Rainbow Gradient

Rainbow time! it has been a LONG time since I posted a rainbow (or painted a rainbow honestly). I need to do more rainbows!

So, anyway, this is a simple rainbow gradient. I went with fairly neon colors because…well, I felt like it. At some point I’ll need to do a pastel and dark rainbow with my newer wider selection of colors (again, it’s been a while).

Colors:
~ Bright pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Bright orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Purple: Zoya – Margo

That’s all I have for today! Hope you enjoyed, and happy weekend!

Cracked Garnet

I couldn’t decide if this mani reminded me more of golden tree branches (which was the intention) or a broken gemstone (which is equally cool), so I went with gemstone! Either way, these nails ended up beautifully sparkly.

I seldom reach for my pure flakie top coats. Honestly, I feel like they overwhelm the color under them (which I suppose is the point) but I feel bad covering up my base color! In this case I used a purple I don’t like much, which made me feel overall better for the focus being on the flakies :-p

Colors:
~ Dark purple: Station – Happy Wine-y People
~ Orange glitter: Born Pretty – Raging Fire
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – XL472

Happy Friday, and I hope you enjoyed! Its >90 degrees in St Louis right now, and absolutely miserable with humidity. I don’t understand this weather, it was in the 40s less than a week ago!

Blue Diving Through

I just really wanted to use this stamp! I had blue with orange on my other hand, so that is how I ended up with orange dots. Not a color combo I would usually reach for, but I think it works!

I also wanted to post something at least Hanukkah-adjacent. I am actually wearing menorahs on my nails right now, but I doubt (unless I somehow magic up some time) that I will get a chance to edit them and post them in the next week! Unfortunately I am currently on a 12 day stretch without a day off from the hospital, so I will likely not get around to it 😦

Colors:
~ Dark blue metallic: Zoya – Ibiza
~ Dark blue creme: Zoya – Sia
~ Blue creme: Zoya – Ling
~ Light blue creme: Zoya – Rocky
~ Pastel blue creme: Zoya – Blu
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

That was a lot of blues! And all of them Zoya. I likely own more blue Zoyas than any other single color, but dark purples do come close. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and have fun lighting candles and eating chocolate and latkes!

Pumpkins and Webs

Happy almost-halloween! This year my husband and I ended up at two different pumpkin carving events, so now we have four pumpkins. Which is double our previous yearly count of pumpkins. I carved a set: a dragon and a castle. My husband carved a pokemon (because of course he did)…and a pumpkin. Into his pumpkin. He is an absolute dork!

Anyway, I have a bunch of fall manis lined up, but I only did one halloween manicure this year! I kinda forgot that October meant Halloween. Oops. I’ll do better next year! This year’s halloween mani is decided to stamping jack-o-lanterns. I received another plate to review from the Born Pretty Store (which was thankfully well-etched) and went to town! Unfortunately, the dark orange I used for the pumpkins is more a jelly than a cream, but I still got away with single-pass stamping on some nails (thumb and ring finger). That said, I am not surprised I had to double stamp, I need to stop using glitter polish bases! But when trying to pick a base color my head just went ‘GOOOOLD’ so here we are!

Colors:
~ Gold: ILNP – Fame
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Bright orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – Halloween – L004

Hope you enjoyed! And I hope everyone gets lots of candy and tasty treats. If you want to pick up this pumpkin and web-decked plate, head over to the Born Pretty Store where you can find it on sale for $2.99.

Oranged Lines

Honestly, I was aiming for a completely different manicure when I started this, but my gradient came out all wrong so I ended up with this instead!

I was going for a light orange-orange-red-purple style, and as you can see it is 95% orange an 5% red with no purple at all! I tried. I really did. In retrospect, I should have known it wasn’t going to work since the purple I was trying to use is currently a dried up blobby mess. Live and learn!

I ended up deciding that all gradients (as long as the colors aren’t terrible and need to be flat-out started over) look good with some geometric patterns. I wanted something a bit more delicate so I went with this design, and of course added colors to the dots and diamonds. I think this is the third time I have done this same thing with different colors.

