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!

Peek-a-Rainbow

Rainbow nails! Finally! This is kinda a combo of day 9 “rainbow” and day 10 “gradient” cause it is a rainbow gradient! I haven’t been brave enough to wear rainbows to the hospital yet; these are from the vault.

I absolutely love this mani. Bright colors, strips, gradients…it has it all! That said, the post going up on Wednesday for stripes day has even MORE stripes. Or at least, they are the focus of the nail art itself.

I always find myself gravitating towards sparkly polish with shimmer and flakes and holo…and then I have to remind myself that if I’m being honest I use my brightly colored creme polishes a LOT more frequently than any of my crazy glitters! Because they really are better for nail art.

That said, I have yet to buy an appropriate neon green creme, so the subtle shimmer in this mani is from the neon green polish! It was a gift, but I really need a creme variety. If you guys have any advice for bright neon green cremes let me know!

Colors:
~ Pastel green: Zoya – Tiana
~ 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
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

That’s it for today! I’m really enjoying stalking Facebook, IG, and the linkup for everyone else’s manicures! The other Eva, in particular, is – as usual – blowing everything out of the water 😀

Messy Green-Blue Gradient

Sometime, I just want to throw together a bunch of bright colors and play with stamps. The Make Your Mark plate series by Lina makes that REALLY EASY. So here is another mani using it!

I feel like I’ve been using a lot of vampy metallic bases, or pastel ones. Not so much neon. That changes today. Hello neon!

To make this mani, I started with a light green base, then tried to create a gradient over it using greens and teals. But, the teal was too dark! So I switched to a bright blue. After that was dry, I double stamped using two similar designs from the same plate in white then black.

Colors:
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Yellow: Yellow Opaque
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Dark teal: OPI – Stay Off the Lawn!!
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: Lina – Make Your Mark 02

That’s all for today! I am too tired to write a longer post, so I’ll just let you enjoy the photos. Happy Friday!

Pink and Gold with Flowers

How about something pink and gold? I figure with the flowers it is suitably summer-y too!

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin but my pink base is an AWFUL polish that takes 3 coats and never dries (I need a better barbie pink) and so I wanted to do more things with those nails. I don’t know if this  counts as over doing it, but I actually liked it!

Using Erin’s nails as a template got me very excited about gold dots. I love adding dots to things. In this case, added too many gold dots to things…specifically my middle finger. Oops. it would have looked better with more white space 😀

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

I am quite proud of the roses though! I hope you enjoyed them too.

Bright Patchwork

It isn’t technically winter yet! Also, as of writing this, it has been unseasonably warm in Philly. So…fall themes are still appropriate!

Although, to be fair, I think I’d find a way to use rainbows no matter the season, but since patchwork designs somehow scream “autumn” I don’t feel terrible for postponing posting these until now!

I actually painted these back when I posted the fall-themed patchwork nails (the orange ones) but these were done with stamping decals to compare. Unsurprisingly, I liked the free-handed ones significantly more, but these were so much faster!

Colors:
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Purple: Sinful Colors – Dream On
~ Stamp: BM – 607

That’s it for today! Also, despite all my chatter, the rest of this week is not themed in any way (unless “things that have been sited in my painted folder for months” is a theme). Hope you enjoyed!

Flakie Overlay

I think the theme of this week is “things Eva matted.” However, unlike Monday’s post, I am really sad that this mani did not end up glossy!

The design was inspired by @kgrdnr, as many good things are. I mostly just wanted to use Ski Lodge by ILNP because it somehow found its way onto my desk. However, then I decided it wasn’t quite glittery enough, and I added some flakies over top. Voila!

Despite being really simple, I think this came out rather awesome. I have missed working with dark greens (they are not an approved-of color in the hospital or on the interview trail), and holographic + flakie polishes are an awesome combination.

Colors:
~ Dark green creme: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Dark green holo: ILNP – Ski Lodge
~ Green flakies: Lyn B Designs – The Speed of Light, you Know
~ Gold: Salon Perfect – Gold Leaf
~ Matte: KBShimmer – Oh Matte!

Regardless, you can also see why I am sad I matted this! Usually I am all-for matted flakies, but I ended up removing some of the depth in the design and certainly in getting rid of the awesome holo inherent in Ski Lodge. Oops! I’ll likely try a similar design with a different color, and I just need to remember to keep it glossy 🙂

The Rainbow Fish

I love painting nails inspired by children’s books…and I’ve been wanting to try The Rainbow Fish for a while! I just haven’t had the time (until now).

