Grungy Floral Lace

I don’t really know what else to call this? The background is a bit grungy and I should really not have stamped over it with lace, because it really just came out looking messy.

The base of this is my swatch test for Mauve Nudes, which I then haphazardly dry-brushed over with each color. I went, for some reason that I cannot come up with in hindsight, with a lace floral stamp? And then colored in the flowers with jelly polish and added a gold bead to the middle. I think if the background was a consistent color rather than a mess, that this would have looked good! But alas, it does not.

Colors:
~ Tan nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Pastel nude: Essense – I Nude It
~ Peach nude: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Pastel mauve: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Mauve: Zoya – Rue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Red jelly: OPI – My Wish List is You
~ Orange jelly: custom made
~ Stamp: BP – L084

So, that is a lot of colors for something that looks like it has at maximum 5 colors. Oh well! At least I tried?

I think I need to stay away from lace on nudes for a while, or just lace stamps n general. The last few manis that I have tried with them just don’t end up looking good!

Psychedelic Flowers

Sorry you guys! My posting schedule remains wonky…just because I haven’t edited any photos yet! I’ll try to get back on track. In the meanwhile, enjoy this really weird kinda floral mani with a really pretty base!

I don’t really know what I was thinking with this design. The polish I used as a base is super pretty but very busy, so I decided to throw three metallics on top of it? Not one of my best ideas.

Anyway, the base here is three thin coats of From the Land of Oz by Polished for Days. Unfortunately, my camera is not capturing the lavender-purple base of this polish, the camera likes to think it is more blue. I only used three coats for more glitter depth, it was full coverage in two. This polish is from Polish Pickup, so isn’t available anymore…but if you aren’t yet you should all go join PPU! This coming month is a revival of past favorites and a LOT of my very favorites are coming back, so if you missed something this would be a great time to pick it up!

Colors:
~ Purple shimmer flakie: Polished for Days – From the Land of Oz
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Purple: Zoya – Delaney
~ Teal: Petites Color Fever – Figi
~ Stamp: BP – L052

So, that’s that! Again, sorry for the odd posing schedule, I’ll see what I can do about getting myself edited up!

Silver Arabesques on Purple

Eeep! Sorry for the extended absence…after moving a WEEK ago, AT&T failed to install our internet and we didn’t get wifi until today! So this really is the first time I could have posted :-p

Anyway, this mani is wayyy too complicated! A stamp this complicated needs a creme-on-creme finish, none of this playing with 5 colors of holographic glittery purple and stamping in silver. I love the stamps but this is too much!

I also likely should not have added dots. Oops! Live and learn. It’s still kinda fun!

Colors:
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Dark glitter purple: LA Girl – Purple Effect
~ Bright glitter purple: ILNP – Zoe
~ Blurple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ Fuchsia holo: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Purple holo: Gothic Gala – Vallis Sanguine
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 – Ornaments 3

Hope you enjoyed! And if I’m lucky, I should be able to get back to my semi-regular monday/wednesday/friday posting schedule.

Golden Shadowed Leaves

This is a bit of a sad day: tomorrow I leave Philly for St Louis. So, this is my last nail art post while in Philadelphia. Philly was where I first discovered nail art, and in the last 7 years my collection has gone from 2 polishes to over 400. I was thinking of posting a pretty skyline design I did, but I ran out of time to edit it (this is becoming a theme) so you’ll have to make do with some shimmery leaves.

This is the mani I created out of my pastel teal swatches, and so there are more teals than you might imagine! I did a dry brush of each of the 4 colors (three cremes and one holo) over each other, and then double stamped over the top with a gold glitter and then a green holo glitter. I really like how it came out!

I am glad I went for the dry brush technique, the bases all ended up looking roughly the same by the time I got to stamping. I also think this is the first time I’ve actually liked stamping the same image twice? Usually I try too hard or the colors are awkward together. But green and gold always works!

Colors:
~ Pastel mints: Zoya – Tiana, Maybelline – Green with Envy, Glitter Gal – No Worries
~ Mint holo: Serum No. 5 – Jaded
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Green: A England – Dragon
~ Stamp: BPX – L018

Initially, I was going to stamp gold then black, but my eyes fell on Dragon which I haven’t used in probably a year, and I grabbed it. A England polishes always stamp so well! It makes sense, since basically all of them are one-coaters. Adina is nuts. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And goodbye Philly! My next post will be from St Louis…but since I move in on Monday we probably won’t have internet for a few days. Sorry! I will also have some freehand art up eventually…I do have some in the vault I just haven’t edited that either, I know it’s been a lot of stamping post recently!

