Blocking Pink Blooms

You guys I have no idea where I was going with this. I wanted to make a green gradient, so I did. Then I wanted to add some geometric black lines, so I did. I decided that wasn’t good enough, so I decided to add some complicated flowers, so I did. This is the end result. The black lines did not come out as dark as I wanted so I went over quite a few of them myself (which is why they are a bit irregular) but it also allowed me to make some go on top of and others underneath the flowers! The end result is very strange, but for some reason my husband loved it?

The base beneath all this nonsense is a new-to-me neon green polish called Race Against Slime by KBShimmer. It is a very nice very bright green! This is two coats. It was slightly thick (as one expects from a neon) and dried down semi-matte, so it will need a shiny top coat. Overall though, decent application and excellent saturation!

Colors:
~ Neon green: KBShimmer – Race Against Slime
~ Pastel green: Maybelline – Green with Envy
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

All the flowers are from a stamping plate that I THINK I have shown before, but on the off chance that I have not, here is the link. Lots of leaves and flowers and it picks up quite nicely! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this neon pink/green confusion of a manicure! And happy inauguration day 😀 😀

Cute Santa

Merry Christmas! My husband just finished making me watch Elf (which is a horrible awkward movie, by the way) so this post is going up late. I figured it was only fair to humor him since his Christmas was so thoroughly downsized (to…just me) for COVID. 

Colors:
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – LE28
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: OPI – All Sparkly And Gold
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan

Anyway, I painted these cute minimalist santas last year, and I am quite happy with how they turned out! As far as impressive manis go, these are not that, but they get the point across. I am particularly proud of the weird stylized santa hat on my thumb. Hope you all had a great holiday season, whatever you celebrated, and stayed safe!

Snow Pond Mani

The name says it all! This was 4 layers of snowflakes (three that got covered with a jelly polish and one left white) it honestly ended up too busy and I wish I had done one less layer! And of course, a cute snowman. I did him off to the side because I had seen something similar on IG, but it looks a bit strange honestly! 

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Blue jelly: Zoya – Frida
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Silver shimmer: KBShimmer – I Only Have Ice For You
~ Pink: Essie – The Girls are Out
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – 120

I think I am going to have to try another snowflake pond-style manicure this year, with slightly fewer layers. Maybe fewer flakes per nail, keep it a bit simpler. We shall see! Hope you enjoyed 🙂 

Icicles on Mauve

I feel like people do drip manicures all the time but I do not often see icicle manicures! So I made one :-D. I also really love the base color that I used here, then again I am currently obsessed with super shimmers so that isn’t overly surprising. 

Colors:
~ Grey/pink glitter: Quixotic Polish – It Rubbed Off From Friction
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: L008

I think I will try something like this again this year. It was easy to make and is pretty! Hopefully we start getting some snow soon! I want to play outside in what little free time I have. Hope you enjoyed! 

Teal Snowflake Echoes

I have NO idea where I was going with this. Pale snowflake with a darker central snowflake? What if snowflakes made ripples? Who knows! I do, as always, love the base color though. Gets me every time.

Colors:
~ Teal with pink shimmer: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Dark teal: A England – St George
~ Stamps: EdM – 09, BM – 323

In retrospect I wish I had managed to center these a little better, but the end result was actually pretty cool! I don’t usually try to line up my contrasting double stamps and this is why. But I do like it! Happy MORE snowflake  mani :-p

Pink on Green Swirls

This manicure makes me sad. I tried to match the pink shades that I used in the stamping gradient with the pink shimmer in the green polish…only for the pink shimmer to look more orange! I swear its a pink that shifts to orange, but its apparently JUST orange in pictures. Oh well. 

Colors:
~ Green with pink shimmer: Blush – Nerida Singer
~ Light pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea Cherry Blossoms
~ Hot pink: Born Pretty – Warm Tea Crimson Cheeks
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – A010

It is at least somewhat fall-looking between the dusty green and the orange and the swirls. I do feel bad that I don’t have a single turkey or real thanksgiving-themed manicure to share this year! Sorry guys. Hope you enjoyed anyway! 

Bright Pink Slices

Why? I don’t know. Vacation was starting, I like bright colors, and whenever I use Pending Perfection I have an unavoidable need to pair it with pink. Blame the shimmer! Sadly, the pink gradient I made out of the middle portion of my nail hardly shows up (yes, there is both a light pink and a dark pink), but at least the glitter came through!

Colors:
~ Teal shimmer: Emily de Molly – Pending Perfection
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Holo topper: China Glaze – Fairy Dust

Hopefully I will be able to get some more fall-appropriate nails lined up for next week. We shall see. Hope you enjoyed! 

