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!

Sunset Skittle

This was just me testing out stamping plate designs for nails to wear to a wedding! You will see what I picked (spoiler: I picked the wrong design) in a while :-p Looking back I honestly enjoy what was on my thumb the most, both because the design is elegant and because I really liked the underlying gradient. I picked something more…floral…and regretted it!

Colors:
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps Moyra – 45 I Fill You, BM – S10, Whats Up Nails – B005, B025, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! If any of you are looking for some television to watch I strongly recommend the series Firefly! I don’t know why I decided I have the right to give out television recommendations but there you go.

Magenta Squared

This was a fun manicure. I have no idea where it came from though! I wanted to use one of my new Polish Pickup polishes, High Degree by EdM. I will get to that polish in a second (it is incredible) but I decided to go with black and orange over it for some reason? I was going to do flames but somehow ended up here instead. I have no idea what it is but I like it!

High Degree is a bright almost neon magenta jelly completed full of small and medium iridescent glitters. This is fantastic for two reasons: the glitters glint between orange-yellow-green and sometimes red from the jelly overlay, AND because they are iridescent rather than intrinsically colored they remove like a charm! This is somehow a glitter polish that removes almost like a creme. I ended up covered in glitter, but it was so worth it. The polish covered well in two coats but I added a thin third coat for added glitter dimension. This polish is utterly incredible (I know I said that already).

Colors:
~ Purple glitter: Emily de Molly – High Degree
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange holo: Emily de Molly – Scorched Earth
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B015

I then added a black geometric stamp and decided that was too boring, so I went ahead and put thin orange holographic lines inside anything that looked vaguely solid? The end result was cool looking and futuristic! Don’t ask me why I did it though, I was just bored. Hope you enjoyed!

Glowing Thai Patterns

It has been a while since I posted a glow-in-the-dark manicure! I actually painted this one some time ago, and it has been sitting in my unedited folder, oops! But here we are all the same. Instead of starting with a white base (as I usually would) I started with a glow in the dark polish (that has a yellow base to it, as far as I know Dayglow was the first true glow in the dark polish on the market, at this time there are many different ones including some with white bases but this is all I have!) that I did a stamping gradient over. I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to do yellow to red or yellow to blue…so I did both? And then that didn’t seem to be enough so I also added swirls 😀

The glow to this polish has remained incredibly strong despite being >5 years old. Most of my older thermal polishes have lost their color shift, and my solar-reactive polishes don’t shift at all anymore…but this polish still glows! Score 1 for Serum No 5.

Colors:
~ Glow-in-the-dark: Serum No 5: Dayglow
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BM – XL158, 314

That’s it for today! I recommended that all nail polish folks have at least one glow in the dark polish – it is a lot of fun to freak my husband out with my glowing nails in bed :-D. Hope you enjoyed!

Shimmer Leaves

Happy almost Thanksgiving! You guys almost didn’t get a post today because I almost ran out out of to edit my nails! As it stands this is going to be a bit less polished than usual (hah, nail polish puns) because there just wasn’t time! It’s pretty anyway, and hopefully you will all be too distracted by the epic color shift to notice anything else :-p

Colors:
~ Red/gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Red/orange/green glitter: POP Polish – Slick Days of Summer
~ Blue: Zoya – Blake
~ Stamp: BM – XL209

The colors for this were just perfect for fall! I don’t know why I never thought to stamp in dark blue over red/orange before, but it is one of my new favorite color combinations. Somehow it just contrasts a bit better than black! Anyway. By the time I get out of the hospital it will be tomorrow, and then there will be Friendsgiving time! My husband is abandoning me this year (he gets time off to go home) so I get to eat with all the other wonderful people in my life who want to potluck with me! Hope you guys enjoyed the nails, and have great meals wherever you are!

Crackled Orange

Orange and glittery! Totally fall-appropriate. Other than that, not really :-p. This was easy to create and attention-grabbing (100% due to glitter content). Putting manicures like this together also always makes me glad that I have a large collection of stamping plates. It makes things neater and quicker!

Colors:
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Moyra – Ornaments 3, Lina – Make Your Mark 02

Not much else to say about this one. I wanted some glitter, so voila, glitter! I also only use this polish maybe once a year, sometimes around the Halloween/Thanksgiving time period. I should probably stop buying strangely colored glitter polish if I am only going to wear it once a year! Hope you all enjoyed, and happy Friday!

Fall-themed Roses

I went to a wedding where the bridesmaids were all dressed in different fall colors, and it was stunning! My assigned color was red, but the colors ranged from coral and orange through a deep plum. Of course, I painted my nails to match :-). Oddly enough, the only roses in the actual bouquets (which I helped make) were orange! Go figure.

Colors:
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Light purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael
~ Red: OPI – All I want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: BM – 209

Hope you enjoyed! It feels like I should be moving on to winter manicures…its been below 40 for the past few days even though Thanksgiving hasn’t happened yet!

