Broken glass flakies

Last month I posted an 'emerald green runway' mani that consisted of mattified green polish, negative space and green flakies galore. There's been so many flakies-over-dark-colour manis floating around mani-land lately, and I just love it. Notably, this includes Kristin from Lacquerstyle's flakies over a deep burgundy,  @chorubim's flakies over a royal blue, and Amy from McPolish's flakies over an emerald green (which coincidentally I had also unknowingly conjured up in my nail art lair). I decided that they should all have a baby and this is what was born:

That's a fine looking baby. 

Random pixie dust... I have no idea what I was trying to achieve.

I have no idea what I was going for here, but one thing I did know when I set out to do this mani was that I wanted to use a sheer black jelly I made at home in my nail polish lair/cat den/taking-over-the-world laboratory. Everything else that came after that jelly base was pure luck/chaos/consequence. It kind of looks like Lady Gaga threw up on my nails, which in her eyes would mean sickkkkk.

Random brown triangles over sheer black

Further to the sheer black polish trend that has taken the nail art community by storm a couple months ago (see an old post about my knowledge of its roots), I decided to see what else I could use it for, if not just for emulating the look of black lace. So I went with what I named on my computer as 'Brown amazon triangles' and what I think after mattifying ressembles brown amazonian clay. Like something my grandmother would have made potterty with. But for the sake of this post and making sense to other people, I think 'Random brown triangles' is probably the better name to go with.

Emerald green runway

A while ago I did a neutral-toned negative space mani inspired by Kristin from @kgrdnr, but lately I've found myself swooning over her original photo and wondering what else I could do with it 'cause my beige version was BORING. Well, it was okay, in a meh kind of way, but I wanted something darker that catches the eye like Kristin's original delicious burgundy number. @chorubim showed the nail art world how Kristin's look could take on other dark hues, and Margaret from @m_a_tom showed us how we could use other specialty toppers to line the centre runway down the nail (which then influenced me to use pixie dust last time around). Just as luck would have it, Amy from @mcpolish posted an emerald green negative space mani a couple days ago, after I'd already done my nails almost basically the same! Great nail artists think alike, clearly.

Work appropriate mani Monday: Negative space lined with pixie dust

Negative space nails are a relatively new concept in the last couple of years - check out this pintrest feed for a better idea of how widespread they have become! Generally speaking negative space nails just means that some sections of your nail are left unpolished. I was never really excited about this because the idea of my nails being partially naked - nevermind fully naked - scares the shit out of me. As always I am inclined to polish ALL the nails, so negative space has always been an OH GOD NO.

Except for today, and I owe this one to three talented ladies who inspired me to just do it because negative space nails only need to be a little naked, after all. Clearly I'm a naked nail prude.

First up there's Kristin who is the woman behind @kgdnr on Instagram - this is the first time I saw this particular mani and I just about died it was so gorgeous. The contrast between the matte burgundy and Essie's 'Shine of the times' (SOTT) is just perfect. Next up @chorubim replicated Kristin's idea but in a rich royal indigo. When Margaret from @m_a_tom revealed this mani with OPI's gold flecks down the center line, I couldn't stop imagining all the possibilities!

It's highly likely that I'll replicate Kristin's original idea with SOTT, but for now here's a toned down version that's workplace appropriate for those of us who don't want everyone at the office to see the crazy in us that easily.