52wkCrumpet2: 3-tone gradient with pink hearts

This is week two of Crumpet's 52 week challenge! This is a great one as the "rules" are very flexible and you have all week to accomplish the mani. As always, must be done on your own nails, using the colours suggested (or parts thereof).
This week's prompt: three-tone gradient and pink (either each alone or combined). I combined.

I was in a bit of a quandary on what colours to choose for my three tone gradient. I had just worn blue and the time before red and brown. And also green. And I didn't want to do the sunset or butterfly gradient, again. So I decided to try a Zoya Pixie Dust gradient. That was ..... dumb. It is really hard to gradient pixie dusts as they have a lot of glitter particles in them that stick to the sponge. I keep forgetting that.

Even though the base looks predominantly green, there is a three tone gradient in there! I did start with a gently applied base of green (Zoya Vespa). The gradient is then achieved with Vespa, Zoya Godiva and OPI Solitaire. Solitaire (the white one) overpowers as it is also the tip of my nail. And Godiva is a faint tone, almost the colour of my nail bed. One coat of Out the Door and then a coat of Poshé. Pixies eat top coat and you could definitely feel the girt after just Out the Door. Poshé is nice and thick (and glossy and quick dry as well).

right hand

For the hand drawn hearts I used China Glaze Neon & On & On - this is one of my fav pinks. I painted them in different sizes and amounts, added a black one here and there. This was top coated again with Poshé to give a real gloss and smooth out the entire mani.
In the end I think the nails look like an advertisement for a game of bridge! Perhaps too Queen of Heartsy. The gradient is there, but quite faint. But in the shadows the hearts pop in neon!
Cheers girls x – looking forward to seeing all the others!

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumn leaves on a Zoya Godiva base

Another pixie dust!!! The Zoya Pixie Dust collections are so beautiful and I have just two (boo). I just received this in another destash (well, bought, not received!) and am so happy. This is Godiva, a beige nude, and I decided to draw some foliage for an autumnal look. This is a difficult mani to photograph. Not only are the leaves non-centered (so going in "wrong" directions), the glistening of the nails reflects.

I started with two costs of Godiva. This is probably a colour I would need to wear now or earlier towards summer. It is a great nude, and it looks darker towards my skin tone in real life. But it is still very light and beige-y. So am afraid I would look too washed out in winter. But as a base for art it is great! I top coated before continuing to 1) level out the pixie unevenness a bit and 2) no smudges! Oh, and 3) had to get dinner started.

I drew the leaves randomly on each finger. Then I used dotting tools to draw in the leaves, one colour at a time. So, all my nails with the burnt orange, then red, then gold.... Top coat followed and when that was dry I went back and added some black lines and accents to the leaves. Then more top coat to set that.

After the fact I notice that this looks a bit Xmasy. But that was not my intention! I was aiming for autumn and some of the leaves look really good. To give the whole manner more "fall shimmer" I top coated with Nfu Oh 49 flaky so that when the nails hit the light, they glisten in orange. That was followed by yet another coat of Out the Door. All in all there are four coats of top coat on my nails and they definitely do not feel uneven. Below a list of the colours used.

right hand

Colours used:

base: Zoya Pixie Dust Godiva
reds: Kyo burnt orange, Zoya Sooki
copper: China Glaze Harvest Moon
green: China Glaze Agro
gold: OPI Goldeneye
brown: China Glaze Midtown Magic
top: Nfu Oh 49

Zoya Vespa with handdrawn yellow daisies

This beautiful green I just bought off a PANZ destash! Yeah - my first pixie dust! Zoya has a couple of pixies out there that I have my eye on, but alas.... not yet snatched! Vespa is a light olive green with the sparkles of silver running through it. Tender and easy going. Beautiful! My original plan was just to paint my nails but then I thought how yellow would look rather fab with it!

The base is two coats of Vespa. I top coated before drawing as – as expected – the surface is not kind to fine brushes! The polish dries matte with structure. But not as structured as OPI's liquid sand finishes. In the end the finished mani has two coats of top coat. Can't feel much but a third would be perfect.

I drew the daisy and stem outlines in black then filled them in. Since the surface was a bit rough, I had to go over the black lines again after the yellow. They got kind of smudged or something. I just drew daisies in different directions. I like the freehand look to them.

For the yellow I used piCture pOlish Mellow Yellow followed by Butter London Cheeky Chops. Mellow Yellow is exactly that, very mellow. A faint light yellow (it would look totally fab matte, like candy!). The inner parts of the petals has a dot of Cheeky Chops to add dimension. Like I mentioned, I top coated after this. Used Poshé the second time as it is a bit thicker.

Now.... could not resist starting a pendant necklace in these colours. It is not finished yet but tomorrow is my day off and will finish things then. But I wanted to give you an idea!! When done, I will add a finished pick below.
As “promised", here the finished pendant and charm (here the link to my shop with more pics):