NOTD: Flannel

I'm finally jumping on the flannel bandwagon! Since autumn rolled around we've been seeing lots of flannel and plaid inspired nails, so I thought I'd give them a try! I stamped over these with the musical plate from Vivid Lacquer, and then I added a little more detail with acrylic paint and a striping brush. To give it an extra soft look I topped it off with a matte top coat.

Polishes used:
Loka- unnamed green
Perfect Chic- Must Have (red)
Borjois- In The Navy (blue)
Golden Rose matte top coat

#31DC2015 Day 27- Inspired by Artwork

Late post late post late post whooops!

The artwork I chose for today's challenge is that of adult coloring books, which have been all the rage lately. And having finally purchased one for myself, I definitely see why! They're gorgeous to look at when they're not filled in, and they're so gratifying to look at when you finish a piece, because you feel like you contributed to the beauty of the artwork.

For this nail art I stamped with plain black over white with BP-L002 from the Born Pretty Store, a suitably "doodle-y" looking plate, and then I filled in random bits with acrylic paint. I based it on a specific drawing from the coloring book I'm currently working on, which is sadly not Secret Garden (maybe once I fill this one I'll buy Secret Garden?). But I'm actually really happy with the art in this book, so I'm good :D

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 16- Geometric

I made it past the halfway mark, yay! And I'm not tired of nail art or burnt out yet. Hopefully this is a good sign. Since the last two days I did something fairly time consuming, I went with a comparitively simple nail art today, just a stamp. But I didn't want it to be THAT simple, so I stamped over multichrome flakies :D

As an aside, round nails are really growing on me. I had square nails as my default for a long time, but I had to file them down out of practicality. I kept losing tips, and my nail integrity was crap. For a while I kept them sort of semi-squoval-ish, just as close to a "natural" shape as possible, but during this challange I narrowed them down a little bit more, and I'm liking how it gives an illusion of lengh while still being very manageable. I think I'll keep these for a while (they also don't get in the way of harp playing as much- bonus!)

Polishes used:

Color Club- Total Mystery (dark blue base)

Indigo Bananas- Violet Stars (multichrome flakie)

Color Club- French Tip (white stamping)

Stamping Plate: MoYou Holy Shapes #01

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 13- Animal Print

Animal print has been and always will be a challenge for me, because I hate everything associated with leopard print or zebra/tiger stripes. So I can't go with anything related to that. Still, I think in the last two years I came up with pretty creative ways to get around that, and I'm pretty satisfied with how I did it this time too- fish! This is a jelly sandwich stamping mani, so I started with a shimmery green base, stamped over it with an ocean-y sort of print, then went over it with a dark blue jelly and put fish on top. I topped the whole thing off with some more jelly and then some iridescent flakies.

Polishes used:
Orly- Meet Me Under The Mistletoe (green shimmer base)
Color Club- French tip (white stamping)
Glitter Bunny- Jelliefish (blue jelly sandwich)
Indigo Bananas- Bonanza! (flakie topper)

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 7- Black & White

I can't believe I've never never done houndstooth nail art before, it came out so good! It also looked really crisp and clean in person, I'm definitely doing this again. It does look a teeny bit smudged in the photos, but in person it looked great. I'm really happy with this one. This is actually white stamped over black, but since the nature of houndstooth is that both colors have exactly the same area, you can't really tell. Also, since I don't know when to leave well enough alone, I topped this with a subtle holo topcoat :D

Polishes used:

LeChat- Black Magic (black)

Color Club- French Tip (white)

ILNP- My Private Rainbow (holo topcoat)
Stamping plate: BP L-006

An InLinkz Link-up

NOTD: Red and black gradient

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:

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: Holo stamping over brown

You know, I didn't used to be a fan of brown nails (is that gramattically correct? I can't think of a better way to phrase it but it feels off for some reason). But then I discovered the world of brown shimmer. Take, for example, Mud Slide by Superficially colorful- a gorgeous, rich, earthy brown that I love having on my fingertips as often as possible. For this mani I stamped over it with some holos and added some rhinestones, to complete the jewel-like effect I get from this color.

Colors used:
Superficially Colorful- Mud Slide (brown)
Color Club Halo Hues- Cherubic (stamping)
Color Club Halo Hues- Cosmic Fate (accent dots)
Rhinestones from Ebay

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 + Preview!

Today I have a preview for the Passover collection! This is an early version of a polish that I'm planning to release for Passover. I've still got to tweak it a bit- the glitter sinks to the bottom and it took four coats to be opaque. But still, this one turned out so pretty that I needed to wear it as a full mani!

After I wore it by itself for the purpose of swatching in natural daylight, the next day I added some stamping accents and little gold decorations, which is why this is also an NOTD post. This is some more Born Pretty Store stuff I picked up on Black Friday, the stamping plate is BP-L 004, and the little treble clefs are also from there.

So, what do you think of this color?

NOTD: Matte blue skittlette

I bought a whole bunch of stamping plates from the Born Pretty Store for black Friday, and as soon as I got them I immediately needed to play with them. The plate I used for this mani is BP-L 005. I'm really adoring how this one turned out! I forsee these stamping plates ending up in a lot of future manis.

Polishes used:
WOW Cosmetics 427
Konad white stamping polish
Fedoraharp Powdered Sugar
OPI Matte topcoat

NOTD: Lacy accent stamping

This was a fairly simple manicure, but I always love going back to the simple-outer-nails + arty-inner-nails pattern. It's a great classic and I don't think it'll ever go out of style. Two noteworthy things here: The outer polish is a standard cream, but it actually stamped really nicely! And the pale base for the inner two nails is technically a pale pink, but I guess the teal stamping reflected off of it and made it look almost white.

Polishes used: 

Ga-De Denim Dream (swatched here)

La Sera 44

NOTD: Pastel texture gradient

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.

Review: Born Pretty Store stamping plate QA88

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