Ginkgo Green

While finishing up my move from the east coast to the midwest, I re-did my nails. After 4 days of packing my nails were a DISASTER, and with only one day left I figured maybe whatever I put on them would survive (at least until unloading)!

I had set aside (aka did not pack) about 10 polishes, 6 cool colors that I thought I might want to wear, and 4 “necessary” polishes: black, white, gold, and silver, all suitable for stamping. For this mani I grabbed one of the two greens I had out, O R’YLEH by Great Lakes Lacquer, and stamped with some gold ginkgo leaves using Good as Gold by Essie!

I had most of my full set of rectangular plates out as well, just because they pack nicely so I figured it would be ok to put them straight into my to-go suitcase. For some reason, these leaves spoke to me! They are from BPX plate L018, which is full of leaves, flowers, and birds.

That’s all for now! The photos look a bit wonky because I had packed away my usual set up, and was basically using my iPhone for all photos (generally my iPhone takes the sunlight/outdoor photos but my 14 year old cannon takes the indirect lighting photos). Oh well!

Hope you enjoyed!

Popping Teal Bubbles

See, no more magnets! Instead you get a multichrome topper over not black? I don’t know what I was thinking but here we go!

I wanted to try Aurora over a dark teal base. And then I decided that bubbles were appropriate? My nails under this are a DISASTER. I painted these just after I finished moving apartments, and my ring finger tore to the quick (and is heavily patched), AND my middle finger somehow shattered, but I was able to file the surface to somewhat smooth and apply 4 coats of base coat in a desperate attempt to hold it together, and my pointer folded down the middle. I won’t even mention my poor short thumb nail…I lost both corners on subsequent days! Suffice to say my nails are a disaster and this is one of the last right-handed manis you guys will be seeing for a while!

Despite all the devastation, I think the mani looks surprisingly cool? The teal base blunted a bit of the color shift in Aurora but you can still see both the green and certainly the purple shift. Also, I like this stamp!

Colors:
~ Teal: OPI – Get Off the Lawn!
~ Multichrome: piCture pOlish – Aurora
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B015

That’s all for today! Next week we move on to less…experimental…manis (even if they will mostly be left-handed). Enjoy!

Fading Purple Curls

Ok, so I might have messed up. When I was moving I put together a few manicures (one of which is frankly not even worth putting on the blog, so you guys will never see it), and I typed up which polishes I used and the basics of the manicure and emailed it to myself. The problem is that at the time I didn’t have internet…so when I finally got the documents on my computer and it connected to the internet, they appear to have deleted themselves!

What this means is that for this a and a few other manis, I am guessing what I did. Luckily for this particular manicure I only own one purple magnetic polish, and it easy to identify a particular stamp. But still, sorry in advance!

Colors:
~ Purple magnetic: Nails Inc – Houses of Parliment
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L050

Also, I promise this is the last magnetic post in a while! I don’t know why I lumped them all back-to-back in my editing folder but somehow I did! Luckily I think they all look different enough that you guys aren’t ready to behead me yet :-p. So, no more magnets! Even if I love how this mani came out. Enjoy!

Right Angled

MOAR MAGNETS! This mani and Friday’s mani were actually painted a few weeks apart, but I ended up editing them next to each other? Who knows. This was a super duper simple mani that I painted on my way out the door, on the assumption that anything magnetic looks cool even if I have no tools!

I don’t remember why, but a lot of my polish stuff was inaccessible for a few weeks (pre-moving moving things?), so I had grabbed some simple and easy-to-make-manicure supplies including this polish, the magnet, and some gold polish. So please pardon the not perfectly straight lines, everything was free-handed!

Colors:
~ Copper magnetic: Masura – Evening Before the Fireplace
~ Gold: Essie: Good as Gold

I do love Masura magnetic polishes, the bottle is very pretty and the polish works like a dream. Anyway, the magnet can again be found at the Born Pretty Store if you’d like one for yourself for cheap! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Teal Magnetic Swirls

Magnets! I love magnetics. They make my nails look cool with little-to-no effort on my part other than holding still for a few seconds. Stamping over them just looks so cool!

Anyway, this was basically just having fun with straight magnets and some silver stamps. The magnetic polish is a teal-to-black called Whitehall by Nails Inc. The silver is Excalibur by A England and the stamp is from Moyra plate 50 – Ornaments 3.

To make this, I applied the straight line magnet on a diagonal on all the nails except my thumb. The magnet is super strong the raised teal line was incredibly sharp…until it wasn’t. As always happens, the magnetic turning point blurred as the polish dried, so I went from a super sharp line to a smudge, but it still looks cool. Honestly, maybe I need thinner coats of polish! On my thumb I tried to create a curved pattern using the small circular end of the magnetic stick. I love it. I think making this nail was more fun than using the straight line!

The double-headed magnet that I used is from the Born Pretty Store, and it is both cheap and works well. You can find it for $2.99.

Enjoy!

Rose Gold Rows

This is a super complicated mani, but I kinda love it. I was sent some very tiny rose gold caviar beads to review from the Born Pretty Store, and I went to town with them!

Most of my caviar beads are what I would consider standard size…which is easily twice the size of these ones. Look at how many pretty rows are on my middle finger! I ended up mix-and-matching with a fishtail, some other studs, and basic diagonals. I had seen a similar mani online, but I didn’t want to use a black base so I settled on a very dark blue with subtle gold shimmer 🙂

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Blake
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Rose gold glitter: ILNP – Juliette

I have never really tried to place a bunch of studs and then surround them with caviar beads, mostly because my other caviar beads are larger, and the whole thing takes forever. That said, I did my middle finger first (well, I did the polish-only nails first, but it was the first nails with 3D elements) and since that only took 10 minutes, I went ahead and did the others with lots of tiny beads too. Success!

If you want to pick up these tiny beads for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, where you can find them for $1.79. I kinda love them, and can’t wait to figure out ways to use them now!

Lavender and Pink Petals

Today is something pretty but very very simple: water decals! And really nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if these were opaque or not (I have been burned too many times not to assume I need a coordinating pastel-colored base polish), so I started with a base of Royalty Reinvented by L’Oreal. Truthfully, I didn’t need it. These water decals are 100% opaque and amazing. I soaked for 40-60 seconds and they came off easily, repositioned well, and stretched to fit my curves nails without ripping.

I feel like it is rather rare to find full-nail water decals that just work, so this was quite refreshing. Both thin enough to follow nail curves but thick enough to maintain their color and consistency. Win all around!

If you like these, or think you might just want to play around with some quick easy nail art a-la-water decals, head over to the Born Pretty Store. These particular decals are currently 99 cents.