Daffodil Garden

I have no excuse for this going up in the afternoon…I finished editing last night and just forgot that today is a Wednesday! Anyway. I painted these in early April, as the daffodils were finally emerging from the (very late) snow! I also rather like that I found a way to use this stamp that doesn’t make all my fingers look the same 🙂

Since this was painted on top of a swatch test post, I started with a different color blue polish on each nail. To make them uniform, I basically dry-brushed each color over the others so the end result was a medium light blue with shimmer in it. I wanted there to be a faint wispy cloud background, and I think it looks rather cool! You can see that best on my pinky and thumb.

After the blue cloudy background had dried, I used advanced stamping (aka coloring in the stamp while it is on the stamper) and applied it to my nails. One of my last minute decisions with this was to use a dark orange in the very center of the flowers and then a lighter yellow-leaning peach for the rest of the middle. I love how it came out! I ended up goggle image searching daffodils to make sure I had the right shade of orange (all the daffodils near my apartment are yellow-on-yellow which is not nearly as much fun), and it also gave me a chance to use Freedom of Peach again! I don’t like this color on my nails as a base but it clearly works as flower centers :-p

Colors:
~ Pastel blue: Sally Hansen – Breezy Blue
~ Light blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Pink shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Medium blue: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Peach: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: BP – L067

I know the daffodils have all died, but I wanted to make sure that this got posted SOMETIME in the spring! Hope you enjoyed!

Triangulated Teal

I was so close! I tried to get this up on Monday, but none of the art was edited at all yet. So, slightly past midnight, sorry! Posting is going to get a bit hectic. I spent all day packing, and I only have a few more days to be ready to move and I am in no way packed! The nail art room is getting packaged tomorrow, which is going to be really sad (the apartment we are moving in to only has two bedrooms, not two bedrooms and a tiny study perfect for nail polish).

All this is to say that if the posts start getting hectic and delayed, I am sorry! Between packing, moving, unpacking, orientation, and then starting on an intensive care unit rotation right off the bat (which, that is going to be TERRIFYING), I have no idea when my posts will go back to normal! Nor do I really have any idea if I’ll be able to keep the nail art coming in residency, but I will try!

Anyway, today’s post was done using the teal holographic swatch comparison. The end art is a bit clumpy…the fat straight lines are from a stamp and all the rest of the embellishments were hand-painted. But, it was all I had on deck so here it is!

Colors:
~ Dark teal holo: A England – Saint George
~ Bright teal holo: Julie G – Mermaid’s Tale
~ Shimmer teal holo: ILNP – Party Favor
~ Coarse holo teal: LA Girl – Teal Dimension
~ Teal glitter: Forumla X – Outburst
~ Silver holo: Color Club – Harp On It
~ Stamp: BM – 604

That’s all for today! Hopefully I have enough down time to put together a post that is on time for Wednesday…

Golden Roses on Red

This is getting posted today because it was the only thing I had time to edit last night (well, let’s be honest…this morning. It is currently 1am). Anyway, it wasn’t sunny outside at any point while I had these on my nails, so there are no outdoor photos! Made it easier to put together the post.

For this mani, I ended up swirling my dark red swatch test glitters together and making a random red background. With all the various red glitters and gold glitters, the final design is more sparkly than I would usually go for! There are 4 reds and 3 golds involved! Yikes. I need to make up my mind which colors to use and what to do!

Colors:
~ Glittery red: Shimmer Polish – Eva
~ Holo red: Zoya – Blaze
~ Juicy red: Pure Ice – All Nighter
~ Dark red: Zoya – India
~ Gold glitter: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold metallic: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Gold holo accent: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BM – XL158, BP – L002

That said, I did get to use my layered stamping plate (all the flowers are a gold stamp then a black stamp) and I love it! It isn’t as though it actually takes less time to double stamp than it does to simply color in a single stamp, but it makes me happy anyway. Hope you enjoyed!