The inspiration came from Adventures in Acetone, although I decided to stay true to the book and use only creme polishes for the scales other than the rainbow silver scales. I do wish, in retrospect, that I had used a lighter pink (even though I don’t actually have a good one)!

The story is about the joy that one person can get from sharing. Its quite a nice message! It also was one of my favorite books growing up (not that I wanted to be taught to share with my sisters) but because the shiny fish scales were just so pretty. This mani is a bit darker than I imagine the fish being, but still pretty and suitably colorful! Who wants to play with silver holo? 🙂

Colors:
~ Light blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Blue: Maybelline – Shocking Seas
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Purple: L’oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Holo: Color Club – Harp On It
~ Yellow: WOW – #301

These took FOREVER to paint because I had to do one scale at a time, and couldn’t put two wet dots next to each other or they’d run! I still love the end result though 😀 Hope you enjoyed! It looks like I wasn’t the only one to do Rainbow Fish this year!

Neon Print

Gradient time! Gradients are one of my favorite things to do with my nails, since it allows me to use a bunch of colors. And then, typically, cover the gradient with a stamp for added design :-p

When I was putting this together, I thought the colors might actually be too bright (because wow, neon). I was initially planning to cover more of the gradient as a result, but I like the amount showing! I ended up using another Born Pretty Store stamp, but this one works like a charm. I’ve actually even used the super-coverage designs on this plate and they stamped beautifully, which I’ve never had work for me before!

So, when it comes to gradients this hurts my eyes but is awesome, and when it comes to stamping plates this one makes me very happy, both for the etching and for the variety in patterns. Win-win!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Blue: Maybelline – Shocking Seas
~ Stamp: BP – L049

Tomorrows post is ALSO with neons, although only one color rather than three. If you like the stamping plate and want to pick it up for yourself, you can find it at the Born Pretty Store for $2.99. Enjoy!

Vampy Roses

I know flowers (other than maybe poinsettias) are not considered a winter design…but I saw these and they just screamed vampy Christmas flowers to me!

The pattern was inspired by nailsandtowelnailsandtowelnailsandtowel, and I just ran with it. Luckily, I had All Sparkly and Gold by OPI just sitting around…I think this might be the first time I’ve used it since I swatched it however many years ago. Sad, but thats what happens when you have too many gold polishes! Also, I had it in my head that it was difficult to remove…and it wasn’t EASY but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!

I really like how this design came out. Deep red and gold is one of my favorite color combinations 🙂

Colors
~ Dark red: Confetti – Masquerade Ball
~ Gold glitter: OPI – All Sparkly And Gold
~ Gold holo glitter: Cult Nails – Walk of Shame
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime

Hope you enjoyed! Get ready for MORE winter-y and holiday-y manis next week :-D.

Paintbrushes

See, for the theme of Day 27, artwork, I decided to go with things that work to make art…in this case paintbrushes. I have no idea if anyone other than me would ever be able to identify what they are without me telling them! Oops.

To create the bristles I painted my nails a medium brown, and added a bristle-like stamp with a nude tone. I then dry-brushed on a bit of each of my intended colors to create an effect as though the paintbrushes had been previously used for the specific color.

Then I added the blobs of color and a little white crescent to indicate that they were shiny. I decided to matte the ‘brush’ part and make the paint part ‘glossy’ just for fun!

Colors
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Nude: Zoya – Chantal
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Stamp: BM – 314

So, do they look like paintbrushes? Did I succeed? 🙂

Colorless Teal Ideas

I don’t know why, but for some reason Noam Chomsky’s “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” got stuck in my head while I was trying to think of a name for these, so here you go!

This level of stamping is NOT for the faint of heart. Oy. It didn’t take that long since it was only a single stamp transfer…but to get all the colors exactly where I wanted them (on specific triangles or not) took longer than stamping usually does! And the direction of wiping off the polish became strangely important.

