iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I made custom prider emojis for my discord server 😅 Missing the ace flag but waiting to hear which version they want.

An array of 9 (3 rows of 3) emojis of a male Maratus spider with arms up in the classic dance pose. Each has a different pride flag on the raised abdomen flap. In order m, they are the progress pride flag, pan, bi, lesbian, gay, trans, aromantic, nonbinary, and genderqueer.

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Also here’s a recent one that I’m very proud of, not least because I designed the polish for the background! I named the polish “Soup, Goliath, Albireo” because I am good at naming things. The art depicts the inspo: microbial soup, a Goliath beetle, the double/triple/maybe quad star Albireo

A close up of 4 fingers on my left hand. The background of each nail is a murky teal polish with green-turquoise shifting magnetic pigment and pink/orange green shifting iridescent flakes. Atop that I hand-painted a variety of colourful bacteria on my pinkie and ring nail, and the majority of a black and white Goliath beetle on my middle nail, with its blue- purple wings spreading across my index and a bit of my ring nail.

A close-up of my thumb nail with the same base polish, but I blobbed in a bit of purple to make it look extra-spacey. I used a dotting too to dot on some simple stars, and then hand-painted the two visible components of Albireo (an optical binary): the smaller blueish star and the larger orange star, which is itself a binary star.

2459

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

It’s just been browns to me attention that I haven’t posted here in at least a month. As it’s Pride month, let’s have some rainbows, shall we? Here are a few recent manicures I’ve worn.

A close-up of 4 nails on my left hand. They have been planted with a collection of milky white polishes that contain different colours of holographic glitters. I blob-brushed them on in two layers, using the different glitter colours to create a roughly diagonal gradient of 3-4 shades across each nail, which combine to create a rainbow across the full hand.

Another close-up of 4 fingers on my left hand. This time the background is painted in a mottled dark blue and green, and there’s a neon rainbow of Kodama spirits painted on top.

A shot showing all 5 nails on my left hand. Each nail is painted with a translucent white polish containing a rainbow mix of glitters. Around the perimeter of each nail, I painted a thin rainbow line. On the tip of each nail there is a silhouette of one or two cat heads, in rainbow order across the nails, and above there a rainbow of paw prints, outlined in white.

Another shot of all 5 nails on my left hand. This time they’re painted in an opalescent pale grey (almost white) polish packed with subtle iridescent flakes. On each nail I used a nail stamping plate to stamp one mermaid tail on each nail. Each tail is a gradient rainbow of holographic polishes, using 3-5 polishes per tail. I also hand-painted little rainbow bubbles above and around them.

2152

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Giant leopard moth mani? Giant leopard moth mani! Hand painted in nail polish, as usual, because I enjoy suffering.

A photo of my left hand with all nails facing the camera. Distributed across all but my pinkie nail, I have painted (parts of) a giant leopard moth against a pale, frosty, sparkly green background.

A close-up of the thumb nail, on which I have painted the moth’s thorax, head, and first pair of legs. It’s mostly fluffy white with touches of grey. The spots on the thorax are a rich dark blue encircled by black. The legs are black with white and blue markings, and the antennae are black with a touch of blue.

A close up of the other 4 nails. In this position it becomes clear that the index, middle, and ring finger nails when lined up depict the abdomen and wings of the moth. The wings are partially spread, just enough to reveal flashes of orange and blue in the abdomen on the middle nail. The wings themselves spread across the index and ring nails, white with stark black spots and rings. The white is softened with a bit of grey shadow hinting at the venation.

1297

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Did I forget to post my Artemis II nails that I did last week? Oops. I did them during a live stream on my YouTube channel. Someone in chat requested I include Artemis the cat from Sailor Moon so obviously he had to go on my thumb.

A close up of 4 fingers on my left hand. All are painted with a black nail polish with silver holographic flecks as the base. My index nail features the Orion capsule with solar panels splayed. The far side of the moon spans the tips of my middle, ring, and pinkie finger, and on my ring finger nail the earth is visible, halfway risen beyond the lunar surface.