Fleshy Cells

All I wanted to do was create a neutral palette and play with a new cell-creating fluid art polish. Somehow I ended up with diseased zombie nails. The design and the cells worked great…it was my color selection that could really have used some work! Of course, this does mean that the nail art works GREAT for Halloween, only I painted these months ago! Oops 😀

Colors:
~ Pale nude shimmer cells: Baroness X – Sand Ahoy!
~ Pale nude: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist
~ Dark pink-red: OPI – Yank my Doodle
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea

Moral of this story: unless you want diseased-appearing nails, stay away from a neutral pallet when creating cell nail art. Hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for Friday’s excellent Halloween nail art! 

Bright Patches

I wanted to test out the orange jelly polish from Born Pretty. The color ended up being a little more brown-toned than I wanted, but since I picked it out myself I can hardly complain! It is a nice normal jelly so I am overall quite happy 😀

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red jelly: Zoya – Aphrodite
~ Orange jelly: Born Pretty – Arcadia
~ Yellow jelly: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Pink creme: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Orange creme: Formula X – Incandescent 
~ Yellow creme: WOW – #301
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – L28

I should probably use this by itself at some point to give a better view of the polish, but I just enjoy mixing jellies with other jellies! Oh well. The tone is the brown-orange you can see by itself on most nails. To pick up this polish, you can find it here for $3.99. Enjoy!

Flower Out

This is a bit of an odd one? Beautiful base, fun stamp, and somehow it ended up looking halfway between etherial and too bulky (due to the black at the tip). I don’t know if I like it! Either way, it is appropriately fall-themed (which reminds me that I should wear this polish a BUNCH this month).

Colors:
|~ Orange pastel multichrome: POP Polish – Slick Days of Summer 
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L052 

Hope you enjoyed! Today’s post might be simple, but I promise wednesday’s post is nuts and super colorful to make up for it 😀 

Draping Beads

This was very easy and honestly quite pretty! For the pretty drapes I think I am going to have to go with colors that are not so close to each other next time (although had you asked me before, rose gold is not that similar to nude) but anyway, I like it! 

Colors:
~ Red/gold multichrome: ILNP – Greatness
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco 
~ Stamp: Nicole Diary – 156

The stamp itself is from a plate just full of geometric and elegantly draped designs, which I am not going to lie I think I have now used >5 times in the 3 months I have owned it (this is an impressively high number for someone who owns as many stamping plates as I do). You can find the plate for yourself here for $1.99.

Butterflies on Pink

In retrospect I have no idea why I went with a bright pink base for this manicure, I think something a bit more subtle might have looked better! That said, this ended up colorful and fun. I also ended up using most of my bright yellows, greens, and oranges all in one place, so that was fun? I wanted to post this in 2020, and since we have entered October I figured this was my last chance! Time to start on fall manis next week 😀

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Shimmer: Different Dimension – Intergalactic Dolphin
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Pastel orange: Forumla X – Incandescent 
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi 
~ Pastel green: OPI – Did It On ‘Em
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Stamps: Nicole Diary – L21

This manicure features a set of stamps from a plate sent to me for review from Born Pretty, the Nicole Diary stamping plate L21. It has a lot of fantastic leaves and flowers, and seems to be right up the alley of what everyone else is doing (lots of leaves). You can find it here for $6.99. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the last of summer manicure!

Glacier Cove

Well guys, I forgot to post yesterday like I meant to, but this post fits better with “inspired by nails you love” rather than “tutorial”, also it is the last day of the 31 day challenge. Also it is apparently my 8-year blogaversary (wow). Anyway, on to nails. I adore this manicure. This was fully inspired (read: copied) from Ruth’s Nail Art, only I managed the whole darn thing with polish and she used acrylics. This took hours to create but I do love the end result! It reminds me of the last time I went on an actual vacation (left the country) to visit Iceland almost a year and a half ago. 

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Pastel blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Pink: Love & Beauty – Pink
~ Grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

The only thing not free-handed was the circle of the moon, which was ultimately painted over in a mixture of white and pale purple polish. Voila! Happy end of the 31 day challenge, and I hope you all enjoyed! Since this blog is probably only read by nail artists, I hope some of you participated as well! Some of my favorite nail art of the year pops up from other artists during this month :-D.

Neon Bonds

This manicure ended up far exceeding my expectations. I saw a super pretty accent nail (by an artist that I can no longer find, and despite KNOWING that I saved it on either pinterest or IG it is just gone, sorry original artist!) and decided I needed to make it happen. Instead of free-handing lines, I decided to paint a bunch of polish onto one of my larger stampers (although I could have just used my mat), wait for it to try, and then cut it into strips. The strips were imperfectly sized but not hard to work with, and they gave the end design some fascinating depth! I almost wish I had taken photos before top coat. Of course, I then finished it with matte coat because that is what the original artist had done. I do love it, but the depth is lost! I am posting it today because it reminds me of the LGBT flag, and that deserves to be on my blog for the 31 day challenge Flag Day.

