Elaborate Purple Curls

These nails took FOREVER and if I am honest I don’t love them. I wish I had picked a lighter range of colors rather than the full span of purples. Oops! As it stands about half of them look too much like each other, and the whole design is much darker than I intended it to be. Next time (if there is a next time) I will use a lighter color palette!

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Light purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Bright purple: Zoya – Margo
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Darkest purple: Zoya – Lael
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Whats up Nails – A010

Moral of the story: if you are going to spend >1.5 hours coloring in tiny lines, make sure your colors work well together! Hope you enjoyed despite that. 

Golden Veined

Oh god this was SUCH a disaster. I spent almost 2 hours making a super complicated manicure just to cover it up because it looked SO BAD. I started with a pretty purple-with-blue-glitters over a purple creme base, all is well. I then, for some ill-defined reason, decided to make gradient purple scales? Starting with the same shade of dark purple so it blended all the way into the polish? Gradiented to pink? When that looked awful I made an inner lining of the lighter color below for each of the scales and that looked WORSE. It looked like some pink-purple spreading tumor from my nail beds. I decided the problem was the darkest purple blending into the glitter purple base, so I outlined it in chunky gold glitter and somehow that just made everything worse. It was a failure. So I gave up and asked my husband what he would do to salvage it, and his answer was “make up something teal” to pick up the teal glitters in the polish. 

Colors:
~ Purple cream: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Purple with blue glitter: Emily de Molly – Open Season
~ Gold glitter: OPI – All Sparkly and Gold
~ Teal: Color Fever – Fiji
~ Gold: Salon Perfect – Gold Leaf

I will never say this on my nail blog again but…my husband was right. I covered the purple-pink monstrosity that I spent hours creating with a super opaque teal metallic, leaving a thin golden rim, and it already looked better. I then added gold veins to the teal and it almost looked like an intentional passable manicure. Only I knew what horrors lay beneath. 

Teal Gradient Chevrons

Straight forward, easy, and pretty colored! All you can ask for in a nail design :-D. These were painted in the spring, but the color just lend themselves so well to frost and winter, so I figured I would post them here! 

Colors: 
~ Light teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need A Refresh-Mint
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Dark teal: OPI – Stay Off the Lawn!!
~ Light purple: Zoya – Malia 
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for the New Years nails on Friday; the top 10 posts will come next week! 

Wintry Mix

I love this! How cute is that snowman? And the reindeer might be *ahem* oversized but its still adorable. Its a reindeer-with-its-face-in-the-camera. Lets go with that. This is probably overall my favorite winter manicure from last year (yes, I post around a full year delayed. I do not have my life enough together to post just after I paint).

Colors:
~ Blue metallic: Zoya – Tart
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Light brown: Zoya – Chantal
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Red glitter: KBShimmer – Ruby
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120 

Lots of colors and designs and I still cannot get over that snowman! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! I am going to finish up with some winter/New Years manicures this week, and spend the early part of next week on my top 10 posts for both polishes and nail art. Hope you enjoyed! 

Cute Santa

Merry Christmas! My husband just finished making me watch Elf (which is a horrible awkward movie, by the way) so this post is going up late. I figured it was only fair to humor him since his Christmas was so thoroughly downsized (to…just me) for COVID. 

Colors:
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – LE28
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: OPI – All Sparkly And Gold
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan

Anyway, I painted these cute minimalist santas last year, and I am quite happy with how they turned out! As far as impressive manis go, these are not that, but they get the point across. I am particularly proud of the weird stylized santa hat on my thumb. Hope you all had a great holiday season, whatever you celebrated, and stayed safe!

Red/Green Mix

So, this was a bit of a disaster but I do like the fluid nail art! I basically just grabbed a few colors and made things up as I went along. I think it shows, but honestly I don’t care :-p

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red: OPI – All I Want For Christmas (is OPI)
~ Red fluid: Dance Legend – Spot It Red
~ Red glitter: China Glaze – Ruby Red Pumps
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Halloween L004, Valentines L002, hehe – 028 

Today it went from 65 and sunny with lots of wind to 28 and pouring out. I don’t even know what winter thinks its doing at this point? Oh well. One more Christmas-appropriate manicure after this one. Hope you enjoyed!

