#31DC2015 Day 26- Inspired by a Pattern

Alternate post title: Leah discovers that it is Very Difficult to do hand poses with a mug

So I've actually kind of known what I wanted to do for this day since last year. About a day after the Pattern challenge last year, I walked into my work kitchen and facepalmed because we have these adorable mugs with hearts on them that would be PERFECT for this kind of thing.

I actually sent pictures of this mani sans mug to the R&D group chat at my work, challenging them to try and figure out where they recognize the pattern from. I don't think any of these guys had ever gotten excited over nail art before, but they have now! (followed by a lot of ppl casually commenting "why don't you do this for a living???")

And in case you're wondering, yes, I did have to steal this mug and bring it home with me in order to make sure I matched the colors well. No one noticed. I did bring it back I promise!

Here is the mug by itself (sitting, rather incriminatingly, in front of one of my nail polish shelves)

And here are the three least awkward attempts at me posting with said mug:

Polishes used:
Color club- French tip (white base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 43 (light blue)
Ga-de- Blue Blood (navy blue)
Ga-de Candy Apple (red)
Laka- 85 (grey)
Chic- Crazy in Love (green)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 23- Inspired by a Movie

This is a bit of a cheat, since I did these nails based off the TV show, not the horrible abomination they call a movie. I'm still in denial about that thing existing (THERE IS NO WAR IN BA SING SE)

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The cartoon, not the in-name-only """""""adaptation"""""""!

This post is going up suuuuper late, it was Yom Kippur today and I didn't feel comfortable posting even via a queue

Polishes used:
Pupa 745 (pinky)
Golden Rose Matte 16 (ring finger)
Lechat Majestic Green (middle finger)
Il Makiage Skinny Dipping (index finger)
Details are acrylic paint

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 14- Floral Print

Aaaahhhh I am so proud of this one. I haven't worked with acrylic paints in a while (all my old ones dried up) so I was expecting my first attempt at art in such a long time to be a hot mess. But it actually came out pretty nice! I also got a kit that didn't have purple, so I had to mix the purple to match the gradient base myself, and I think I matched them pretty well.

Polishes Used:
Chic- Show biz (off white in gradient)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 66 (lavender in gradient)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 11- Polka Dots

This is the fourth day in a row that features holo prominently in my nail art, I think I'm falling into a pattern here. Ah well, can't go wrong with a good holo design, and teeny tiny dots that took way too long to make! Right?

The middle two fingers and the outer two fingers have slightly different base shades, but I realized after I finished the mani that you can barely tell the difference. Whoops!

Polishes used:

Essence- You Belong to Me (middle and ring finger base)

Golden Rose Color Expert- 43 (index and pinky fingers)

ILNP- Summer Stargazing (blue holo dots)

ILNP- Fall Semester (teal holo dots)

ILNP- A Fresh Evergreen (green holo dots)

ILNP- My Private Rainbow (holo topcoat)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 8- Metallic

Duochrome counts as metallic right? It totally counts. I decided. Plus, I just bought ILNP Bishop from a destash and I haven't had the chance to try it yet, so here it is.

Polishes used:
ILNP- Bishop (base color)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 69 (gold stamp)

Stamping plate- Mash 44
Triangle Decals- from Decopopshop on Etsy

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 6- Violet

Ah well... we all gotta have nail fails sometimes. This idea seemed pretty cool in my head but upon execution... no. Just no. I might try to get this design right one day, revenge and all that, but this is not a good nail art (although I'd like to acknowledge that three years ago I'd consider this a success. Progress!)

Well... when you have to do a whole new nail art every day for a month, you're gonna have some fails. And because of the rapid pace, you gotta post what you have!

Polishes used:
Color Club- Disco Dress (darker purple cream)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 66 (light purple lines)
Chic- Dark Purple (glitter)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 4- Green

For green I immediately knew that I wanted to do a circuit board inspired mani, and because I'm a masochist I decided to freehand the design instead of stamping it. (also I couldn't find the stamping plate with the circuits so...)

Polishes Used:
ANNY- Paradise on Earth (green base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 69 (gold stripes)
Golden Rose Color Expret- 43 (blue LED light accents)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 58 (silver accents)
LeChat- Black Magic (black accents)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 3- Yellow

So for this mani I basically lined up a bunch of my favorite yellows and dotted them on randomly. I couldn't decide whether to wear this glossy or matte, so I did both. What do you think?

Colors used:
Color Club- Disco's not Dead (base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 69
Chic- 292
Color Club- Psychedelic Scene
Ga-de- Mellow Yellow
Ga-de- Curry Delight

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 1- Red

IT BEGINS!!!! This is my third 31DC, so I should be an old hat at this by now. But lately I've been demonstrating a chronic inability to post more than once a week, so let's see if I survive this year! In 2013 I got to day 25, in 2014 I made it all the way through but not all of it made it to my instagram. My goal this year is to finish the whole challenge AND crosspost to instagram every day. Wish me luck!

Since this is a post-every-day kind of deal, I'm not going to wax poetic most days unless I have something specific to say about the mani. Probably for the best, really :)

Polishes used:
Essence- Do you speak love? (red cream)
Golden Rose- Color Expert #69 (gold)
Golden Rose- Jolly Jewels #121 (red glitter)

An InLinkz Link-up

Gradient/Geometric nails and a Youtube video!

