Failed Quartz

I was trying to make a pseudo-marble manicure (since everyone else seems to e making marble nails) and I wanted something pretty and subtle…so I went with a light grey and pale pink. And then I added another shade of pink. And a blush. And then it was too pink and the grey looked blue so I added white. And then some rose gold glitter…and the whole thing just took a life of its own!

Colors:
~ Grey: Formula X – Delightful
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Nude: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Blush: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Rose gold: ILNP – Juliette

In the end although I do think these nails look cool, they look nothing like I intended. I will have to re-try the marble theme at some point! And maybe they will actually end up marble-like by the time I am done :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

Perfectly Pinked

Ok, I really like this one. I don’t know how the colors work together or why this design caught my eye, but here we are! Honestly I think a real gold rather than a rose gold would have gone better with all the pinks…but you can hardly tell. Girly and glittery to the rescue!

Colors:
~ Rose gold: ILNP – Juliette
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark coral: Essie – Sunday Funday
~ Stamp: MoYou – Frenchy 14

Really the moral of this manicure is if you add enough glitter and colorful distraction, everything looks good. Again, this manicure should not work. I like it anyway :-D. Hope you enjoyed, and happy Friday!

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!

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 😀

Neon Blossoms

Oh wow these nails ended up bright. Fun, very colorful, but eye-searingly bright. Which I suppose is what happens when I reach for one of the brightest corals in my collection! This design was inspired by @nails4cocktails. I wanted something with bright colors and cherry blossoms, and this caught my eye! Hillarously, I actually did both of her cherry blossom manicures without knowing they were by the same person, within a week of each other :-p

Colors:
~ Blue shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Pink: L’oreal – Orange You Jealous?
~ Neon pink glitter: Cadillacquer – End of Silence
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

Hope you enjoyed the further flowers! Sadly the actual cherry blossoms outside are starting to fall off, although my allergies are pleased by this change (for now, until even more flowers show up to set them off again)!

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 😀

Dividing Roses

Oh how I wish this plate was better etched, the designs are so pretty! This is the companion piece to the pink/periwinkle/purple floral art I posted last week. I liked the stamping plate soo much that I wanted to use it again immediately. Again, it did not work to my satisfaction! Maybe it will work better with more intense dedicated stamping polishes…but I have my doubts.

Colors:
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Yellow jelly – Esmalta De Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Flower Tango L002

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the roses! I have decided it is time to post spring-themed manicures (can you tell?) because it is April and I have a bunch of them sitting in my to-be-edited folder.

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!

Vibrant Jelly Net

I just wanted rainbows, so I made rainbows! This is just a bunch of jelly polishes painted in a random pattern over a silver holographic base. I like using holo rather than just plain white because it hides the mistakes and bald patches a bit better…I can pretend they are intentional :-p

Colors:
~ Silver holo: Darling Diva – Diamond
~ Red jelly: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble
~ Blue jelly: Zoya – Frida
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Texture L002

The stamp here is from another new born pretty plate, this one being better etched! It didn’t need any touch-ups and you can clearly see the design even around the rainbows. Honestly the reason the black here doesn’t look great is I had just opened a new bottle of polish, and since i don’t use stamping polish it was too thin (aka…new) to be excellent for stamping! Oops. You can find this stamping plate with all its weird leafy and bubble-like glory here for $3.99.

Dotted Weave

I have NO idea why I decided on this design, and this actually looks really weird (weaved pattern with dots? muscle cells with blue nuclei? who knows!) but it was fun to make.

The base polish is another new Polished for Days concoction called Fireflies; this is the polish that first caught my eye almost a year ago and drew me to PfD. Fireflies needs three thin coats for coverage….but that just assures that you can see every ounce of the insane glittery madness within. It is a teal polish base with pink/red shimmer that shifts to gold and occasionally green, as well as holo, and large and small flakie shards that shift pink-gold-green. I could almost get away with wearing this without nail art, it is that busy!

Colors:
~ Teal/pink flakie shimmer: Polished for Days – Fireflies
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Stamp: Lina – @urbannailart collab

For whatever reason, I have lately been shying away from super-over-the-top-glittery polishes; I have been going back to neutrals/greys with a bit of shimmer or single type of glitter, or creme polishes. I had to grab this polish anyway and I am glad I did! However, I got 4 other glitter polishes at the same time, and I have not felt drawn to use any of them! Silly past Eva. Hope you enjoyed!

Pastel Geometric Floral

his was full-on inspired by the demo art on this stamping plate’s shopping page. Unfortunately, the plate was just not well etched enough to really pull this off! I do love the images but I could barely make the stamps pick up even with all my tricks and my best stamper head. 😦

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Glitter: Cult Nails – Center of Attention
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Flower Tango L002

Regardless, the manicure ended up pretty. The caveat of course is that I went over a fair amount of the black lines by hand, since they did not end up picking up enough to call it a stamp. If you guys want to pick this up for yourselves (and cross your fingers that you get a better etched plate than I did!) you can find it here for $3.99.

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!

Neutral Marble Flowers

I wanted to water marble, but I also needed something subtle for the hospital! This is what I ended up with. If I am being honest I don’t love it, but it is certainly subtle and work-appropriate, and has watermarbling!

