Stained Glass Lilies

I have been wanting to do a stained glass manicure forever, but I was lacking many things: inspiring images, appropriate jelly polishes, and an appropriate base. I now have ALL (well, most) of these and decided to make a go at it! I realized that Cohesion, which I bought as a topper, would work GREAT over a subtle nude base as a “clear” shimmer stained glass window. I also realized that the recent white glitter collection by Emily de Molly is embedded in perfect jewel tone jellies, which are a pain to get out because there is SO MUCH GLITTER but work great for lead lighting, And finally, I bought a hot neon orange-red jelly polish while in Greece, that pairs wonderful with my existing pink jelly polish. What does this mean? Stained glass flowers!

Colors:s
~ Nude: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Flakies: Emily de Molly – Cohesion
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green jelly: Emily de Molly – Green Light
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Neon orange jelly: Azade – S220
~ Stamp: EDK – Mosaic

These are, in my opinion, probably the best stained glass nail art I have ever done. Now, that is not exactly a high bar…but still! I cannot wait to use more of the images on this plate, and maybe to get myself some better jelly polishes (mostly a real yellow and a green) to play with. Enjoy!

Flamingo Sunset

While in Greece in April, one of the polishes I found was a particular pastel neon coral, an orange-learning pink. I took one look at it and decided it looked like a flamingo (well, my first thought was “shrimp!” and my second thought was flamingo) and that it needed to come home with me. So, obviously, I used it in a flamingo-themed coral-pink manicure.

This is two thin coats of #152 by Studio Seven7een, a Greek brand. It covered beautifully and cleaned up beautifully, and fits right in with all the pastel corals that I have accidentally bought in the last year (…this is the third. Oops). The bottle is a bit funny shaped, but I like the color and the application, so that is fine. This brand appears to make mostly nudes/pinks/reds and the occasional purple, but they do know what they are doing with their consistency!

Colors:
~ Pastel coral: SEVEN7EEN – #152
~ Coral: L’oreal – Orange you Jealous?
~ Neon pink: WOW – #371
~ Holo glitter: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Moyra – 106 Picturesque

This gradient involves 2 foreign polishes! WOW is an Israeli brand. I love the overall neon coral sunset look, the fronds, the branches, and of course the flamingo on my pointer! I thought about adding more, but it was already a little…crowded. Overall, despite being a simple gradient and some stamps (ok, a lot of stamps) this came out quite pretty! And fits well with how awfully hot it has gotten. Hope you enjoyed!

London Sunfall

Welp, this didn’t work quite how I planned. I was inspired by the demo art on this stamping plate’s website to try and double stamp this design with black-on-white, but this part of my plate just isn’t etched well enough for this to work! Instead the black looked grey (although the peek-a-boo white did look nice). Next time, just black. That said, I love the designs, and my gradient was rather pretty! You also cannot really tell that I colored the moon in with a yellow jelly. Whoops!

Colors:
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Purple: Zoya – Margo
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Yellow Jelly – Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble
~ Holo glitter: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Stamp: Maniology x Clairestelle8 – M035

In real life, the gradient was actually pretty, but in these photos it looks like a bit of a mess (and regardless, the pale orange at the tips of my nails did not survive the stamping process). Next time, I will do better!

Tie Dye Eggs

Guys, I am PROUD of this one! I had this negative space stamp for easter eggs. And I had seen other people with the idea of tie dye (aka water marble) negative space eggs. But I decided to do them over a GLOW IN THE DARK white base and decorate a few of the eggs on each nail with the same color! The end result (since the base was white) is pretty tie dye eggs, some with designs, where the eggs themselves glow faintly in the dark and the designs glow brightly! The white I used as the stamp is not GITD and so it blocks out the light. I am happy 😀

Colors:
~ White GITD: Serum No5 – Pure Glow Getter
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Orange: Forumla X – Incandescent
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: KBShimmer – Lime All Right
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: Zoya – Abby
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B017

Here again I ran into the issue of the glow is not super bright, but it worked for my purposes! You can kinda tell with the GITD photo. Then again, I only charged using indoor light not daylight. I also am not sure why I wanted both my easter manicures to be GITD? I guess if I am using it on one hand I should just go to both :-p Enjoy!