This was another to match a dress I wore to a wedding months ago, that I just never posted and it fit with Green Day! I wore the dress a lot. Mostly because my normal dress for weddings I wore probably 6 times in the last two years and I was getting tired of teal/coral nails. I think I overdid it!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ Light teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need a Refresh-Mint
~ Dark teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Blue: OPI – Into the Night
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Bundle Monster – 205

Hope you enjoyed! Tomorrows blue nails might be my some of my favorites of ever so be prepared 😀

Tilted Down

Since this is the Year of Weddings, here is another mani to match a wedding dress from a few months back! White/purple/blue/teal with fun geometric patterns. I was told that the dress wasn’t TOO white to wear to a wedding, so I was safe!

To put this mani together, I started with Rocky as a base, to darken the colors (and turn the purple more blue-toned). Some of my polishes gradient well, and some gradient poorly…so I figured that starting with blue mean that even if they just tinted the underlying color, it would still work!

Then, of course, came the stamp. Hilariously enough, the white-to-green gradient for the stamp was unanticipated but intentional. I remembered that the teal polish bled green when I went to add the studs…and made the conscious decision to let the gradient happen (it is even MORE perfect with my outfit, believe it or not). It looks pretty darn cool!

Colors
~ Teal: Salon Perfect – Escape from Neverland
~ Blue: Zoya – Rocky
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 21

Hope you enjoyed! I’ll be back on Friday with some weirdly girly nails.

Rainbow Neon Beams

Although I did this nail art a while ago, I thought it fitting to post this week. I am and have been incredibly saddened that hatred (and a completely ridiculous number of guns) have been allowed to flourish in the USA. Do. Not. Hate. ANYONE. I’m not going to make a political statement here, except that homophobia is unacceptable, and anyone should be allowed to love whomever they want. At this point, anyone who disagrees is being willfully malicious.

Regardless, today I have some awesome neon rainbow nail art! These nails somehow came out 100% perfect. I went through 5 stamping plates before I found the right one, and I am so happy I looked! Yes, my thumb is asymmetric and looks odd. I accept that. The rest however, look amazing.

This awesome neon insanity was inspired by simplynailogial, although I think she freehanded her black lines (which, wow, that must have taken FOREVER).

Someday I am going to use these colors again and do something even more crazy…this gradient is one of my favorites I’ve ever done! Someone needs to make it a rule that women can wear whatever they want on their nails at work. *sigh*

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Bright pink: WOW – #371
~ Bright orange: Nubar – Hot Orange
~ Bright yellow: Love & Beauty – Yellow
~ Bright green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: EdM – 17

That’s all for today! Enjoy the neon and gradients and lines and other wonderful things, happy Friday, and let’s hope that at some point in our lives, person hate-fueled violence becomes a thing of the past (I know, I’m aiming too high, but I can dream!).

Gossamer Green

Another missing post *sigh* I should start counting and see just how many I’ve lost. This is so very sad. I’m listening to the semi-finale song from Rent just to make myself even sadder (to be fair, the song is actually upbeat but the musical is so sad…). Regardless, another fun holo+stamping combo today!

I’m fairly certain I have a three-tone green gradient stamped over a gold holo. I wanted to play a bit more with gradient stamping, and it worked pretty well! Even my re-do stamp (the colors were too pale) worked alright, thanks to the magic of clear stampers.

Colors
~ Gold holo: Jade – Irristivel
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Bundle Monster – XL209

MY PLAYLIST IS MOCKING ME. It just started playing “everything is awesome” from the LEGO movie. YOU LIE PLAYLIST. I can’t help but me more upbeat, so I guess it has had its revenge.

Hope you enjoyed! And even when things delete themselves, sometimes EVERYTHING IS AAAAAWESOME *headdesk*.

Triangulate in Green

If yesterday was my pink/red collection, today is devoted to teal and green! Same concept, but with a white stamp.

I actually don’t know if I like the pink/red or teal/green better. I usually go more for teals, but the pink was so BRIGHT. This is also super colorful, but doesn’t quite have the neon pop!

Hilariously enough, this was also painted to match a dress that I wore to a different wedding! Lots of weddings you guys. So many weddings. Which means lots of fun dresses to coordinate with, but still! I’m also a terrible person who has taken to facebook to look at all the pictures of people I peripherally know (and thus whose weddings I am not invited to but get to see photos from) and judging all their wedding dresses. Seeing as how there appear to be at least 4 weddings per weekend for the last 2 months, I’ve been judging a lot of dresses!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ Light teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need a Refresh-Mint
~ Dark teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Blue: OPI – Into the Night
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Bundle Monster – 205

Hope you enjoyed! Total change of pace tomorrow (unless you thought I meant more stamping…but no, there is always stamping).