Colors:
~ Pastel orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Neon purple: Sinful Colors – Dream On
~ Dark purple: L’Oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: EdM – 03

That’s all for today! There is a similar gradient floating around on the blog too, since I was on night float and thus was able to do slightly different nails (and keep this poor blog running)! Hope you enjoy!

Orange Passing Purple

This mani stirs some mixed feelings: on the one hand, it is pretty cool looking! On the other hand, the gradient isn’t what I was going for and the lines, as the are freehanded, are not even close to perfect.

I was inspired by @aissandra. Somehow, despite her nails being shorter than mine, she managed to get more gradient going! I have to wonder if that is because she was using higher quality or more opaque polish. I happen to know that the neon purple I tried to use is a dried up mess and need to be thinned dramatically or thrown out!

The real moral is that I need a better neon pastel (wow) orange, and despite having a truly staggering number of purple polishes, I need something that is a bright indigo-leaning creme! In case the swatching extravaganza earlier this year didn’t clue anyone in, I own far too many jewel tone purple metallics. Specifically. Anyway.

Colors:
~ Pastel orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Neon purple: Sinful Colors – Dream On
~ Dark purple: L’Oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed, and wish me luck acquiring more purple polish 😀

Phoenix

I have done phoenix nails before, but possibly never this insanely bright! I got lucky that one of my stamping plates already had all these images, or I would have been painting flames for years :-p

The design itself was inspired by @nails4cocktails, although I didn’t have holo polish in the right colors, so I just added some shimmer on top. I really need to get Fairy Dust by China Glaze, I keep winging it with my glitter toppers!

Colors:
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Shimmer: Sally Hansen – Diamond
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Exoticism BPX – L012

Hope you enjoyed! I do love flames 😀 even if I often can’t wear them on my nails because they are too disruptive at work. Maybe next year I can have more fun with my nails NOT on weekends!

Astral Shifts

Ok, so, I love this mani. I love how it looks, I love the colors, and I LOVE the magnet! I got a new magnetic polish from the Born Pretty Store to review…and somehow, unlike every other magnetic polish I own, this one works like a charm. Maybe I am just getting better, but the design on my pointer finger stayed looking perfect for three days. Most magnetic polishes just can’t do that!

Anyway, this is two coats of Astral Realm over black. The first coat was thin and the second coat was thick; I magnetized both times (and again when I put top coat on, although the magnetic particles didn’t actually move). Astral Realm is a multichrome magnetic. I was doubtful at first, but its actually true! The shift is a bit more subtle than pure multichromes of the same color range, but it is definitely there. This polish shifts from a bright fuchsia to pink (the primary colors) and then to orange and gold. I even saw hints of green at sharp angles!

I got a whole bunch of compliments on this at work. People were stopping me as I was typing on the computer to ask me how I got my nails to look like this :-D. I also love the stamps! When Whats Up Nails had their stamping sale, this is one of the 6 plates (oops!) that I picked up! I bought it on a whim but it has turned out to possibly be my favorite of the bunch. Stars! Moons! A super fancy sun! Anyway.

It is rare that I only use three colors in a mani, especially when only two of them are visible! But the magnetic polish was cool enough that I thought adding anything else to this would be a waste.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Magnetic multichrome: Born Pretty (Magnetic Aurora Series) – Astral Realm
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – XL213

That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed! In case anyone was curious…my pinky I just magnetized the very edge of my cuticle, for the ring and middle I used one of those strong magnetics to make a line (diagonal vs horizontal), my pointer I used a repeating diagonal line full-nail magnet, and my thumb I pushed around the polish using the rounded head of a strong double-sided magnetic wand. You can pick up Astral Realm at the Born Pretty Store for $5.39, which is a lot for a tiny 6ml bottle, but it does work!

In Tron

The title of this amuses me…the design was loosely inspired by art from Tron Legacy (someday I will freehand some Tron lines and light cycles) with a dark background and bright blue with hints of orange. However, an intron is part of a gene that is coded to become a protein in biology, which just makes me smile!

Anyway, this was done for “movie” day of the 31 Day Challenge. I know today is book day, and I really wanted to honor one of my favorite authors, Marion Zimmer Bradley, but I just couldn’t work up the energy to freehand some awesome scenery. Sorry! So movie it is.

I also don’t know why I situated on Tron, it was just the first movie with a really cool aesthetic image that popped in my head.

