Well, I guess I'm not finishing 31DC this year. The timing was pretty terrible for me this time around, the end fell right smack on the build up to Icon this year, so it was amazing that I even got as far as I did!
Well, now it's time to go back to a semi-regular posting schedule. Here are some random squiggles on nails, inspired by this manicure from Heynicenails on tumblr! (and instagram, but I follow them on tumblr). I decided to do the doodly white shapes over a gradient instead of colorful skittles, but it's still similar enough to credit back to them.
Polishes used:
Ga-de Blue Angel (blue)
Ga-de Pool Party (mint green)
Ga-de Kiwi Delight (green)
White acrylic paint
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)
The nail polish gods have smiled down upon me today. I wanted to see if I could still get a linear holo effect if I did a sponge gradient with holo polishes, and it worked!! In fact, it kind of looks even more holo than it did pre-gradient. I wonder why that is?
Polishes used:
Color Club- Cosmic Fate (orange holo)
Color Club- Miss Bliss (pink holo)
Color Club- Eternal Beauty (violet holo)
Essence- Glorious Aquarius (old formula) (glitter accent)
After how complicated my last mani was, I decided to go for something fairly clean and simple for blue. The dots on the accent nail give off kind of a clownish vibe, but I actually am ok with that.
Hello all! I have a simple and classic manicure for today. I have wanted to do a red to black gradient for a while, but I always remembered that at inconvenient times so I never got around to it. Now I finally have! I'm actually not thrilled with this, the gradient is a little too sudden for my taste. I'll probably do these again at some point. But they still look pretty nice, so here they are:
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?
This mani is from quite a while back- I have a little bit of a backlog to work through. I may have neglected this blog, but I still did some nail art!
This is a sweet little spring color gradient I made, and for the finishing touch I added some flower glitter on two accent nails:
Polishes used: (I think! This is pretty old so there's a little guesswork involved)
Ga-De 505 Mexican Rose (pink)
Ga-De 435 Peach Sorbet (orange)
Ga-De 502 Curry Delight (yellow) (special thanks to Yael from PaintThemAll for showing this gorgeous yellow to me! I don't often buy yellow so I never would have purchased it otherwsie)
Ga-De 60 Pink Daisy (glitter topper)
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)
I recently picked up a bunch of polishes from Superficially Colorful, and among them were several thermal polishes. Her thermals are really great, the color shift is always super dramatic and they are great to apply and have fantastic opacity. So what's better than a thermal polish? Three of them, gradient-ified!
Warm
Cold
I also took a video of the transition, which is pretty dramatic:
Sadly, I don't remember the name of the blue polish (I lent it to a friend so I can't check) but the middle polish is Giggly and the red polish is Enthralled. They're all a little bit more vivid when worn on their own (since it's sponged on it's a little more sheer), but I love them this way too!
This is a quick little mani I created using Superficially Colorful's Mud Slide and Ga-De Tangerine Garnet. I just the brush from the bottle to make the gradient. I got a whole bunch of Slacquer polishes lately, I've got some swatches waiting to be watermarked in my drafts folders so I'll put them up here soon!
This NOTD netted a lot of compliments from my coworkers. I think there's something about gradients, especially sparkly gradients, that just really grabs people's attention- one colleague referred to this mani as 'Cinderella nails'.
I started with a base of Chic Show Biz (410) which is actually a fantastic off-white color, I've been using it as a base for almost every gradient I've done recently. It's nearly a one coater, but it's softer than a stark white so if a little peeks through it's not so obvious. It's also got a subtle shimmer. I strongly recommend buying it as a nail art/gradient base, it's a staple for me.
The other polishes I used were:
Chic sugar finish collection 04 (pink)
Chic Sinful Tops 709 Love & Hate (purple)
Chic Sinful Tops 711 Naughty Blue (pale blue)
Ga-de 55 Blue Sugar
Konad blue stamping polish
Initially I wasn't planning to use the Ga-de blue, but the lighter blue I used turned out to be too sheer to be effective in sponging, so I added a little extra at the end.
I have another cute Born Pretty Store product to show you today, this time a stamping plate!
I love this one because the entire plate is covered in designs, so you can make something unique every time. This design would also probably be really great as a stamp decal, but for today I decided to showcase a simple black stamp of it. That's not to say the nail art is simple though! I created a vertical gradient as the background for this, inspired by art done by A Different Shade of Polish.
The stamping plate was great- the grooves were just right, not too deep and not too shallow, so it created a crisp and even look across my nails. The plate I used to create this look can be found here.
The Born Pretty Store has a huge selection of affordable and cute nail art products, as well as nail polish and other cosmetic related stuff, plus they ship free worldwide! You can also use my discount code -SMBQ10- to receive a 10% discount on all of your purchases:
Disclaimer: These items were provided to me by the Born Pretty Store for my unbiased review
I DID IIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT! I got through the challenge this year, woo!
As of posting this, I'm back to tiny nubbins, because my middle finger nail has broken off. It's been broken for about a week now, but it was partially still attached so I held it together with glue for the homestretch. Once this mani came off, I decided to let it rest in peace (peices? shhh). So now I'll have nubs for a while. Ah well!
Today I decided to take inspiration from Polish All The Nails and her amaaazing glitter placement skills. I can't say I did it justice, but I didn't do half bad! I'm especially proud of my middle finger here. Can you believe that just this hand took me over an hour?? I don't think I will be doing a full hand again any time soon, and I am in even greater awe of Laura for doing this on a regular basis.
After today I think I'm gonna go back over all the inlinkz from this challenge and check out a bunch of blogs. I've been so busy with the challenge that I've really only been checking out 2-3 new posts per day, so now I'm gonna go archive diving and make up for that!
It's kind of a pity I ended up posting these on a catchup day, because I think these might be the best galaxy nails I've ever done. Ah well, next time I'll try harder to post on time!
Day 20- Water Marble
You know, the very first nail art I ever did was a water marble. I must have had beginner's luck, because at the time I thought it was really easy! Now I can still manage it, but there are a lot more tears involved.
Day 21- Inspired by a color
I'm fairly predictable when it comes to colors- usually it's either some iteration of teal or purple. But to be a little more specific, this design is inspired by matte purple! (uh... ignore that my previous purple post was also matte shhhhh)
Day 22- Inspired by a song
This was inspired by the song Fireflies by Owl City. I dunno what it is about that song- I am so so so in love with it. It makes the world feel like magic.
