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! 

Snow Pond Mani

The name says it all! This was 4 layers of snowflakes (three that got covered with a jelly polish and one left white) it honestly ended up too busy and I wish I had done one less layer! And of course, a cute snowman. I did him off to the side because I had seen something similar on IG, but it looks a bit strange honestly! 

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Blue jelly: Zoya – Frida
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Silver shimmer: KBShimmer – I Only Have Ice For You
~ Pink: Essie – The Girls are Out
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120

I think I am going to have to try another snowflake pond-style manicure this year, with slightly fewer layers. Maybe fewer flakes per nail, keep it a bit simpler. We shall see! Hope you enjoyed 🙂 

Bright Patches

I wanted to test out the orange jelly polish from Born Pretty. The color ended up being a little more brown-toned than I wanted, but since I picked it out myself I can hardly complain! It is a nice normal jelly so I am overall quite happy 😀

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red jelly: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ Orange jelly: Born Pretty – Arcadia
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Pink creme: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Orange creme: Formula X – Incandescent 
~ Yellow creme: WOW – #301
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L28

I should probably use this by itself at some point to give a better view of the polish, but I just enjoy mixing jellies with other jellies! Oh well. The tone is the brown-orange you can see by itself on most nails. To pick up this polish, you can find it here for $3.99. Enjoy!

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. 

Flower Out

This is a bit of an odd one? Beautiful base, fun stamp, and somehow it ended up looking halfway between etherial and too bulky (due to the black at the tip). I don’t know if I like it! Either way, it is appropriately fall-themed (which reminds me that I should wear this polish a BUNCH this month).

Colors:
|~ Orange pastel multichrome: POP Polish – Slick Days of Summer 
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L052 

Hope you enjoyed! Today’s post might be simple, but I promise wednesday’s post is nuts and super colorful to make up for it 😀 

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!

Neon Bonds

This manicure ended up far exceeding my expectations. I saw a super pretty accent nail (by an artist that I can no longer find, and despite KNOWING that I saved it on either pinterest or IG it is just gone, sorry original artist!) and decided I needed to make it happen. Instead of free-handing lines, I decided to paint a bunch of polish onto one of my larger stampers (although I could have just used my mat), wait for it to try, and then cut it into strips. The strips were imperfectly sized but not hard to work with, and they gave the end design some fascinating depth! I almost wish I had taken photos before top coat. Of course, I then finished it with matte coat because that is what the original artist had done. I do love it, but the depth is lost! I am posting it today because it reminds me of the LGBT flag, and that deserves to be on my blog for the 31 day challenge Flag Day.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Neon pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Neon orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Neon pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia

I repeated the same basic pattern on my thumb, and then was at a loss. The original design called for a matte black pinky and shiny neon orange pointer and middle fingers, but I am morally opposed to mixing gloss and matte nails. I also don’t like having that many boring empty nails. I ended up playing with adding stripes of color vs black vs a mix to the other nails, but it looked too busy. I settled on this, two simple black stripes of different sizes on one nail. Of course, I matted the whole thing as well. This was a surprisingly quick manicure, mostly because once the nail were ready for the stripes, the polish was already dry, and there was no free-handing at all. Just scissors and some creative cutting! Hope you enjoyed! 

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. 

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 😀 

Metallic Autumn Gradient

I never do gradients with metallic colors, and clearly I have been missing out! Honestly I have tried it before and it typically does not go well, so I don’t know what it is about these colors in particular that decided to work, but it is pretty! I almost added dots (as is my typical approach) and I am glad I did not! I found this sitting in the vault and decided it was perfect for Day 2: Orange of the 31 day challenge, so voila!

Colors:
~ Gold metallic: Catrice – Genius in the Bottle
~ Bronze: Pure Ice – Magic
~ Red: Zoya – Isla
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: MoYou – Pro 02 

I was going to save this for fall-time, but september is almost the start of autumn so it kinda counts? Even if it is still in the 80s outside! Phew. Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for Green day this friday! 

Neon Topography

This started as a random swirl of colors on the nail, and ended up looking like a neon-tone heat map or topography map. It is super weird and very 1970s? But I kinda like it!

Colors:
~ Pink: Essie – Sunday
~ Orange: Formula X – Incandescent
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda

I think I warned in a advance that this week would be neon themed, at least a little! St Louis in the middle of its typical summer activity, and is alternating between 100 degrees with 99% humidity and sunny, and then these sudden monsoons. Do not recommend! Also sorry for the extra delayed post, this week has been a lesson in running around like a headless chicken and things like the poor blog fell by the wayside! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Triangular Creamsicle

How about a neon? I wanted something ridiculously bright and here we are! This ended up rather odder looking than I intended. The creamsicle gradient was pretty so I added glitter? and white? triangles? I don’t know where my brain was at! Other than “I want bright things”.

Colors:
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Orange holo: ILNP – Fired Up
~ Stamp: BP – L054

For some reason this manicure (yes, this one in particular) sparked a series of triangular glitter manicures. I think I did 6 in the next two months with a whole bunch of different colors. I will try to spread them out in terms of posting so you all don’t get too bored! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Orange Ombre Crests

I don’t know that I have ever done an orange ombre. To be fair, I don’t know that I would have had enough polishes to even attempt this until recently…and even so I need a new pastel orange, this one is officially empty! I decided of course that ombre wasn’t enough to quality as nail art, so I added a white stamp (that shows up better over the darker colors) and voila!