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Blake
~ Blue creme: Zoya – Ling
~ Light blue creme: Zoya – Rocky
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

Hope you enjoyed! And we are almost done with the 31 day challenge. This is very sad for me, because a lot of my favorite nail blogs/IGs only really post nail art daily during September, and otherwise I have to wait weeks to see new art!

Mountain Sunset

Happy 31 Day Challenge! It isn’t quite the same without Cathy (from More Nail Polish) but she is on vacation so we shall have to try without her guidance! Anyway. I am, as I mentioned last week, obviously not participating daily. However, I have lined up my M-W-F posts for the next month with that day’s theme to the best of my ability! Since today is day 3 and thus the ‘yellow’ them and I HATE the color yellow, I went ahead and combined orange and yellow together. Ta-da!

When putting this mani together I went ahead and grabbed most of my orange polishes. And some yellows. And then I realized that I think I only own two polish colors with ‘?’ in the name. They are apparently both orange and both involve puns/jokes. Go figure!

The design itself was inspired by @lieve91, and for once I sort of think I did it justice? Regardless I really like how this came out! It isn’t entirely orange or yellow but it fits the theme ENOUGH.

Colors:
~Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~Orange-yellow: KBShimmer – Orange you Glad I Didnt say Bananna?
~Bright red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~Dark purple: Zoya – Monica
~Dark blue: Maybelline – Midnight Swim
~Pastel orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~Pink-orange: Maybelline – Orange you Jealous?
~Dark pink: OPI – Malaga Wine
~Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~Gold glitter: Sephora – I Found a Pot of Gold!

Hope you enjoyed! On Wednesday I will post to the day 5 prompt of ‘blue’ and it might be my favorite mani of the year. I’ll let you guys decide! :-p

Neon Slices

I have to admit, I had no idea the rabbit hole I was getting myself into when I made these. I saw a pin that I liked on pinterest, and just decided to re-create it.

Then of course I decided to use more neon colors that the original (which may have been a mistake since, again, these were worn to see patients), and since my nails were longer I went ahead and added a flair of double lines on my nails. The doubles were only on my left hand, my right hand recently had a collision with a car door and thus has short nails.

But this is where it got nuts…I went to go find the original poster of the nail art design. And this woman has made SO MANY of these. The original mani (and the one I used as inspiration) was posted to @amvpnails over 3 years ago. Then, a few weeks later she posted a similar design with gold/pink colors. Then she seems to have noticed how popular they were and did one in blues, reds, more neons, and dark rainbows. That is a LOT of repeats! I cannot imagine repeating one design that many times, even with the color variations.

Colors:
~ Silver holo: Emily de Molly – Stockpile
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
~ Green: Essie – The More the Merrier
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed the neon and glitter, and the trip down some random instagramer’s memory lane!

Grungy Floral Lace

I don’t really know what else to call this? The background is a bit grungy and I should really not have stamped over it with lace, because it really just came out looking messy.

The base of this is my swatch test for Mauve Nudes, which I then haphazardly dry-brushed over with each color. I went, for some reason that I cannot come up with in hindsight, with a lace floral stamp? And then colored in the flowers with jelly polish and added a gold bead to the middle. I think if the background was a consistent color rather than a mess, that this would have looked good! But alas, it does not.

Colors:
~ Tan nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Pastel nude: Essense – I Nude It
~ Peach nude: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Pastel mauve: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Mauve: Zoya – Rue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Red jelly: OPI – My Wish List is You
~ Orange jelly: custom made
~ Stamp: BP – L084

So, that is a lot of colors for something that looks like it has at maximum 5 colors. Oh well! At least I tried?

I think I need to stay away from lace on nudes for a while, or just lace stamps n general. The last few manis that I have tried with them just don’t end up looking good!

Daffodil Garden

I have no excuse for this going up in the afternoon…I finished editing last night and just forgot that today is a Wednesday! Anyway. I painted these in early April, as the daffodils were finally emerging from the (very late) snow! I also rather like that I found a way to use this stamp that doesn’t make all my fingers look the same 🙂

Since this was painted on top of a swatch test post, I started with a different color blue polish on each nail. To make them uniform, I basically dry-brushed each color over the others so the end result was a medium light blue with shimmer in it. I wanted there to be a faint wispy cloud background, and I think it looks rather cool! You can see that best on my pinky and thumb.