Holo Rainbow Bubble Warp

I don’t have ANY IDEA what I did here. Or why. I wanted to go with some of my old swoopy color change nails, but I forgot how I did them (the next one I do will be better, and I will be doing this again!) so I made all the lines mostly vertical. But uneven. The end result was a very messy rainbow. So I added a black warped grid…that was almost invisible. And then added black dots. And white dots. And for once, the dots actually saved the manicure! It still looks crazy, but it looks INTENTIONALLY crazy. Down the rainbow rabbit hole! Or into Willy Wonka’s canal I suppose.

I wanted to test a new-to-me polish, a yellow linear holo called Funshine Smoothie by ILNP. I almost never wear yellow as a base color, but it pops really well in gradients and other designs, so I am actually running out of my core yellow polishes! Anyway, this is three thin coats of Funshine Smoothie. It wasn’t quite opaque in 2 coats, but it went on perfectly (and removed perfectly a few days later) so three coats was just fine! It is a very pretty bright linear holo…for a yellow :-p

Colors:
~ Purple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ Pink holo: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Orange holo: Emily de Molly – Scorched Earth
~ Yellow holo: ILNP – Funshine Smoothie
~ Green holo: A England – Dragon
~ Teal holo: Powder Perfect – There be Mermaids!
~ Blue holo: Color Club – Over the Moon
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L28

I remember Berry Good Looking being a bright purple with magenta undertones that somehow leaned vibrant blue. The polish I have now is a bright magenta-pink. It is still insanely intense and pretty, but is not the same color as the polish I remember buying? How weird!

Green Nodes

I didn’t mean to make this look like nodes! Somehow whenever I use this particular green polish I always end up creating something vaguely technology adjacent. The last few times it has been for computer chip designs. Apparently it is now just a set connection in my head! Regardless, this manicure came out rather awesome and I love the colors and the end result! Even if I had to make a stamping gradient and then hand-blend my node dots to match the stamping gradient.

Colors:
~ Green: Zoya – Veruschka
~ Neon orange: KBShimmer – Papaya don’t Preach
~ Neon yellow: Emily de Molly – LE 196
~ Red glitter: KBShimmer – Ruby
~ Stamp: Moyra – 32 Nature

I ended up going to play laser tag while wearing these nails, and the bright colors were super glowing in the dark light! I almost never do anything in spaces where there is black light (so I don’t get to see many of my neon manicures glow) but this was super cool.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Sorry about the lack of post on Monday, it was a very bad and exhausting day, and I just didn’t throw anything together in time. Hopefully I am better at staying on top of my life and that won’t happen again for a least a little bit.

Feather Curls

Holo base with some elegant curling stamps. This one was fun to create and find the right stamping designs for! And of course, added dots for contrast. Because what is a manicure on Flight of Whimsy without at least 15 extraneous dots?

Colors:
~ Gold holo: CbL – Frohe Feiertage!
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BC – 04, Whats Up Nails – A010

I know it seems weird to consider something a ‘subtle holo’ but it makes me happy to collect a bunch of nude/pale random holos that I can pretend to wear in gut hospital, even if I am (finally!) in lab! Which means that later this year when I get around to posting the polish I am wearing now, that there will be lots of bright colors and crazy patterns!

Hazy Crazy

This was my attempt at a very loose dry brush gradient. I don’t know why I made it and it didn’t quite work, but I still like the end result even if I wouldn’t do it again! I basically started with white, used a dry brush to apply yellow to my cuticle, orange just above it and overlapping it, then red, then purple. The yellow kinda got lost in the end.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: Zoya- Thandie
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

I said on Monday that it was time for some bright colors, and this seems like a fitting start! Friday (assuming I get it done in time) will be more glittery. Hope you enjoyed!

Pastel Leaves

Sorry about the lack of post on Friday, this was supposed to go up at that point but I ran out of time! So enjoy it today instead. The nail art today was just fun and cute! I wanted to make a pastel subtle leaf design, and I would say I was successful! Unfortunately it rather makes me look like I have lobster hands in photos…but in real life it was lovely.