Poinsettia

Unfortunately neither this design nor my photos came out exactly how I wanted. I was aiming to make poinsettia leaves/flowers and I think I achieved my goal, but you can hardly tell! Also all my non-sunlight photos you cannot see the design at all due to how closely it matches the red of the background. So you only get one photo today (it wasn’t worth the effort for me to edit any others if they just looked red). Anyway, I started with a red base and dry-sponged on splotches of other red shades including a glitter. Then I stamped with a darker red. So for very little result this actually took a bit of time.

Colors:
~ Bright red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Brick red: KBShimmer – Chai-huahua
~ Red glitter: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ Red: Revlon – Valentine
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamp: Born Pretty – Texture L002

That’s all I have for today. Fridays post will be better and much more visible, I promise! Maybe I will retry poinsettia flowers this yea brut actually make them visible. We shall see! 

Purple Dividing Flowers

I was feeling very very lazy with this one. So I grabbed some stickers and drew a random line down a diagonal on my nails. And added some gold dots. Thats really it, that’s the manicure. Of course, in my laziness, I totally forgot that it takes like 10 minutes a piece to remove each darn sticker, so I ended up spending more time with removal than I would have spent just free-handing the flowers!

I used a purple base that I was given as a gift just to test it out, called I Manicure for Beads by OPI. Its a pretty enough medium-dark pink-toned purple creme, covered well in two coats. Not much more to say about it!

Colors:
~ Purple creme: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Purple holo: ILNP – Zoe
~ Gold: Zoya – Solange

Anyway, hope you enjoyed today’s easy-to-make and hard-to-remove manicure, for all that it is quite simple! Stay tuned for more purple this week :-p 

Fleshy Cells

All I wanted to do was create a neutral palette and play with a new cell-creating fluid art polish. Somehow I ended up with diseased zombie nails. The design and the cells worked great…it was my color selection that could really have used some work! Of course, this does mean that the nail art works GREAT for Halloween, only I painted these months ago! Oops 😀

Colors:
~ Pale nude shimmer cells: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!
~ Pale nude: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist
~ Dark pink-red: OPI – Yank my Doodle
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea

Moral of this story: unless you want diseased-appearing nails, stay away from a neutral pallet when creating cell nail art. Hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for Friday’s excellent Halloween nail art! 

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! 

Lava Flows

I just trailed a bunch of different colors with my red spotted polish until I got a mix I liked! This either looks like fall leaves of lava going around greenery. I went with lava. Sadly, all the yellow got swallowed by the orange and red! Either way, I do think it looks rather cool 😀

Colors:
~ Red: Dance Legend – Spot It Red
~ Orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda

I think I’ve been doing roughly one spot-syle manicure a month, which given how many polishes I have and that I only own three spot polishes is actually a rather high number. But its fun! And easy! And makes REALLY cool designs! Anyway, hope you enjoyed. 

Draping Beads

This was very easy and honestly quite pretty! For the pretty drapes I think I am going to have to go with colors that are not so close to each other next time (although had you asked me before, rose gold is not that similar to nude) but anyway, I like it! 

Colors:
~ Red/gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco 
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – 156

The stamp itself is from a plate just full of geometric and elegantly draped designs, which I am not going to lie I think I have now used >5 times in the 3 months I have owned it (this is an impressively high number for someone who owns as many stamping plates as I do). You can find the plate for yourself here for $1.99.

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!

Milky Way Over the City

Honestly, this was not inspired by a movie (as it should have been for Movie Day in the 31 day challenge) but there are so many movies with pretty nightscapes of cities (and this was not a particular city) so I figured I could post it today! The design itself was inspired by Urban Nail Art. I loved her milky way idea and the colors, so I went for it! The manicure is free-handed other than the stars (which were stamped), and it came out pretty darn good! 

