Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I'd originally intended to stamp my last mani with some fall leaves, but that color was just too distracting to cover up.  Then last week, I received from older Enchanted Polishes from an estate sale, which reminded me of how much I loved their stuff, so take 2 for fall leaves: indoor, bright CF lighting Hooboy, pulling this one out of the vault!  Enchanted Polish released Hot Chocolate for Unicorns way back in 2014.  As you can see here, my bottle has a pretty fantastic case of "ugly bottle syndrome" where the chalky white pigment that makes the polish opaque (and not a sheer jelly) has started to precipitate out onto the bottom of the bottle.  It looks orange here, but nah, it's actually white. window-filtered bright daylight Hot Chocolate is an utterly perfect shade of melted Hershey bar.  It's super smooth and creamy, and is a one-coater if you have a heavy hand.  I found that a 2nd coat deepened the color, though it had no real effect on opacity. ...

Sometimes when I do themed nails for book club, the design is inspired by the text, while other times the simple graphic design of the cover demands to be re-created - this month's book was firmly in the latter category. indoor, bright CF lighting for all The cover of Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen features a barely turquoise blue background graced with a golden leaf, and little gold coins (gold coins being a plot point in this Hallmark movie of a book): An old dead thermal with just a hint of shimmer was just ideal for the base color here.  The gold leaf is from KADS Nature 036, using El Corazon Fragrant Mimosa for that bright metallic gold flash.  Pahlish Goldsmith - a topper version of their fantastic crushed gold flake polishes - provided the perfect dusting of little gold coins in just one light coat.   While I wasn't a real fan of the book, I did love this nail art look and wore it happily all week.  Goldsmith is a real winner, and should probably be in heavie...

 I've blogged a couple of times before about my birdwatching and nature nerdery, but this weekend's amazing sights truly inspired me to create some art on my fingernail canvases. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight for all While out in the woods this weekend, my birding buddies and I came across this utterly magical grey-morph Eastern Screech Owl.  S/he's been seen in the area for a few weeks now, and we were beyond lucky to catch a glimpse of this creature emerging into the twilight I was struck by the pale green eyes, and the earthy grey-and-brown camouflaged colors, and wanted to recreate that look with my nail art. I'm using the owl eye image and the feathers from Creative Shop 50, stamped in a chocolate brown crème over Aliquid Make a Wish.  The plate only comes with one eye, though, so I attempted to reverse the image by immediately rolling it off onto another stamper as soon as I'd lifted it from the plate.  Success!  The outline of the eye and iris were ove...

And here's that design I needed a deep purple base for: outdoor, afternoon daylight for all photos On top of my base mani of Glisten & Glow Monster Mash, I've added a 2-step layered plaid design that just happens to perfectly match one of my fave pairs of cool-weather tall socks.   I'm using two of my most workhorse-solid stamping plates here.  The light grey woven-design plaid  is from Hehe 028 (such a great plate that every time I use it I feel the need to check Hehe's store to see if there's anything else I need), then the red accent lines are from Maniology M053 (a plate that everyone needs in their stash, since it's nothing but basic shapes you can use to create any geometric design).  I mattified the whole thing, because  much like last week's autumn leaves, most plaid cloth isn't at all shiny! For a really long time now, I've only occasionally done nail art.  My nails are always done, but with the state of the world I just don't often ...

We've had a few frosty nights and the leaves have most definitely been turning, so I was feeling the idea of seasonally themed nails lately. indoor, CF lighting for both I've started with a base of Dollish Polish Penny Penny Penny, which I've only  just realized that I've never shown by itself, whoops!  PPP is a soft warm-leaning off-white crelly full of metallic copper glitters in a couple different sizes, which already looks a little like autumn leaves falling all across the nail.  I've then used El Corazon Mysterious Mars (possibly my all-time fave stamping polish) and some leaf images & a cute "hello fall" from the Marianne Pro 25 Stamping plate. Hope your autumn season is a colorful one! ~Michelle 

Lacquester Pearl Grey First Pick was a lovely neutral on its own, but when the equinox rolled around after I'd worn it for a day or two, it also provided a perfect backdrop for some multicolored nail art. outdoor, overcast daylight for both The sun on my left hand and the moon on my right were reverse-stamped in black filled in with metallic gold.  This sun image is from the utterly unique Curali 005 "Esoterical" plate, while the moon is found on MoYou London Mexico 03. outdoor, overcast daylight Since it's still mostly green around here (other than the scattering of ideal fallen leaf props in my lawn), I opted to use a a smaller, rounder leaf pattern rather than the more typically "fall" look of maple leaves.  I applied small dots of green, yellow, red, and brown crème polishes to this leaf image from Marianne Pro 25, then scraped 2-3 times until they were lightly blended to get this look of leaves with randomly changing colors. window-fi...

The now apparently defunct Emerald & Ash started an April Fool's day joke a couple of years ago with a polish called Period Poops.  It got such an enthusiastic thumbs-up that they brought it back once a month for about a week (get it?  hahahahaha), making this the most hilarious polish in my stash. indoor, CF lighting Period Poops (and hooboy, that name, haha or cringe depending on your personal capacity for embarrassment!) is a rich chocolate to espresso (decidedly not at all fecal) brown with a lightly scattered holo effect and sparse ruby red microglitters.  I could easily see the glitters in the bottle, but not so much on the nail - they were there if I knew to look for them, but at arm's length they were invisible.  The formula was a bit thicker than ideal, but I got completely opaque coverage in 2 coats. outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight I've stamped here using El Corazon white for the trunks and Pretty Serious Santa's Sunburn & Esmaltes da...

This week saw the first day of autumn, which is not a huge transition after our mild summer, but I have loads of leafy stamping plates and fall colors that I wanted to jump on. indoor, bright CF lighting Lacquester Song From a Vampire is a lovely shade of wine that I'm wearing here in 2 coats.  The formula has good consistency, and flows smoothly, but Lacquester has that wide brush that I do not like, because it created more cleanup than this formula would otherwise need. indoor, bright CF lighting In the bottle, you can glimpse a gorgeous array of pretty flakes and a scattering of holo dust, but the flakes were more subtle on the nail in the bright lamp light of my mani cave.  I wanted FFLLLAAAAKKKESSS, so I've added 1 coat Essie Shine of the Times and 1 coat Sinful Colors All About You to create a thick wall of tiny falling leaves on the wine base - all pics shown with this layering combo, none of Vampire alone. outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight Though the...

Earlier this fall, Swiss nail polish artiste Cadillacquer released her "Eat the Rude" collection, inspired by the recent Hannibal TV show.  While I don't usually get sucked into fun fandom nail polish based on names alone, that impulse managed to have me only stop short of buying the whole collection.  This is pretty much my favorite show in YEARS, and these were gorgeous polishes. indoor, bright CF lighting Memory Palace is a soft, creamy color somewhere between grey and green - I seriously had a hard time filing it (my stash is sorted based on color), and ultimately went with green, but it looks a little different in every lighting condition, and leans more one way or the other. indoor, window-filtered overcast daylight In cool, low light, Memory Palace is definitively green, of an earthy sort you'd expect to find as part of a wild bird's eggshell.  In most all lighting conditions, there's a twinkling glint from bronze microflakies mixed througho...