Pink Tulips on Teal

Every single spring since I purchased this stamping plate, I have made use of the tulip stamp. And every single year it looks slightly wrong. Too dark, too bright, wrong base color, wrong mix of petal colors. Something is off. This time, however, I think I finally nailed it. I love the three-tone teal base (a pastel teal that glows in the dark with a darker teal and white sponged on haphazardly), I love the two shades of cooler toned pinks, and I love that I used a teal-green for the leaves. I am also happy that I studied the stamp more closely and realized that the leaves are not one solid mass, there is negative space in there! The end result is much lighter than my previous attempts. Flower win for me!

Colors:

~ Pastel teal GITD: Serum No 5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Dark teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Stamp: Whats up Nails – B017

Of course, as a bonus, the design glows in the dark (the flowers are outlined). I love using GITD polishes in the spring when the sun comes out, even if it means my nails sometimes scare me when I wake up overnight and see something bright in my bed!

Do you guys think there are any other color combinations I should try? Yellow on dark blue? Orange? I don’t know. I am just happy I finally got one right…I have a whole year to put together a color palette that works again!

Daffodils

Every year I use this stamp, and every year I try something slightly different. This year I went with a two-tone yellow center and used a teal/pink shimmer as the background. I forgot, however, that this teal polish loves to become all wavy when I stamp over it! It actually looks pretty cool as a result, but is NOT what I intended. Sometimes too much shimmer is a curse!

Colors:

~ Teal shimmer: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Dark yellow: Zoya – Honey
~ Stamp: BP – L067

I feel like I should make a list of ways to use this stamping plate in the future: color combinations for the flowers and the backgrounds. Maybe I can try to go psychedelic with it in the future and venture away from the classic yellow/orange/white. Who knows. But it is lovely to see all the bright daffodils outside in early spring!

Overwhelming Roses

There HAS to be a use for this polish that doesn’t render nail art overwhelmingly extra. But I have not found it yet. This neon pink glitter is SO fun to look at, and yet whenever I try to use it (even for Valentine’s day, the pink holiday!) I end up regretting it. I tried to tone this down by adding a dark red ink (in place of the black jelly polish I wish I owned) and it somewhat worked, at least there is some dimension to this nail art instead of just PINK IN YOUR FACE, but even so. Nope.

Colors:

~ Neon glitter pink: Atomic – Silicate
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Red ink: Born Pretty – Watercolor 005
~ Stamps: BP – L067, BP – Valentine’s Day L002

This was fun to wear but so darn difficult to photograph. Cameras don’t like neon polish to begin with, and if you add a ton of glitter to a neon polish, you end up with…a bright shiny blob. So have some blob roses! Sorry. Also sorry for the 3 week absence, I had some nail art lined up but forgot to post it. Whoops!

Robin with Berries

Last year there was apparently a challenge to paint either birds or berries (not sure which) that many of the nail artists I follow took part in. One particular entry by @nbnailart caught my eye, and I had to try and recreate it! My bird is a bit disproportionate, but I loved her use (and my copy) of using rhinestones to create 3D berries. Overall, these nails just looked lovely.

Colors:

~ Grey: Formula X – Delightful
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline- Onyx Rush
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise

Now of course, I use nbnailart as inspiration at least once a month, because her skills with nails are stunning and almost attainable. Oh well, enjoy this cute robin!

Snowy Dusk

This came out super cute! The animals are too big for the trees (which is what you get when you mix stamping plates) but I think the idea is there. I also successfully double stamped the white snow under the black tree silhouettes, so I am quite happy!

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Dark periwinkle: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White glitter: Emily de Molly – Pale Landscape
~ Stamps: Moyra – Picturesque 106, BM – XL472, Nicole Diary – 122, EDM – 07

This week is going to be entirely winter manicures, at which point I apparently run out of snowy scenes painted last year! So who knows what comes after that… Enjoy!

Gingerbread Fantasy

I really wanted to make some elaborate gingerbread nails, to celebrate one of my favorite snacks over the holidays (and the only holiday treat that I am good at baking…despite being Jewish, even the latkes fall to my husband to make)! I was inspired by @nbnailart to create these absolutely fantastic nails, and I have to say I am pleased with how they came out! They are 100% freehand and took a little over two hours to complete.