Colors:
~ Pastel orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Light orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Coral: L’oreal – Orange you Jealous?
~ Bright orange/pink: WOW – #371
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BC – 04

Sadly, the polish on my ring finger (the KBShimmer one) is so neon that it bleaches itself in photos. I tried to bring out the color a bit more, but I don’t know if I succeeded! The ombre was really quite fun. I always want to do gradients instead, but this showcases the colors better and is much much easier! I’ll have to keep that in mind :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

Carrot Gems

I didn’t know what else to title this! It ended up looking somewhat like a gemstone…with tiny carrots? I basically just stamped in black but didn’t like how that looked, so I grabbed a complimentary color to my shifty base which ended up being a dark orange. I overlaid some of the black patterns with orange…and then added black dots. The end result is actually really cool looking but I had no idea where I was going with this and can hardly take credit for it!

Colors:
~ Orange/green multichrome: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L049

That’s all I have for today! I spent the 5 days I wore this manicure being constantly distracted by the glitter and the shifting colors, so kudos to Ethereal Lacquer I suppose! Hope you all enjoyed 🙂 (And sorry this is late! I totally forgot to pre-post before my 28 hour shift in the hospital.)

Summer Flower Gradient

I painted these in January. It was cold, there was a sleeting icy mess outside, and I decided it was time for some bright sunny colors. If the outside world would not cooperate, I would just have to make them happen myself! And that is how this manicure was born. Of course, its more fitting to post them in spring so here we are!

Colors:
~ Bright orange-yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Golden shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

I have been on a kick of adding highlights with my few not-quite-opaque pastel multichromes, and it makes me very happy. This time I added some Rainforest over the center of the flowers just for a bit of variety! You can’t really see it in the sunlight (for example, the second photo) but indoors it was glittery and added just a little kick that I think helped overall. Hope you enjoyed 😀

Scattered Roses on a Field of Gold

I told you there would be more flowers, and here they are! To be fair, I really really like how this mani came out (unlike the other two I posted this week). The theme appears to be color-in-flowers-with-jelly-polish. This manicure also gave me an excuse to play with another new polish :-D. I also almost forgot to post this (oops!) but its technically still Friday!

I wanted to see if the new pastel-ish multichromes from Emily de Molly we really worth buying…so I bought one that was different than anything else in my collection. Meet Goddess of Rays, an orange-gold-green-emerald pastel almost foil-like multichrome. I have to say, I was impressed! This covered very well in two coats, was only a tiny bit streaky, had a great shift, and was overall a pleasure to wear and a pleasure to look at!

Colors:
~ Orange/green multichrome: Emily de Molly – Goddess of Rays
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Pink creme: Zoya – Veronica
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

Initially I just added some black stamps, which I deemed too boring. So I decided to fill in the roses with a pink jelly polish, and add some matching dark pink creme dots as the little buds/berries! Ergo this weeks theme. To be fair, this manicure was shifty and awesome and more eye-catching than spring-like. But it fits! Hope you enjoyed 😀

Pressed Leaves on Papaya

This manicure is a combination of many pretty things, that when put together, makes a surprisingly ugly end result. A nice gradient, some pretty glitter, a fun leaf stamp…and it did not work! Anyway, here are the individual pieces.

The base color is a new-to-me polish, three thin coats of Papaya Don’t Preach by KBShimmer. I wanted a pastel neon orange, and what I ended up with was a light neon orange…which is very pretty, I will absolutely use, and is not what I was going for! Oops. Darn comparison photos, it looked lighter in swatches (lets be honest, that is true of most neons, cameras just cannot handle them). As neons do, this dried semi-gloss, photos here are with top coat. It has a nice even glide to it and is quite a fun color! It is just too dark for what I had in mind.

Colors:
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Glitter: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BP – Texture L002

I am also, FINALLY, the proud owner of Fairy Floss by China Glaze. I have wanted this scattered holo top coat for years but never wanted to pay full price for it. Well, I found it on sale for $5 and decided it was coming home with me this time. It makes gradients better, and I needed it! Ahhh, wonderful glitter :-). So, different pieces…odd end result. Hope you can enjoy somewhat!

Tilt Marble Bloom

This was made using the tilt marble technique! There is very little actual pink in this so I have no idea why it looks so pink, but I do like it! I also don’t typically mix this many metallic polishes, but the finished sheen was quite fun. I almost wish I had covered this with a matte top coat, I think the depth of the metallic finish would have looked fantastic! Oh well :-p

Colors:
~ Pink: Revlon – Poppy
~ Orange: Essie – Ring in the Bling
~ Red: Zoya – Isla
~ Purple: Zoya – Isadora
~ Dark purple: Revlon – Wild Violets

Every time a tilt marble shows up in my i-should-post-this folder I am reminded that I really need to do another tilt marble with my spot it polish. Cells for the win! Anyway, that was unrelated. Hope you enjoyed this pink and red concoction!