Colors:
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Green shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Orange: Zoya – Cole
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

I think I should start posting more brightly colored spring-like manicures at this point. Winter isn’t actually over (its still very cold) but it is time for flowers and bright colors. Stay tuned!

Fan Flowers

There was no overall plan with this manicure, I just had a color pallet to use and went for it! I don’t know if I like the overall scheme over blue (rather than nude or light orange) but it is what it is! I love the yellow/orange/pink/purple pallet, but looking back at this I wish I had done it over a more neutral color. Maybe next time!

Colors:
~ Pastel blue: Zoya – Blue
~ Blue shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Magenta: Zoya – Margo
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Moyra – 45 I Fill You

I want to say it is getting close to spring (we are most of the way to March and its been in the 60s the past two days) but honestly it is supposed to snow and then freezing rain later this week (oh joy) so I can’t say that. I just like flowers? Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Pastel Splotch Circuit

I have no idea where I was going with this, no plan, and no purpose (that appears to be a trend this week). I just went for it! I painted each nail a different pastel color, splotched the other colors over the base color, and then stamped in a white geometric-ish pattern. The end result was cool if confusing.

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pastel orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 11

You may also ask why I featured the entire rainbow EXCEPT for blue. I grabbed a nail polish for each nail (5 in total) and then didn’t have a blue nail. I absolutely should have put blue on anyway, but I did not do that. So here we are!

Pastel Rainbow Rose

It is time for (slightly?) valentines-themed nail art! So today there are more flowers. I started with a super shimmer pastel foil multichrome, and then picked all the colors it reflected and made a loose freehand rose! The end result looked surprisingly incredible, especially when my nails shifted or caught the light and all the colors reflected in the background. Unfortunately all of that detail doesn’t come through in a static image, but it still looks pretty!

Colors:
~ Pink foil chrome: POP polish – Watermelon Bubbleslick
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pastel orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana

The nails honestly get increasingly absurd from here; turns out I don’t paint with much in the way of pink, and I haven’t done many hearts in the last year either! Oops. Enjoy anyway?

Linked in Orange

Holo base, fun stamp, and dots. Absolutely my jam! This was very easy and looked rather more fun than I intended it to, not that I am complaining at all. It helps that the base is such a holographic fun polish!

Colors:
~ Orange silver holo: ILNP – Fired Up
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B039

I feel like I should use more oranges. I only ever go for them around halloween and they are useful for so much more than pumpkins and leaves! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Dark Flowers and Branches

I saw this manicure by @ruthsnailart and I really just wanted to re-create it. I so rarely see a dark shimmer base with dark flowers that really pops (the orange glitter dots) and somehow feels somber despite being floral. I made me think of rain. I also think that at this point 50% of the nails I recreate are from Ruth.

Colors:
~ Grey metallic: Essie – For the Twill of it
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Purple: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence

Hope you enjoyed the dark dreary flowers on this cold winter day! Or at least enjoyed the nails if not the day. Happy Friday!

Relaxing Sunset

This was easy and beautiful! I made a neon/pastel sunset gradient and then stamped using three dark cremes to achieve the purple (hammock), blue (water) and green (trees) that I wanted. Voila! Honestly the pictures do not do this justice, the orange-pink neon was almost glowing it was so bright.

Colors:
~ Orange neon: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ryan
~ Stamps: Moyra – 106 Picturesque

I am posting this because it was 75 degrees out today! Which is just nuts for DECEMBER. I have no idea what the weather thinks it is doing. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed! Monday starts the series of winter-appropriate nails (even if it stays weirdly warm out)!

Orange Marsh Sunset

I wanted to make a beautiful sunset water scene using this stamping plate, and I succeeded in all but one aspect: I used the wrong colors. The whole thing is so darn brown instead of a bright orange! I figured I would start with the darkest orange and gradient on some lighter colors, and well it worked in theory, the brown undertones of the darkest orange out-shown the yellow and red of the brighter orange polishes! The end result is rather dreary looking. Next time, brighter colors!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pastel orange: Zoya – Cole
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Gold: Sephora – I Found a Pot of Gold!
~ Stamps: Moyra – 106 Picturesque

Looking at this manicure now just makes me happy that I got this stamping plate, and reminds me that I need to use it more in the next few weeks. It makes beautiful scenes. Hope you enjoyed! And sorry, I am out of any and all fall-themed nail art, so you guys get non-themed random designs for a bit!