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Blue holo: Milani – Cyberspace
~ Pink holo: Milani – Digital
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence 
~ Gold glitter: Cult Nails – Walk of Shame
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Star stamps: BM – XL213

Making this manicure reminded me how much fun the Cult Nails glitters were; the polish company no longer exists (funny how many polishes I own at this point that the parent company doesn’t create polish anymore) so I somewhat hoard my few Cult polishes. I should honestly use them before they dry out; look at that glitter!!! Hope you enjoyed. 

Neon Watermelon

These were so fun! I saw this design by @simplycuticle on IG and decided that I needed to recreate it. Of course, it was made by stamping, but all that meant was that I had more freedom to freehand! I started with a pink base and a light green curve, and just went to town with a bunch of green polishes to make the rest of the rind.

Colors:
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Light green: OPI – Did It On ‘Em
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Exotic green
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

This actually niftily solved the problem of I hate half moon manicures, as an extended french mani is basically a half moon! Glass half full vs half empty and all that :-D. Ergo, here is my 31 daAnyway, hope you enjoyed!

Vivid Gradient Divided

It has been a (shamefully long) time since I did a dramatic gradient with striping tape. Partially because it takes so darn long to place the striping tape, and partially because I have been doing a lot of hand-painted scenes recently! Oh well. Enjoy geometric day in the 31 day challenge!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Pink: Zoya – Veronica
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black 

I am not going to lie, this is one of my favorite gradients. I do love blues and greens and purples in general, but for an eye-catching gradient, sunset colors are where its at! Hope you all enjoyed 😀 

Dark Roses on Grey

While I actually rather love how this mani came out, I like the inspiration better and am likely to try again in the future with a different color palette! I saw these nails at @billythebrime_nails and fell in love. Grey. Swirls. Roses. Moody yet awesome. How could I resist? And they fit so well for flower day in the 31 Day Challenge!

If I’m being honest, I liked my own mani better before I added the roses. The variegated grey background with darker grey swirls was elegant and very pretty. However, when I added the roses I realized I had made three mistakes: I used pink-based-reds for the roses (so when I mixed white with red I got pink rather than a deep orange-red…next time I need to aim for orange/red not pink/red), the roses are too small, and my swirls aren’t dark enough! They looked great on their own, but with the roses they just looked a little flat. 

Colors:
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Dark grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 Ornaments 3

I ended up going over by hand on some of the swirls nearest the roses, to make them appear bolder. It ended up giving my swirls an almost gradient appearance, which I quite like, but again I like Billy’s version better! Surprisingly, these nails took under an hour to do, so I’ll probably try them again sometime, with a few modifications! Hope you enjoyed! 

Prismatic Bubbles

I was in the hospital and it turns out the woman in charge of the service I was on ALSO does nail art! So, of course, I asked her before changing my nails what she would like to see, and her answer was “multichrome”. I did one better…multichrome AND holo! This mani was a lot of fun to put together, although I have to admit I probably spent 20 minutes just looking through all my stamping plates to find the right design. Of course it also worked really well for dot day in the 31 day challenge 😀

Colors:
~ Blue/purple multichrome: ILNP – Birefringence
~ Large silver holo glitter: OPI – I Snow You Love Me
~ Small silver holo glitter: FUN Lacquer – 24 Karat Diamond
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BM – XL209

I think I sorted through almost 80 photos to pick these two out. Anytime I use a multichrome polish I feel like I have to go hunting for the best light and the best way to show off the color shift…and at some point I just need to acknowledge that my lighting setup is just not ideal for multichrome shifts! Oh well. Hope you enjoyed the shift-y holo-y goodness anyway! 

Fishing at Sunrise

Rainbow day is my favorite day in the 31 day challenge! This time I pulled some nail art from the vault and went with a weird combination of stamping gradient and advanced stamping (kinda). This particular design was inspired by Sylvia Lopic Nails. By far the hardest part of this mani was getting my yellow polish to gradient. It just isn’t pigmented enough!

Colors:
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Hot pink: WOW – 371
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Zoya – Josie 
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! This was fun to make and fun to wear. I want to play with this plate again sometime soon; I do love easy panoramas!