Nails and Knitting

I'm still on quite a brown kick. I just love the warm shades of almond, coffee, chocolates... Oh wait, those are food. Well, you know what I mean. ;)

Today's mani is a simple one, but I'm happy with the end result. I chose a basic floral silhouette and stamped it in pieces on the bias over my nails.

Orly Nailtrition
OPI DS Illuminate x2
Stamped with Essie Penny Talk and Salon Express SE19
Essie Good to Go

I'm also showing a little bit of knitting I've been doing. A friend of mine asked me to make a hat and mittens set for her mother in law. Hopefully the mittens will speed along like the hat has!

Zoya Dream, you are...

Gorgeous. This polish is GORGEOUS.

This is Zoya Dream, a polish from their Winter Collection. It's amazing.

My photograph does NOT do it justice. We don't have sun here today and my light box isn't strong enough to make all the micro holo glitter rainbow. Well, not enough that my camera will capture it anyway.

It's the most beautiful shade of deep blue. And WOW that sparkle!

Addiction, er addition

Yep, totally addicted to stamping. After I finished my nails yesterday, my immediate thought was, "hmm... I wonder if they'd look better with something stamped on them?"

I left them alone, figuring I'd wait until today to reassess. But when I got home from my class last night, I decided to go for it. The vision of something with delicate lines stamped in black over the gradient was too strong to not try.

I love how they turned out! Exactly what I was hoping for!

I used Shany SH21 and Milani Black Magic, topped with another layer of Seche Vite.

Vampy gradient

I'm an absolute sucker for Vampy nails and holo sparkles. Combine them together and YES.
This was a suggestion from someone on a nail forum, and what a great suggestion it was!

Polishes used:

Orly Nailtrition
Orly Miss Conduct x1
Sponge gradient with Orly Miss Conduct, Zoya Blaze and Zoya Payton
Seche Vite

First two pictures lit with my old photography light box, last picture in full sun to show the holo sparkle. Also, it matches the headband a friend gave me perfectly!

November?

How did that happen? How is it already November?!

Last month was so fun with Halloween themed manis, that I decided to do something that felt very Autumnal, very... November.

A few weeks ago I saw an interesting brown polish: Sinful Colors Leather Loose. I guess it's technically a texture polish, but I don't know if I agree with that. I'd go with matte, or suede. Two coats by itself leaves a gorgeous chocolate brown matte that looks like soft, well-worn leather. (See photo of index finger before stamping.) Beautiful, but when you put top coat over it something amazing happens. This gorgeous shimmer just explodes throughout the color!

The finished product of these two polishes together with the stamp is exactly what I was hoping for. :)

Polishes used:

Orly Nailtrition
Sinful Colors Leather Loose x2
Stamped with Essie Penny Talk and Shany SH17 plate
Seche Vite

Halloween Nails, final version

What a fun month of manis it's been!

This one wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I got a late start and was in a hurry. Do whatcha can, right?

Polishes used:

Revlon Colorstay Gel-Smooth Base Coat
Nails: Milani Black Magic Stamped with Color Club Harp on It and Vivid Lacquer VL013, small red detail on spider with Sinful Colors red glitter striper
Accent nail: jelly sandwich of L'Oréal Mango Mama dotted with Sinful Colors Snow Me White and pumpkin face painted with Salon Perfect Black Ink Striper
Seche Vite

I've had so much fun celebrating Halloween all month on my nails!

Monsters Inc nails

I threw a Halloween party in my Zumba class tonight and dressed up as a raver monster. A super cute costume that my friend Jen lent to me, which definitely needed monster nails! Since the colors were the same colors as Sully, I decided to go with Monsters Inc for inspiration.

Polishes used:

Orly Nailtrition
Essie Beach Bum Blu x2
Butter London Fishwife x1
Nails: dotted with Sally Hansen Black and Blue, Sinful Colors Let's Talk and Color Club Harp on It
Accent nail: Sinful Colors Innocent, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Sally Hansen Black and Blue, Milani Black Magic and Salon Perfect Black Ink Striper
Gelous
Seche Vite