New Year 2017

Happy New Year! Once again, I had to continue with my tradition of doing the simplest possible design for the new year, which is to paint the upcoming year. For this manicure, I made decals for the numbers using my new silicone mat. I honestly think that the numbers would have been neater looking if I had just painted directly onto my nails,  but I really wanted to play around with the mat. I used Zoya Finley and Zoya Aurora for the base, and the numbers are Milani  and Color Club Worth The Risque.

Cute Christmas

These are my last Christmas nails of the year, and I decided to just go with the basics, a tree, a gift, and candy cane stripes. For this, I used Revlon Posh, Revlon Cherries In The Snow, Xtreme Wear Perfect Pear-ing, Xtreme Wear Pop Chart, For the glittery tree I used KB Shimmer Christmas Now, and the glittery present is Maybelline Precious Pearl.

Subtle Holiday

 Here's another holiday manicure, although the only thing Christmas about it is the holly leaves, so it's pretty subtle. I used Zoya Storm, Zoya Blaze, Zoya Logan, and Color Club Worth The Risque, which has the slightest of holo.

Cozy Christmas

For this Christmas manicure I really wanted to incorporate a plaid design and I came up with the cozy fireplace around that. I find freehand painting plaid designs is impossible to get perfect, but I think it looks alright, especially if you don't focus too closely on it. For the plaid I used China Glaze Take A Hike and China Glaze Merry Berry.

Greyscale Christmas

I wanted to do a Christmas design that was a little bit different for me, so I went with all shades of grey. Although, I suppose there's nothing really Christmas-y about the design, so it's really more of a winter scene. I used Zoya Tove, Revlon Iconic, and glitter from Maybelline Clearly Spotted and Maybelline Precious Pearl.

A Waddle of Penguins

 I don't think I have ever painted any penguins before, so here are a whole bunch of them bundled up for winter. The base is a random gradient of China Glaze Wanderlust, China Glaze Dashboard Dreamer, OPI You're Such A Budapest, and Xtreme Wear Babe Blue. Unfortunately, most of the gradient is covered by the penguins, but I still think the effect it adds is better than just a plain background.

Sweater Weather

 For my first holiday manicure I did some cozy sweater patterns. I use Essie Mint Candy Apple, Milani Red Label and Zoya Jacqueline.

Colorful Crosshatch

Here's a random design I put together a while ago just because I thought it might look kinda neat. This is definitely one of those ones that looks better from a distance, but I still think it's kinda cool.

Solids, Stripes, and Stars

 I'm currently working on some holiday nails, but for now I have manicure that I did a few weeks ago. For this one I really just wanted to use the stars from my last post some more. The glitters are from Wet N Wild Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the purple is China Glaze Mix and Mingle. It could have been neater, but the polish from the stars mushed some of the lines around.

Magnetic Starburst

I recently rediscovered my magnetic polishes, and I've been kind of crazy about them lately. I never really used them before because there's not a whole lot you can do for nail art and I found them to be a bit underwhelming. My tests for these turned out great, however, because my nails are curved, the magnet doesn't hit my entire nail with the same strength and the design isn't as sharp. For these I used the star burst pattern from the original China Glaze magnet on magnetic polishes Color Club Hipnotic and Color Club Steel of the Night. Just to add a little something, I used star glitters from Wet N Wild Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Open Roses

Here's a simple floral design. I didn't think it would turn out well, so I only did it on two nails, but I actually like it more than I expected to and I wish I'd done a full manicure of it. The base is China Glaze Jagged Little Teal, for the floral I used China Glaze Tart-y For The Party, China Glaze Wait N Sea, and China Glaze Capacity To See Beyond. I hate photographing in this lighting, but it's the only way I could get the colors to be even close to actuality.

Thanksgiving Nails

 I don't usually do Thanksgiving nails, but it was something I was just in the mood to paint this year. I did some pastel leaves, a slice of pumpkin pie and a turkey. I used China Glaze Foie Gras, China Glaze Tart-y For The Party, China Glaze Fresh Prince-ss, Zoya Cole, Zoya Neely, Zoya Jacqueline, Zoya Arizona, and Essie Miss Fancy Pants.

Pink Fall Leaves

I always love using these colors this time of year, so I painted some fall leaves in them. I can't recall every polish I used for all the leaves, but the bases are China Glaze Nice Caboose!, and China Glaze Fresh Prince-ss.

Dotticure Design

Here's a manicure that I did over a month ago and wasn't really intending to post. I did it based on an old design that i did a while ago. I used Revlon Iconic, Essie Petal Pushers, China Glaze Nice Caboose!, and Xtreme Wear Social Butterfly.

Sunset Stripe

 Hello! I'm loving today's nails, and that's really all I have to say about them. The light pink is China Glaze Fresh Prince-ss and the gradient is China Glaze Giver's Theme, China Glaze Dune Our Thing, Zoya Thandie, and Zoya Darcy.

Doctor Strange

Here are the nails that I did for the new Marvel movie, Doctor Strange. On my ring finger is Stephen Strange himself, and on my middle finger is The Eye of Agamotto as it appears in the movie. On my outer fingers I did galaxy nails, which I based a little bit off of this poster. I forgot how frustrating it is to work with metallic polishes and these nails definitely did not turn out as well as I wanted. I do really like the galaxies though, so just focus on them instead.

Spooky Scene

Here is my  totally unique and original design for Halloween that  I have definitely never done anything like before. The gradient is China Glaze One Track Mind, Xtreme Wear Razz-Berry, Zoya Thandie, and Ory Lemonade.

Revamped Vampire

 For these Halloween nails I wanted to do a new take on an old vampire manicure of mine. I really liked the concept of the original design, but the execution is a bit laughable. It's really funny looking back at those nails because I remember being so insanely proud of them at the time. I love my recreation now, but who knows, maybe I'll be embarrassed to look at these too in another four years.

The original manicure: