Starswirl

So, I painted my nails with yet ANOTHER new multichrome (I need to stop buying them!!) from ILNP…and then I was stumped. Do I do something bold and shocking? Something subtle? Freehand? Stamping? Decision paralysis!

Then I realized that my nails are JUST short enough to use only half of one of my stamping plates. Now, this plate has a lot of cool designs that are meant to be centered, but I honestly like thinks that start at the edges of my nails better. So voila!

After that it was easy: tone-on-tone (as much as possible for a crazy multichrome) and maybe a little 3D bit? Sure!

The base color is Greatness by ILNP. Greatness is primarily a red-leaning pink, that shifts strongly to orange-gold and then green-gold at sharp angles. The bottle also shows hints of blue, but that does not carry through onto the nail. It is not the shiftiest polish that I own, but it it still quite stunning! A little more subtle than some of the others, but that might just be because pink-gold is less ridiculous than teal-purple.

I actually ended up wearing this polish for A WHOLE DAY without any art over it. That never happens! Shifty goodness. I do like the art though :-D. The 3D bit is actually a rhinestone that I covered with another multichrome polish just for a tiny bit of contrast (and because the original gold of the rhinestone stood out too much for my tastes).

Colors:
~ Pink-gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Magenta creme: Zoya – Veronica
~ Red-gold multichrome: Born Pretty – 212
~ Stamp: BP – L050

I should take all my similarly-colored multichromes and paint one on each nail for comparison at some point. Maybe then I can convince myself I have enough? Unlikely! Hope you enjoyed!

Lit Up Neon

COLOR. Oh my gosh you guys I AM SO EXCITED. I wore these when I went to San Francisco for my first vacation after hospital time! Also for my birthday :-p

I was trying to recreate a gradient from ilaeti but I think I need more blue! I love how the colors came out though, so I imagine I will be trying again…and this time showing a gradient-only photo, it was so pretty! Don’t get me wrong, I like the stamping, but that gradient.

I wish my nails were longer, the hint of neon green you can see at the tip of my thumb made me happy.

Colors:

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Blue: Zoya – Rocky

~ Purple: Sephora X – Ignition

~ Pink: WOW – #371

~ Yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow

~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

~ Stamp: B Loves Plates – 03 Mind Blown

That’s all! More colors and fun designs next week. I am so happy I had a least a month to wear whatever I wanted on my nails! Residency is going to be painful if I need to keep my nails ‘tame’. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have time for nail art, just color and a stamp if I’m lucky. I don’t know whats going to happen to the blog next year. Yikes…

Grey Trimmed Lace

Ok, so this is super boring. Like really really painfully boring. That said, it came out nicely and no one noticed any of the art in the hospital so I’ll cal it a win. It also gave me a chance to use that darn stamp…its been staring at me for years and I never figured out why someone would need some angled lace pattern!

I don’t have much to say about this. Pink. White. Grey. Some lace. I sound like a broken record…I really hope my current stint in the outpatient clinics is more forgiving of manis! I think it will be (I am barely getting graded for this, it is for my own edification).

Colors:

~ Pink: ULTA – Baby Doll

~ Grey: Zoya – Dove

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Stamp: BM – 323

I hate posing for bottle photos with anything but Zoya or rectangular bottles. I don’t know why, but the shape fits well in my hand. This awkward straight-edged bottle? Not so much. So, thank you brands like Zoya and Emily de Molly for making easy-to-hold bottles :-p

Thats it for boring pink manis! There is one more subtle mani but at it least it isn’t pink or nude. Oy.

Delicate French Lace

Another hospital manicure! At least this one came out how I wanted it to 😀

These are pretty darn simple! Two colors, one stamp. The design was inspired by Pink and Polished Nails and for once I actually had the EXACT colors AND the stamp! So this is just about ideal.

Despite how simple these were, I actually enjoyed wearing them. They were fairly classy while still looking elegant! Although if I ever do this again I will use some other color besides boring pink as a base. Maybe red? Purple? Anything!

Colors:

~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Stamp: BM – 323

In other news, I was hit by a car while riding my bike yesterday. I’m alright (some bruises and scrapes and injured muscles but nothing that needed me to go to the hospital…but if you bike ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET) but it’s a bit hard to edit photos with my left arm mostly out of commission! I’ll try to get stuff done so I can post next week, but this is the last pre-planned post I have so if I don’t post monday blame my left arm and cars that don’t signal or look before they turn. That’s all for this week, hope you enjoyed!

Murky Pond Blooms

This started out as a comparison between my three murky gold-green polishes. As it turns out, I REALLY love this color (as it stands my #1 lemming right now is Nine Zero Lacquer Singer’s Auto Salvage, which is basically the same color as all of these but with an intense amount of glitter). Anyway, I wanted to see how they stacked up! Of course, I had to add nail art too…I was wearing a cool shirt and I decided to model my nails after the shirt I had on (which is sad because I couldn’t wear it again the next day and perfectly match my nails, but oh well)!

In a Trance by Cult Nails (ring finger) has the least amount of shimmer, but covers nicely in three coats. It is the most understated of the three, but looks the most elegant on. Fotheringhay Castle by A England (pointer and pinky) is the only one with holo shimmer, and has more of a deep/metallic finish than the other two. It is almost a one-coater, which is incredible. Wallis by Butter London (middle finger) actually has a deep blue base with copious gold glitter, with the end result being this tarnished green-gold. It is deeper than the other two, but since the base is a jelly it takes 3-4 coats. That being said, it likely remains my favorite. I just cannot get over the depth and shimmer!

I ended up sponging on black polish somewhat randomly, and then double stamping the result with a plate sent to me from the Born Pretty Store. The plate has some fantastic geometric and random element patterns! I used two of them here, one in gold and then one in black. It looks wonderfully random! The plate is BPX – L020

I ended up hand-painting some roses and leaves to finish off the design. There was a part of me that wanted to leave the mani without the flowers…but the shirt I was inspired by has flowers and I actually think it really lightened up the resulting nails!

I am not going to list all the polishes I used…suffice to say it was a lot. If you want to pick up this random fun stamping plate for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store! The plate is currently on sale for $2.99, and personally I love the wacky designs on it! Don’t forget my 15% off code, LY5X31!

Hope you enjoyed!

Pink Rocks

So, I was trying (yet again) to recreate this mani by Sassy Shelly and yet again I failed. I need the right stamps and I don’t have them! Lets be honest, I am going to try this again with the colors I was originally going to use and a different stamp *sigh*

I won’t bother listing my colors or my stamps because they are unrecognizable after the number of ways I tried to save this mani. Suffice to say I need to stop playing around and just make up my mind and go for it!

Honestly, I didn’t write down the polishes that I used for this. The pink creme is a Clinique mini from a promotional set my mom gave me.

The only thing that saves this mani at all is the pink shimmer I threw over my nude nail. I wish I could remember what I used! Possibly Mist by Chameleon but I really don’t know…that is a VERY old polish!

Win some, lose some. This wasn’t QUITE bad enough to be set aside for Fail Week (there will be one of those coming soon). Enjoy!

Silver Leaves and Pink Berries

I really like how this mani came out, but it took forever to plan! I knew I wanted something with white, grey, and pink…and trying to figure out what to use for the stamp vs the background took forever. I think I used all 5 nail demos on my silicone mat! Worth it 😀

The stamping plate I used here was sent for review from the Born Pretty Store, but it is full of fun leaves and flowers…both of which are a pain to free-hand. So, I am really glad this plate works as well as it does! It’ll be VERY useful come fall. The geometric pattern is from an Emily de Molly plate though.

You also cannot tell, but I actually used both a white and a silver to stamp, just to see how the variation looked! It’s most noticeable in the non-sunlight photos.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Stamps: Floral BPX-L018, EDM 03

If you want the floral stamping plate, head over to the Born Pretty store, it is currently on sale for $2.99! Don’t forget to use my code, LY5X31…although I don’t think it can be applied to things already on sale, sorry!