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Neon pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Neon orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Neon pastel yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia

I repeated the same basic pattern on my thumb, and then was at a loss. The original design called for a matte black pinky and shiny neon orange pointer and middle fingers, but I am morally opposed to mixing gloss and matte nails. I also don’t like having that many boring empty nails. I ended up playing with adding stripes of color vs black vs a mix to the other nails, but it looked too busy. I settled on this, two simple black stripes of different sizes on one nail. Of course, I matted the whole thing as well. This was a surprisingly quick manicure, mostly because once the nail were ready for the stripes, the polish was already dry, and there was no free-handing at all. Just scissors and some creative cutting! Hope you enjoyed! 

Milky Way Over the City

Honestly, this was not inspired by a movie (as it should have been for Movie Day in the 31 day challenge) but there are so many movies with pretty nightscapes of cities (and this was not a particular city) so I figured I could post it today! The design itself was inspired by Urban Nail Art. I loved her milky way idea and the colors, so I went for it! The manicure is free-handed other than the stars (which were stamped), and it came out pretty darn good! 

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Blue holo: Milani – Cyberspace
~ Pink holo: Milani – Digital
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Orange glitter: OPI – DS Indulgence 
~ Gold glitter: Cult Nails – Walk of Shame
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Star stamps: BM – XL213

Making this manicure reminded me how much fun the Cult Nails glitters were; the polish company no longer exists (funny how many polishes I own at this point that the parent company doesn’t create polish anymore) so I somewhat hoard my few Cult polishes. I should honestly use them before they dry out; look at that glitter!!! Hope you enjoyed. 

Neon Watermelon

These were so fun! I saw this design by @simplycuticle on IG and decided that I needed to recreate it. Of course, it was made by stamping, but all that meant was that I had more freedom to freehand! I started with a pink base and a light green curve, and just went to town with a bunch of green polishes to make the rest of the rind.

Colors:
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Light green: OPI – Did It On ‘Em
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Exotic green
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

This actually niftily solved the problem of I hate half moon manicures, as an extended french mani is basically a half moon! Glass half full vs half empty and all that :-D. Ergo, here is my 31 daAnyway, hope you enjoyed!

Vivid Gradient Divided

It has been a (shamefully long) time since I did a dramatic gradient with striping tape. Partially because it takes so darn long to place the striping tape, and partially because I have been doing a lot of hand-painted scenes recently! Oh well. Enjoy geometric day in the 31 day challenge!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Pink: Zoya – Veronica
~ Purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black 

I am not going to lie, this is one of my favorite gradients. I do love blues and greens and purples in general, but for an eye-catching gradient, sunset colors are where its at! Hope you all enjoyed 😀 

Dark Roses on Grey

While I actually rather love how this mani came out, I like the inspiration better and am likely to try again in the future with a different color palette! I saw these nails at @billythebrime_nails and fell in love. Grey. Swirls. Roses. Moody yet awesome. How could I resist? And they fit so well for flower day in the 31 Day Challenge!

If I’m being honest, I liked my own mani better before I added the roses. The variegated grey background with darker grey swirls was elegant and very pretty. However, when I added the roses I realized I had made three mistakes: I used pink-based-reds for the roses (so when I mixed white with red I got pink rather than a deep orange-red…next time I need to aim for orange/red not pink/red), the roses are too small, and my swirls aren’t dark enough! They looked great on their own, but with the roses they just looked a little flat. 

Colors:
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Dark grey: Zoya – Evvie
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Red: OPI – All I Want for Christmas (is OPI)
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 Ornaments 3

I ended up going over by hand on some of the swirls nearest the roses, to make them appear bolder. It ended up giving my swirls an almost gradient appearance, which I quite like, but again I like Billy’s version better! Surprisingly, these nails took under an hour to do, so I’ll probably try them again sometime, with a few modifications! Hope you enjoyed! 

Fishing at Sunrise

Rainbow day is my favorite day in the 31 day challenge! This time I pulled some nail art from the vault and went with a weird combination of stamping gradient and advanced stamping (kinda). This particular design was inspired by Sylvia Lopic Nails. By far the hardest part of this mani was getting my yellow polish to gradient. It just isn’t pigmented enough!

Colors:
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Hot pink: WOW – 371
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey 
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Zoya – Josie 
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! This was fun to make and fun to wear. I want to play with this plate again sometime soon; I do love easy panoramas! 

Glitter Grip

I was on vacation while I wore these nails, and if I am honest they survived 6 days of archery, boating, more boating, more archery, and a bit of zip lining better than expected! Also they were super glittery 😀

Colors:
~ Bright teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Dark teal: OPI – Stay Off the Lawn!!
~ Pink glitter: POP Polish – Watermelon Bubbleslick

I think I mentioned a while ago that I was into doing deep V nails. This is one of the designs from that genre (again, not sure why I did a whole bunch of them in the span of a month, but I did do them!). Very easy, but quite pretty! Hope you enjoyed 😀