Dying Leaves

Ok so this was fun. I wanted to make my nails look like a bed of dead leaves (ok that sounds bad) or bark without leaves on it, and I decided to have fun with brown and nude marble-spotting to do so! It actually looked really cool. Of course, the fall vibe is not complete without some red and orange leaves, so I added those as well. Voila!

Colors:
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Nude spotting: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Brick red: KBShimmer – Chia-huahua
~ Dark pink: OPI – Magala Wine
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

I’m going to be honest: all of the halloween and fall nails that you guys have seen up to this point were painted a year ago. This year I did a bunch of halloween nails (that, true to form, you will see next year) but no fall nails yet! That means, however, that most of what is going to be posted between now and maybe Thanksgiving are going to be just random nail art that I have lying around. Sorry, no more theme! I do have a bunch of back-logged winter holiday nails to look forward to though :-p

Halloween Vortex Drip

This is a weird complicated manicure. I was (yet again) out of Halloween nail ideas, but I was playing with one of my cell-producing polishes and decided I would just force that to become a manicure. I started making decals (one for each nail) with yellow, orange, red, green, and purple (due to their halloween nature), and adding the nude cell polish and a black creme. The end results were widely varied with regards to density of color, ease of flow, and number of cells, and looked super random on my nails. I was going to stamp over them, but decided that a drip design to make it look like a halloween-colored vortex was the better solution. I have no idea what I was thinking (it was maybe 3am) and the end result is super weird, but it was fun!

Colors:
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Orange: Forumla X – Incandescent
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Purple: OPI – I Manicure for Beads
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Nude spot: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!

I don’t know that I will ever do something quite as abstract as this. No one had any idea what I was attempting and overall my nails mostly looked like slime! But I guess that is part of the fun of Halloween…do weird stuff! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

BRAINSSSSS

This was created for Halloween, because zombies. However, while I was putting this together I decided I actually wanted to make it somewhat realistic (in terms of color) so it took a lot longer than expected and I love it! It helps that I am both a neurologist and a neuroscientist, and that brains are kind of my thing. I usually don’t work with gross tissue (aka hold a brain in my hand) but I can still enjoy it!

The base polish is a new-to-me polish from Polish Pickup a while ago that I had been saving for this exact manicure called Not Such A Fungi by BKL. This is another polish that arrived together with the lovely science stamping plate of happiness, and as soon as I saw the color and the brain gyrus/sulcus stamp I knew I was going to create this manicure. The polish is a pale orange that leans nude, and is made more subtle by a healthy dose of red-to-green shifting shimmer. It took 3 coats to cover my free edge, but the end result is quite pretty and worth it. It lasted for 6 days with no tip wear, so clearly the chemistry of this polish agrees with me!

Colors:
~ Orange shimmer: BKL – Not Such A Fungi
~ Brown jelly: Born Pretty – Arcadia
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamp: Hit the Bottle – For the Love of Science

I ended up deciding that the orange polish with dark red stamping, while realistic, was not realistic ENOUGH so I added meninges (the thin membranes around the brain that help hold some of the fluid in place) using an orange-brown jelly polish. It took a lot longer as a result, but it also looks (to me) far more realistic so I think it was worth it. I don’t know that anyone else noticed! Anyway, hope you all enjoyed!

Pumpkin Top

This was another smush marble design. I wanted to make it look like there were jack o’lantern faces on the tops of pumpkins! If I am being honest the idea flopped miserably (these look nothing like pumpkin tops) and I forgot that this plate barely stamps. Despite that, I had made the decals (which were a pain to get onto my nails) and so I wore the resulting manicure for 5 days anyway. Not my best work!

Colors:
~ Light orange: Forumla X – Incandescent
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Halloween L004

I actually don’t think I have ANY other pumpkins to post at this point! its going to be fully Halloween spookiness or dead leaves from here on out :-p Enjoy