It's been a while! I really should stop making excuses, I should just own up to the fact that I'm an infrequent blogger and be done with it. I have no plans of abandoning this blog, but I also recognize that my life is pretty full right now, so while I might sometimes post multiple times per week, I might also sometimes not even post once a week. Maybe in the future I'll have a little more control over my free time, but for now I'm just going to update when I can. I'll try not to go more than two weeks with no posts though!

Also, I'm somewhat more active on Instagram, since it's a more spontaneous sort of medium, so check me out there! (@fedoraharp)

Recently I got a few new plates from MoYou London, and as with all MoYou plates, I absolutely LOVE them. For this manicure I used the Holy Shapes collection plate #1. And since I love the pairing of vibrant gradients with sharp clean geometric lines, I decided to do that kind of mani.

Colors used:
Golden Rose Color Riche 16 (blue)
China Glaze Custom Kicks (teal)
Color Club Disco Dress (purple)
Ga-de Burgundy Velvet (fuchsia)
Konad black stamping polish

You know, I have a HUGE nail polish collection, but I constantly gravitate towards these polishes in gradients. I should really branch out more XD Not that I don't love this color combo, or these polishes (clearly I have the opposite problem), but I feel like I'm probably not using my collection as effectively as I should.

I almost forgot! I recently published a cute (albeit somewhat pointless) little Youtube video, just a few of my recent pouring videos stuck together one after another set to calming music. Still, I like them better with the music. For some reason I find these things really hypnotic, don't you?

NOTD: Galaxy nails

You know what? Every now and again you gotta do galaxy nails. I think it's just a rule of being a nail artist. This is still from my backlog, so this is ages ago and I couldn't tell you exactly which polishes I used. The only thing I remember for sure is that instead of my usual black base, I used Golden Rose Color Expert 59, an intense purple that's just a shade away from off-black. It's still distinctly purple in all lights but it has an incredible amount of depth. You can't directly tell in the finished manicure, but I do think it added some indescribable something to the mani.

Yes, I realize that these are four nearly-identical photos. Shoot me, I'm proud of my work :D

NOTD: Purple gradient x2

I'm baaaaaaack!

I've been gone for ages. Between Passover, the convention, and moving to a new apartment, I've been super MIA from this blog. I've been on Instagram and Facebook a little, but I slacked off there too. I've been making tons of new nail polishes though, and I'll share them here over time!

Recently I made two different nail arts on a similar purple gradient base. They're not identical, but because of their similarity I decided to put them both in one post.

This one is from shortly before I moved:

For this one I used a Golden Rose Color Expert lavender (which I have since broken so I can't remember the name), and Color Club Disco Dress in the gradient. I can't remember what I stamped with, but the colors I used to fill in the squares are Color Club Eternal Beauty (purple holo) and Cherubic (beige holo)

This one is from just recently:

For this mani I used OPI You're Such a Budapest and Golden Rose Color Expert 59. The music decals and the treble clef accent are both from the Born Pretty Store (if you go and buy them use my discount code to get 10% off! It's in the sidebar, check it out)

NOTD: New year's mani

I did a pretty simple mani for NYE, since I'm not really a big celebrator of these kinds of things. Still, I really liked the way it looked- plain grey shimmer with some iridescent glitter and star rhinestones with matte topcoat. The topcoat is a little cracked if you look closely, because I applied an extra coat for photos (whoops!)

Polishes used:

Color Club Pretty in Platinum

Golden Rose 3D Glaze 02

NOTD: Holo color blocking

Hi all! Recently I purchased a whole bunch of holo polishes from Color Club, and I decided to make a mani using a whole bunch of them! I don't remember the names of each polish I used (and right now they're kind of scattered all over the place so I can't go look), but each one is a Color Club polish except for the beige base, which is from Golden Rose.

31DC2014 Day 5: Blue

Since blue is actually a favorite of mine when it comes to nail art, I decided to use this as an opportunity to play with a style I've been a little insecure about- negative space. My natural nails are really yellow, and no matter what I do I never seem to get my cuticles quite flawless like I see the big time bloggers doing. So I might as well give it a shot when I'm already doing something I like!

An InLinkz Link-up

NOTD: White flowers on burgundy

I love when I find a way to make nail art that looks sophisticated but also takes almost no time. I didn't really know where I was going with this manicure, I just new that I wanted to use my new Golden Rose burgundy polish (which probably had a number but I forgot it), and I was feeling lazy about picking a contrasting color. So I just went with white, the match-everything color, and turns out it was a good choice!

Six posts in six days, and I already know what I'm posting Saturday night. I think I did it!

NOTD: Christmas nails!

Merry belated Christmas everybody! I don't celebrate it, and it's not even really noticed in Israel, but the internet's been so festive lately that I couldn't resist.

Pinky: Orly Au Champagne with Konad stamping polish and BM Plate 205
Ring: Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Middle: same as pinky, but with BM plate 208 and a dotting tool
Index finger: Golden Rose 122 (from the Jolly Jewels collection) with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Thumb: a poor attempt at candy cane stripes where I was too lazy to get up to get my striping brush so I used the bottle brush. Hence not taking a photo of it :P

Last year I also did Christmas nails, it was what I have on my ring finger but on the entire hand.

I have newly short nails, because I just recently went to do some work in a recording studio! And in order to play the harp, I need short nails. There were plenty of pictures taken, so hopefully when they finally remember to send them along I'll make a blog post about it.

I also had two more job interviews (one on Christmas!) so I'm queuing up two more Interview nail posts as well

I hope your holiday was fun and you have a great new year!