Seaweeded

This nail art is…odd. It looks almost like what I had in mind, but not quite!

I started with a sideways green gradient, just for fun. Unfortunately, my darker greens didn’t want to transfer that well, so the gradient is subtle!

When that was dry, I added a stamp from plate JQ L20, which was sent to me from Lady Queen Beauty. The stamps on this plate are cool and vaguely tribal? I put this on on the side of my nail, and it looks like an odd seashell or loopy seaweed!

Colors
~ Light green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Stamp: JQ – L20

If you want to pick up the stamping plate for yourself, head over to the Lady Queen Beauty shop! It’s $5.32. Don’t forget about my 15% off code, BPLC15! Hope you enjoyed!

Polyphonic Flowers

I’m pretty sure these are the last stamping decals I will ever make on the stamper…I just got an uber chic mat, and now all I am doing is making stamping decals! But today’s were made before the mat arrived. All it really means is that these took longer to make as each decal had to dry separately!

I really wanted to make something monocrome-like with pops of color, so I settled on a grey/white/black/silver scheme with bright green leaves. I like how it came out!

Something about the Bundle Monster Shangri-La plates just makes me want to color them all in. This is I think the second (third?) stamping decal I’ve made with them, and I doubt it’ll be the last!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Grey shimmer: Zoya – Yuna
~ Grey: WOW – #333
~ Silver: Revlon – Metallic
~ Neon green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: BM – S107

Hope you enjoyed, and Happy Easter to those who celebrate it! I am likely to post my Easter nails closer to Orthodox Easter, as my boyfriend is Greek Orthodox (and, well, I’m Jewish). Happy weekend regardless!

Rose Trellis

Time for a vaguely spring-themed mani! I know it’s still February  but its been so freakishly warm in Philadelphia that the crocus buds are starting to come out! And I’ve been wearing a sweater rather than a jacket.

This nail art was inspired by @jeninthemorning, I just decided to run with it! Brown and pink always look great together.

I actually thought I had done this mani before (since I have the exact color and I have had this nail art pinned for months) but it turns out that I didn’t! So here we go.

Colors
~ Brown: Spa Ritual – Starry Night
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Dark pink: Love & Beauty – Pink
~ Pink: Sinful Colors – Pink Forever
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Lightest pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Light green: Essie – The More the Merrier
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Stamp: Bundle Monster – L003

Hope you enjoyed and happy almost-weekend!

Sonic the Hedgehog

*Hums Sonic theme* Today we get nerdy nails! Sonic the Hedgehog (and rings, as are appropriate).

This mani was inspired by badgirlnails. I want to absorb her awesome mani powers.

I learned something new during this though! Did you know Sonic’s eyes are green? Because I didn’t I googled him though and they totally are! It looks a bit odd actually, but I am going for realism (well, cartoon realism…) so I did it!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Blue: Sinful Colors – Endless Blue
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Green: Salon Perfect – Loopy Lime
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Nude: Zoya – Charlotte

Go play some puzzle-based video games :-D. Hope you enjoyed!

Hanging Vines of Teal

So, unlike the past four days (which were all painted within a week of each other), these nails were only done three weeks ago! Sometimes I accidentally cut my nails too short when I am trying to trim them. I figure these mostly count as tiny nails!

The idea here was to do a waterfall mani a-la-Nailasaurus only even my short nails are too long to make that look appear good! So I added a second waterfall layer and purposefully made some of my lines squiggly…so now we have vines.

Someday, I do want to try a proper waterfall mani. Sammy makes them look so good! Maybe I should try using my dominant hand to paint them though, I don’t know how good I’ll be at straight thin lines with my left hand.

Colors
~ Lightest teal: Maybelline – Green with Envy
~ Light teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Blue: Zoya – Rocky
~ Teal: Essie – Naughty Nautical
~ Dark teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Green teal: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Darkest teal: A England – St George
~ Teal holo: ORLY – Sparkling Garbage

Phew! So many colors! Hope you enjoyed! Next week we are back to our regularly scheduled medium-length-nails nail art.