Colors:

~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Pink: Zoya – Sandy
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Hunter
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ White glitter: Emily de Molly – Pale Landscape

I hope you all had a wonderful (and gingerbread) filled holiday! I can’t promise that there will be any post on Wednesday because I will be driving most of the day tomorrow to get home from my in-laws, but hopefully my New Years post ends up completed shortly! Enjoy!

Glowing Christmas Lights

This is the second time I have done glow-in-the-dark Christmas lights, but the last time I made the individual lights glow, and this time I made the whole nail glow! These were a lot of fun to put together, and made me smile in the dark. Just a win all around! And I think the green shifty shimmer added an extra dazzle factor 🙂

Colors:
~ White GITD: Serum No 5 – Pure Glow Getter

~ Green shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Neon red: Emily de Moly – LE 199
~ Neon orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Neon yellow: Emily de Molly – LE 196
~ Neon green: KBShimmer – Race Against Slime
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads

Look at that awesome glow! I charged these in the sun, and the white was bright enough that you could see the color of the overlaying lights in the dark 🙂

Only one more Christmas post this year, coming (hopefully) on Christmas Day! Hope you enjoyed and that you either have some fun colorful lights up or see them around town. Enjoy!

Gnome Santa

Santa with a big gnome-like nose was all the rage last year, so I had to jump on the bandwagon! It was a very cute design idea. I mostly just made a big-nosed Santa and made the rest up. As usual, I had to drag out my Nabi red holographic polish for his outfit, because it just LOOKS like velvet in a really incredible way.

Colors:
~ Red holo: Nabi – Red
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Light pink: Seven7een – 152
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Gold glitter: Salon Perfect – Gold Leaf
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120

I think I (on average) do one Santa mani a year, and this one fits nicely! Hope you enjoyed. The next few nail art posts will all be Christmas themed, if I can get them edited in time.

Snowman Expression

These came out very cute! I am not sure if I ended up liking the decision to add scarves to their necks at the end, but otherwise I am happy. This design was inspired by @nbnailart, only her’s are cuter and her nails are shorter. Overall I may try this again if I ever end up with very short nails during the winter!

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush

~ Orange: Julie G – Tangerine Dream
~ Purple: Alpha Beauty – 68
~ Blue: Makeup Selective – 105

It is interesting that I almost never think to matte my nails unless I see a design I want to mimic that is itself matted… but almost all winter nail art looks better matte! Oy vey. I will have to think on this, and decide how much matte top coat I want to invest in this year.

Turkey Feathers

I never know what to paint for Thanksgiving. Fall-themed does not seem specific enough, food is weird, and pilgrims are jerks. So, turkey! Again. This time with bonus feathers. I lost the post where I got the idea for this design, but decided to try and stamp everything but the turkey body as opposed to freehand it all. The end result was hideous, so I went back over all my feathers/leaves by hand using the same color combination and ended up here. Its a bit messy, but whatever. My husband, the day before Thanksgiving, looks at my hand and goes “why did you paint a girl with big hair?” Because apparently context clues are irrelevant to him. I then took a poll at Thanksgiving, and everyone else agreed it was a turkey without prompting. Take that, husband!

Colors:

~ Light orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Hot red: Emily de Molly – LE 199
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamps: UC – Lovely Leaves 2, BP – L008

If I wanted to do this again I think it would be a lot easier now that I have actual stamping polishes! My regular polishes just aren’t quite pigmented enough to show up over darker colors, or with the vibrancy that I would have liked. Win for stamping polish. Happy Thanksgiving!

Creepy House

This was inspired by @devs_nails who was in turn inspired by @lieve91, so of course mine is a combination of both their ideas! And it came out stunning if I do say so myself. The leaves/trees are stamped, but everything else is freehand, and I am quite proud of both the house and the fence. The bats…not so much. But it looks appropriately spooky!

Colors:

~ Yellow: GT Cosmetics – #435
~ Orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Dark orange: ULTA – Playing Koi
~ Black: Maybelline – Black on Black
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide

I actually liked this nail art (which to be fair I painted LAST year) so much that I did it again THIS year only now with 100% more glow-in-the-dark. So, stay tuned in approximately 1 year to see another take on these manicures!