Optical Halloween Illusion

Happy almost-Halloween! I actually have a better halloween manicure than this…but I didn’t get a chance to transfer the photos to my computer so you guys will just have to wait till next year :-p. Meanwhile, enjoy orange glitter and adorable zombies! At least it finally gave me a chance to use the darn zombie stamp.

Colors:
~ Orange glitter: A England – Gloriana
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: Lina – Make Your Mark 2, B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown, BP – Halloween L004

Of course, there is a funky dripping skull on my thumb, but none of the photos which included my thumb were in focus! So you’ll just have to trust me. Bwhahaha! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Fall Bloom

There isn’t much better than fall-themed flowers! This was chosen after I modeled a few other possible designs over this pretty gradient. In retrospect, although I like the end product, I wish I had picked a different stamp that let through more of the underlying colors! Because fall gradients are the best gradients 🙂

Colors:
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Lael
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

I feel like I probably overuse floral stamping, but I can’t really find it in myself to be upset about this. Flowers are pretty! Gradients are awesome! Combining them is fun! Anyway, that’s all for today, hope you enjoyed and happy Friday!

Yellorange Rise Marble

Yellow and orange? Check. Topographical map stamp? Check. Water marble? Sure why not! In summary I have no idea where I was going with this nail art but it ended up somewhere at least! The base is a yellow-orange thermal but it was weirdly warm and I could not get the darn thing to stay orange long enough to get a photo! Oh well :-p

Colors:
~ Yellow/orange glitter thermal: POP Polish – Leaves of Gold
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BPX geometry – L020

Short and sweet, mostly because this is more strange than pretty. Hopefully I will have some better nail art for you later this week! Hope you enjoyed!

Sunfire Squish Marble

I don’t know you guys. This entire manicure is only two colors (yellow and red) but it was SO PAINFUL. Long story short, do not try to apply decals that you made on a mat using a stamper!! The decals ended up so bent (particularly my pointer and middle finger where I applied using the stamper) that I had to add dots! I do like the dots, but I kinda wish I ended up with the pure stamping marble. To translate: if you create a flat stamping decal on a mat, do not then try to bend it onto a stamping head, and then try to bend it in the opposite direction onto your nails. None of that will work and you will be left with a broken mess!

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Red: Zoya – Sooki

Also, this rather looks like funky bacterial agar? Which is cute if you are really into plasmids or some such, but also looks creepy once you think of it! Oh science, you have changed my perspective, sometimes for the creepy :-P. This is only going up now because I figured red and yellow are fall colors, and if I didn’t post it soon I was going to lose my nerve! These nails are a disaster.

Yellow and Purple Meshwork

This was just a simple yellow-orange-red-purple gradient, with a dark purple holo stamped over it! I have been waiting for the right time to use this particular image, and I quite like how it came out. It also is suitably fall-themed so I have saved it for now 😀

Colors:
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Purple: Zoya – Lael
~ Purple holo: A England – Let Me In
~ Gold: Zoya – Faye
~ Stamp: Moyra – 54 Matrix

Ugh I miss gradients. Although, I always hate when my nails are curved! Square (or squoval I suppose) or bust. None of this oval nonsense! Hope you enjoyed, stay tuned for MORE autumn nail art this Friday! Although it isn’t orange/red because I can, occasionally, vary my pallet :-p

Autumn Canopy

More fall! This was one basically just an excuse to make a whole bunch of dots. And we all know how much I love dots! The design was inspired by Snacks on Rotation although mine are much darker since I don’t have a gradient leaf stamp!

Colors:
~ Brown holo: Darling Diva – Brown Diamond
~ Brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red shimmer: ILNP – The Magician
~ Stamp: EdM – 07

Hope you enjoyed! Happy fall weather, and pumpkin spice everything if you are into that!

Shining Leaves

It’s fall! The 31 Day Challenge has ended, so it is certainly October. More than that, the weather in St Louis just went from the 90s (it was TERRIBLE) to daily highs in the 70s! Hurray!

In honor of the newfound cold and frosty world (ok, there has not yet even been close to a frost, but still, not sweating in tank tops because it is chilly out makes me very happy), I am going to finally start posting Fall manicures! Beginning with this one. Basically, I just double stamped silver, then a smooth of red and orange polishes. Voila!

Colors:
~ Grey flakie: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Stamp: BP – 19

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And I hope this weather lasts, because it is the only time of the year that anyone will voluntarily find me outside!

Dry Marble Firemaze

So, this was a LOT of fun. I know the prompt is water marble, and this is a dry marble, but it was incredibly fun to put together and the two water marbles that I made for today both came out rather poorly, so you get this instead! After, what is the 31 Day Challenge about if not weird pretty new things?

I started with a yellow base, and dry marbled the rest of the colors using a fan brush. I think this might be the first (or second) time I have ever even touched my fan brush. The red and dark orange got overwhelming (fanning on colors was so fun!) so I added some additional yellow at the end. After all that, I added a maze stamp. Voila!

Colors:
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BM – 609

I think this is the first year I haven’t posted a real water marble for water marble day, but you guys will just have to forgive my dry marble replacement :-p. Next Monday’s (assuming I get it put together) will be excellent so be excited!