After the blue cloudy background had dried, I used advanced stamping (aka coloring in the stamp while it is on the stamper) and applied it to my nails. One of my last minute decisions with this was to use a dark orange in the very center of the flowers and then a lighter yellow-leaning peach for the rest of the middle. I love how it came out! I ended up goggle image searching daffodils to make sure I had the right shade of orange (all the daffodils near my apartment are yellow-on-yellow which is not nearly as much fun), and it also gave me a chance to use Freedom of Peach again! I don’t like this color on my nails as a base but it clearly works as flower centers :-p

Colors:
~ Pastel blue: Sally Hansen – Breezy Blue
~ Light blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Pink shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Medium blue: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Peach: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: BP – L067

I know the daffodils have all died, but I wanted to make sure that this got posted SOMETIME in the spring! Hope you enjoyed!

Aloha

Finally, nail art and no more swatch comparisons! I thought I would open with the nails I painted for my Honeymoon back in March 🙂

Since I was traveling to Hawaii, I wanted some fun tropical nails! I didn’t have any stamping plates that were quite the correct flower, and the few hibiscus ones I have are…not the prettiest. So I tried to turn some flowers INTO something vaguely Hawaiian! I also couldn’t make up my mind between two different designs, so I just went ahead and used both. The mani ended up a bit busier than I intended (oops) but I still like it!

Colors:
~ Purple: Emily de Molly – Traverse the Skies
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamps: BP – 067, Chic Peek BM – XL472

I also wish I had done some lava nails, since that may have been the single coolest thing I’ve ever seen (well, hottest really I suppose). Since my visit, the volcano on Hawaii has started erupting again, which is incredibly unfortunate for the people who live on the slopes of the volcano!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tropical nails! Hopefully I can get my act together and actually have something to post the rest of this week as well 😀

Fiery Ripples

This mani is simple, but looked kinda amazing. And I had nothing to do with that fact. It was 110% the polish that I used!

Anyway, the polish of the day is Fired Up by ILNP. This polish is amazing. What you see here are three thin coats. First off, I had 0 clean up with this. Nothing. The polish was perfect to apply, which is fairly rare. Second, the color is drop dead gorgeous. It is a silver-white scattered holographic base swimming with bright orange shimmer that shifts through gold to green at sharp angles (you can see the green reflection off neighboring nails). I love it.

Once that I was dry, I stamped with a swishy ripple design from one of the born pretty store plates that is labeled in non-english, so I cannot type it up! but it is full of pseudo water marble patterns. The white polish is, as always, Snow me White by Sinful Colors.

And that’s it, that’s the mani. I feel like I usually have a bunch more to say, but I am too busy staring at these photos to say much. I love the polish. I want to wear it again right now.

For those of you who are curious, the only other similar polish I own is Rosewater by ILNP (they came out with a whole line of them) and I think the shimmer in Fired Up is maybe a hair more intense…but mostly Rosewater is a vibrant pink and Fired Up is a bright orange. Same basic concept otherwise!

Hope you enjoyed! My plan for next week is a bit different…I am going to put together swatch test comparisons for a bunch of similar polishes that I own, in an effort to help others makes buying polish easier, but mostly because I need to destash some of my polish before I move! Oops. So, stay tuned for swatch comparisons!

Pink Explosion

Today is a celebration…sort of. The final rank list is in for residency, and there is nothing more me, my husband, or any of our prospective schools can do! Which means that we are fleeing to Hawaii for two weeks starting tomorrow. I should have internet during our travels, but I doubt I’ll spend much time on it in Hawaii! I’ve never been before and I am very excited. It also helps that this is vacation is a little more extravagant than usual, since it is also our honeymoon (yes, we got married over a year ago).

The other fun bit about this, is that the mani shown here was painted on a moving cruise ship, on my last vacation to the carribbean with my in-laws! In retrospect, trying to create a pattern of nested dots while on a moving boat that is slowly but surely rocking side-to-side was NOT my best idea. Ooops!

