. I miss sledding! Hope you enjoyed.

Vivid Flowers

This was FUN. I was inspired by @len4ik_nails to create some brightly colored orange and pink flowers on a green base. My only regret at the end is that I didn’t use more of the neon shimmery green leaves! Talk about a bright manicure… I am also glad that the inspiration post stopped me from putting the flowers on ALL my nails, that would have been overwhelming. I like my lines instead.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Bright orange: Emily de Molly – LE197
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Bright pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Neon green shimmer: JReine – Radioactive Nom Nom
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamp: BM – Xl158

I do think this looked better on her slightly shorter nails, especially with the two nails being plain (I can never let myself do that…). Hope you enjoyed! Happy late February/almost spring!

Top 10 Nail Art of 2022

It was hard to pick my top 10 designs of this past year. There were quite a few flops, but I also had a lot of pretty ones. For possibly the first time, I have mostly stamping designs that made it into the top 10 (its usually almost entirely freehand) but the way the colors worked out and the patterns were placed made me love these designs over some of my freehand ones from the past year. Let me know what you think!

#10: Ornaments in Branches

#9: Great Balloon Race

#8: Monstera Leaves

#7: Dear Deer

#6: Stained Glass Lillies

#5: Jellyfish!

#4: Moonlit Fall

#3: Rainbow Whimsy

#2: Sketched Flowers – Possibly one of my favorite fully stamped pieces ever, designs never transfer this perfectly!

#1: Neon Rainbow Portals – of course, my favorite nail art of the year needs to be neon, rainbows, and have holo. Because it is me.

Honorable mention: I think this design looks awesome, but I actually wish I hadn’t added the stamp (or at least not in silver and then overlaid with black) as it made the whole thing look busy. It does however mark what I consider the pinnacle of my ability to do fluid nail art. I should pick it up again but after this design I was so proud of myself that I said “I have mastered this” and stopped trying!

Snowy Pinecones

This is entirely freehand. I started with a medium brown, did a loose gradient to darker brown down the middle of the nail for depth (hah, you can’t even tell), and then free-handed on white scales followed by black scales. As a result of all of the above, these nails took hours. I still love them! If I have to have a nail shape I dislike, I might as well do something cool with it.

Colors:
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn

Maybe at some point I should paint some snowy gumballs…..we have a gumball tree in our front yard, and while I HATE cleaning up the fallen spiky balls (or when my dog eats them), they are pretty with a thin layer of snow over them! Hope you enjoyed.

Carpet of Leaves

I decided to make a fallen leaf carpet manicure! I realized that while I had done ghosts and trees and pumpkins galore, I had somehow missed doing many manicures featuring leaves. Maybe because I did so many last year? Who knows. Anyway, this is to rectify that oversight! It is made using the dry marble technique, covered with a leaf stamp.

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Red: Zoya – Sookie
~ Dark red: OPI – All I want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

I think this is pretty much the only leaf manicure I have this year? I just have not been reaching for my leaf stamps as much as previous. I used a lot of pastel leaf designs in the spring, but I really should get myself together and do something fun before the year is out with fall leaf colors. Even if the leaves have mostly fallen from the trees at this point. Enjoy, and happy shopping for nail polish sales today!