Cute Mummies

I think these came out super cute! I knew I wanted to make mummies, and I also knew that I did not want to spend 2 hours hand painting lines. So I found a stamp that I almost never use because it picks up poorly…and it was perfect! I left extra polish on when I scraped so the end result has the lines plus some extra black/grey that just adds to the old and dirty mummy look. I then hand painted the black areas and the eyes. Of course, the base is glow in the dark because I can. I almost never use my GITD polishes in the summer, but I love them in the fall and winter when the nights get longer!

Colors:

~ GITD White: Serum No5 – Pure Glow Getter
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: MoYou Fairytale – 02

I may have to do a version of these each year, because they are just too darn cute. And fun. And good for not-quite-scaring myself when I wake up in the middle of the night to turn over in bed. Hope you enjoyed!

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!

Minty Pumpkins

I saw so many cute posts with tone-on-tone pastel pumpkins (although it @onenailtorulethemall’s purple one that really caught my eye) and I decided I need to do my own take. But if I was going to use unusual colors for pumpkins and they were going to be pastel, I should absolutely also make them glow in the dark! So here we have minty glow in the dark pumpkins on a super shimmery base. My husband actually really liked these, but could not figure out why I made them teal. Or glow for that matter.

Colors:
~ Teal base: Ggal – No Worries
~ Teal/red shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Teal GITD – Serum No5 – Glowin’ of Eden
~ Black: Maybelline – Black on Black

Being honest, I painted these in 2022 (most of my nail designs are posted at least a few months after I actually wore them, if not a year or more after they were painted) and have been waiting to post them since then. When I went back to look at these, I liked them so much that I made the same manicure (with a slight twist in pumpkin placement) in blue! I need more glow in the dark polish.

But I think this may officially turn into an annual thing, at least until I run out of glow in the dark polishes (and I only have 4…so two more years I suppose)! 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!

Autumn Trees

I know people have been posting fall and halloween nail art since the start of September, but given that halloween is (in my opinion) reserved for October (although, it does get the entire month), and that it was still 95 degrees in St Louis, I have not posted any fall nail art yet. That said, autumn officially starts this weekend! So I have my first fall-themed manicure to enjoy. This is, clearly, a tree of every orange! This was really easy but I find it eye-catching. I started with a grey holo base and on each nail, made a blob of orange/red, and then added some black branches and a trunk. Other than figuring out what order to add branches in (turns out its easier to make the whole thing look good if you start with the middle trunk…oops!), this was straightforward. I had not realized I had acquired quite this many orange cremes of different shades, but I am happy that I have!

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Black: Maybelline – Black to Black
~ Dark red: OPI – Malaga Wine
~ Dark orange: KBShimmer – Chia-huahua
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Bright orange: Emily de Molly – LE 197
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Green: OPI – Do it on ‘em

I may try to do this again and create an internal tree gradient, but it will not have the same cute ombre pattern. Additionally, I painted these last fall (I post a lot of my manicures 1 year late since it takes me a bit to get them uploaded to the computer from my camera), I have acquired at least 4 new oranges. Maybe I should update it with REALLY all oranges rather than yellow and reds!

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.

Sunset Desert

I actually looked up different types of cacti for this manicure, and I am suitably proud of the result! I was inspired by @pickynailart do create a cactus profile in sunset manicure, but I realized that I did not know which cacti she was trying to show, so I had to do some research before I could paint my nails! It was actually pretty fun.

I also used this manicure to test my newest bright yellow polish, Darcy by Zoya. I was running out of my old OPI yellow (turns out even thought I don’t love the color, I do use it a lot in nail art) and wanted a replacement. Two coats of Darcy went on very smoothly, at which point I realized this polish has a verrrry subtle shimmer! I don’t know if I like that or not, but it is so subtle that I am going to ignore it.

Colors:
~ Yellow: Zoya – Darcy
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Black: Maybelline – Onyx Rush

Overall this manicure looked rather splendid, and it was fun looking up and learning about different types of cacti! It is also nearly 100 degrees out, so a desert seemed appropriate for today :-p Hope you enjoyed (almost) as much as I did.

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!