Colors:
~ Blue: Philly Loves Lacquer – Love Those Wildwood Days
~ Pink: Clinique – Pinkini
~ Orange: Julep – Natasha
~ Gold: Zoya – Severine

Wish me luck on my adventures! I have enough posts pre-prepared that the blog should not be without new nail art while I am gone, but things might be a little slow to start up again when I get back, especially since I find out where I matched for residency 48 hours after I return…and I imagine things are going to get a bit chaotic!

Fiery Warmth

This mani is quite random…and was very painful to make trying to line up all those straight lines! That said, I love how bright it came out!

The initial idea was to create a blanket or scarf pattern on my nails, like a knit. I also one I wanted to use warm fire colors (oranges and reds and yellows) and the plan was to use a purple…but when I tried that it overwhelmed everything else so I removed it. Somehow, we ended up here!

I didn’t actually know I had this many plaid-like patterns among my stamping plates. I also did not fully figure on how darn difficult lining up those thin silver stripes would be. I almost resorted to using striping tape, but decided I really did want a 100% stamped mani. Ouch.

Colors:
~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Stamps: hehe – 028, BM – XL205

 So what do you think? Does it look even a little scarf/blanket-like? Or just very warm-toned? :-p

Darkened Desert

This mani isn’t quite winter-themed, but I think the dark colors work regardless. Also, I really couldn’t think of what to call this mani but the colors remind me of the Southwest so desert it is!

What you see here are two coats of O R’YLEH (which, how do I correctly uncapitolize? O R’yleh? O R’Yleh?) by Great Lakes Lacquer. This polish really could have been opaque in one coat but I didn’t know that, so my application was uneven. That said, the polish is a bit thicker than I expected and you need to work fast or it will dry and drag.

The polish itself is beautiful, with a dark green base with lots of holo shimmer. It also has a multichrome shimmer to it that shifts from bright fuchsia pink through copper and to gold. It’s a chameleon! Unfortunately, it was also a Polish Pickup Pack October exclusive, so as far as I know there is no way to buy it. But if you like the concept, think about joining the PPP before this month’s offers are gone too!

Colors:
~ Green: Great Lakes Lacquer – O R’YLEH
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

I don’t know exactly how I ended up with this color scheme, but it doesn’t look half bad. I wouldn’t typically mix orange, teal, and yellow (ewwww yellow) with something like a deep green. Or a rose gold!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and happy almost New Years! I don’t plan at this moment to have a special New Years post, but maybe I can find something I haven’t had time to post that I sufficiently glittery. If not, I’ll just kick off my “top 10 of 2017” posts with regards to my favorite polishes and nail art.

Turkeys and Chevrons

You guys. I have a guilty and sad secret. These were my thanksgiving nails from 2016. Yes, 2016. I just didn’t get around to editing them until December so I didn’t want to post them at that point…I wouldn’t make any sense! So, I just waited a year.

ANYWAY. Thanksgiving nails! I actually wore these while on my pediatrics rotation, and the parents and kids LOVED them. Hilariously  not a single doctor noticed (so I didn’t get into any type of trouble)!

I did end up using a whole bunch of colors, between the turkeys and tail feathers and coarse chevron gradient. It does look pretty cool though.

Colors:
~ Yellow holo: SV – Gilded Lemon Drops
~ Light yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Yellow-orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Dark red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas is OPI
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French Tip White

So anyway, Happy Thanksgiving! I’ll try not to go a WHOLE YEAR without posting seasonal nail art again. Although it was funny.

Harvest Patches

Fall-themed patchwark nail art! I rather love this design. I wanted to make some fun patches (because I loved the piece I did last year) and use only fall colors. Voila!

I realize this isn’t exactly Thanksgiving-themed, but it is close. Also, Wednesday’s post is 100% Thanksgiving (with turkeys and everything). Besides, scarecrows are maybe a holiday thing? Unless you live on a farm and use them for something other than looking cute :-p

In order to put this together, I had to come up with a set of three oranges that worked well together. In the end I just ended up using the oranges from the Washington DC collection, they were released last autumn and they are still seasonal!

Colors:
~ Light orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: OPI – Yank my Doodle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Snow me Black

Yes, there are a few stamps on there. No, I did not write down the plates that I used (sorry)! But they look cool! Hope you enjoyed 🙂