Colors:
~ Nude glitter: Sayuri – Anthos
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BP – L067

The oddest thing about working from home while being a doctor is how staffing is working at the moment. To try and keep the minimum people getting sick at once we are truly working in shifts: so I am working from home 3/4 days and only going into the hospital on day 4. This is a deeply weird time and I don’t know how I feel about it. St Louis is preparing for the storm of COVID patients, although we aren’t there quite yet. Stay tuned! And hope you maybe somewhat enjoyed these odd nails :-p

Half Rings

What is this? I honestly have no idea. Its half half-moon and half looks like nested rings or bracelets? I more or less just made up the design as I went. In retrospect, I actually don’t 100% remember how I did the nested gradient? I think tape nail guides were involved but I can’t make any promises! Oops 😀

Colors:
~ Pink: L’oreal – Orange You Jealous?
~ Shimmer: Sally Hansen – Diamonds
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Moyra – 60 Cuts

Thats all for today! Hopefully the sun will come out at some point, St Louis feels like Seattle right now. I haven’t seen the sun in just about a week and its making me mopey!

Permutated Mutagen

Happy almost-St-Patrick’s Day! I do actually have a lot more and more suitable manicures, but I haven’t had a chance to transfer them onto my computer yes so you get these instead! At least they are green.

Colors:
~ Green multichrome: ILNP – Mutagen
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink glitter multichrome: POP Polish – Watermelon Bubbleslick
~ Stamp: Born Pretty – L078

I think most places have cancelled any and all St Pattie’s day festivities, and if I’m honest, I am grateful. I am a doctor, and it is low key terrifying the preparations that hospitals have been forced to take in order to prepare for the coming disaster. I am aware that I am likely to lose any and all free time in a manner of weeks (if not days), and there is a chance this blog might go on hiatus if I end up working more than 80 hours a week in the hospital (hopefully that won’t happen, but I think it likely will). So please, enjoy wearing green, be happy…and hang out in small groups.

Triangulated Pastel Gradients

Colors! Colors galore! Oh my goodness so many colors. I made a light-to-dark gradient of each shade, and then tried to find a tone-matching holo that I could lightly paint over top. Voila! Honestly the nails looked awesome even before I added the stamp.

Colors:
~ Light mint: Zoya – Tiana
~ Mint: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Mint holo: ORLY – Sparking Garbage
~ Light blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Blue holo: Milani – Cyberspace
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Purple holo: Milani – Hi-Res
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Pink holo: Milani – Digital
~ Light orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Orange holo: Nabi – Brone
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BC – 04

That said, geometric stamps only make things better, so I went and played with triangles! I never use this particular design because for some reason it strikes me as awkward, but my nails were short enough that I could get away with not using the whole stamp design. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this return to full color! 😀

Neon Pink Angles

Every now and then I decide I want to risk the removal wrath of a polish with actual glitter shards in it. Each time, I marvel at my nails, and then curse myself when I remove the darn polish. This time was no different, but  it was briefly fun to wear!

Colors:
~ Black with fuchsia glitter: Cult Nails – Disillusion
~ Pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea, Crimson Cheeks
~ Stamp: BP – 43

That’s it for today. Not sure why, but I am going to consider these at least moderately fall-themed. Hot pick is like red…. :-p hope you enjoyed!

Leaf Mesh

Simple but pretty! Although I do wish I had a black that was able to stamp in True Black rather than sometimes-grey! The end result was pretty but I don’t love that the leaf stamp on my ring finger looks more grey than black! Although, I am happy that I managed to make a quasi-fall themed manicure in some color combination that does not involve yellow, orange, or red in any fashion!

Colors:
~ Black with holo: Zoya – Storm
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Cream with black glitter: Cadillacquer – Darling, Red Isn’t Your Colors
~ Stamp: UC – Lovely Leaves 02

Hope you all enjoyed! Be prepared to see more fall nail art next week. This might (read: total is) my favorite time of year for nail art!

Sleeping Beauty

As part of the 31 Day Challenge, I posted Maleficient nails for Movie day. They were actually painted as part of a set of Disney heroes and villains (yes, i have another pair!), so I felt compelled to post Aurora and finish the pairing today 😀

Of all the Disney nails I did at this time, Aurora ended up being my least favorite. As a heroine, she’s just…boring. Maleficient is much cooler. Regardless, my nails are the bottom of her dress, her hair + crown, her necklace and neckline, and of course rose brambles. I didn’t try for Aurora’s face at all because I am truly terrible at faces!

The thumb was indeed to be a wand…but I maybe should have made the stem of the wand thinner. Oops! Regardless, it is pink and gold and matches :-p

Also, I am rather pissed. I went and watched Sleeping Beauty (all the way through, for the first time…no idea how I managed to miss this one movie growing up!) and I totally should have gone for her BLUE dress! It is barely pink at all! Why are all the google image searches pink? Silly Disney!

I am not going to bother listing polishes, suffice to say there were a lot (and it turns out the gold I planned to use had dried out! So I tried using two others…and meh. I need to get a good dark gold metallic!). Anyway. Hope you enjoyed! and happy totally end to the 31 Day Challenge, phew!

Exploding Pastels

I have failed, slightly. I managed to make every day of posting line up with the corresponding day of the 31 Day Challenge, except this. The final day, and I have failed! Really, I just did not have time to make a tutorial, so I decided to instead go with the 31st day of the Challenge prompt, honor nails you love.

This nail art was inspired by @urbannailart and other than not having the best hand at curlicues yet, I actually think I did it justice! I need a grainier black holo, apparently. I adore most things that Urban Nail Art puts together, they are both colorful and innovative!

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pastel green: Maybelline – Green with Envy
~ Blue: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue
~ Pastel purple: Sally Hansen – Lacey Lilac
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Black holo: A England – Fated Prince
~ Stamp: BM – 616

Of course, the sun did not cooperate, so there are not as many photos as I would like, sorry! Overall, I hope you enjoyed my nail art for the 31 Day Challenge as much as I enjoyed creating them! The next few weeks will be not nearly as pretty; all my good art is used up :-p. Phew! Also, apparently yesterday was my 7th blogaversary. 7 years of Flight of Whimsy! I am almost impressed with myself!