A close up of my thumb nail featuring the white cat from Sailor Moon, wearing a cartoon-style bubble astronaut helmet. He’s slightly curled in a classic feline shrimp pose with his tail curling out behind him.

832999

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Attempted my first-ever challah. It’s delicious. *burp* Hey @asrivkin.bsky.social y’all need a loaf over there? I can swing by with one! @brianwolven.bsky.social and I can’t eat this much bread all at once (without suffering).

Two braided challah bread loaves in rectangular loaf pans, cooling on a wire rack on a stove top. The rounded tops of the braids are glossy and brown.

2173

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Only @drawfeeshow.com fans will understand this reference but I I had to give myself a Trans Rig mani for Trans Day of Visibility. Hand painted with nail polish as always - I did this one on a live stream so if you’re so inclined you can watch the VOD at www.youtube.com/live/ACQn3w0...

A close up photo of 4 of my fingernails. They’re painted with a shimmery blue sky and simple mottled green for grass and trees, with a silver holo road trailing off into
the distance on my pinkie. In the foreground I’ve painted a big rig truck spanning my index, middle, and ring finger nails. The cab is white with silver holo accents. The trailer is painted like the trans flag - long horizontal stripes of blue, pink, white, and then pink and blue again. On the side of the trailer I painted a trans symbol in black and silver holo.

2348

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Happy St. Patrick’s Day y’all! I don’t really do saints (or indeed green drunken revelry) but I do paint a mean festive manicure! Hand painted using nail polish. If you want to see how, watch the live stream recording on my YouTube channel! Spoiler: it’s just 2 hours of careful painting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A photo of my left hand showing all 5 nails painted in a sheer but sparkly green. The thumb is at the bottom and features a glass mug of golden-amber beer with a healthy head of foam. The remaining nails depict a rainbow-coloured snake slithering toward the beer, tongue out to taste the air. I’m wearing a 4-leaf clover ring on my index finger and a snake ring on my middle finger.

A close-up of my thumb nail showing the detail in the beer stein. It’s the dimpled type with curved sides and a hefty handle protruding from the left. The foam is rendered in an opalescent white to give a velvety effect.

A close up of the remaining 4 nails showing the rainbow snake. This isn’t based on a real species, it’s just a simple cartoony snake with long lines of colour running down its body, as though a rainbow came alive and decided a snake was the best thing to be.

2215

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Happy π day y’all! I baked a blueberry pie and did a pie manicure to celebrate (sadly the manicure, which I did Thursday night, did not survive to see the actual day since I had swatching to do).

A whole double-crust blueberry pie viewed from above. The pi symbol has been cut out of the centre of the top crust to reveal the blueberry filling (which also allowed some of that filling to boil over one section and run to the edge, eventually creating a semicircle of gooey blueberry filling tracing the edge of the fluting). Large sugar crystals were sprinkled over the top before baking, and combined with the egg wash to form a delicious-looking glossy, sugary, golden-brown crust.

A close up of my hand showing 4 finger nails. They are painted with a soft greyish-blue base, and I painted a whole pie on each (except the pinkie, which got a single slice instead). On the index is a lemon meringue. The middle has a blueberry that’s the inverse of the actual pie I baked - single crust but with a π symbol added to the centre with crust. The ring finger has a lattice-topped rhubarb custard pie. The pinkie features a single slice of key lime pie. For each pie, the crust has been made matte with a special top coat, while the pie fillings and the background are covered with a glossy coating.

A close up of the thumb nail, which features a double-crust cherry pie with “3.14” cut into it to reveal the filling.

23410

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

To add to the new native gardens we put in last summer, @brianwolven.bsky.social and i (okay mostly him) put in one of two new microponds last night. It looks pretty sad right now, but soon enough this should be a thriving little space for local small wildlife to hang out.

A mostly bare patch of soil littered with a few leaves. In the lower right there’s a metal bowl embedded in the dirt so the rim is level with the ground surface. The bowl is full of water with sticks and soil inside, and a clump of soil growing a blue flag iris is breaking the surface at the far side of the bowl. Around the bowl are planted three clumps of sedges and three small ferns. To the upper left of the image, there’s an overturned terracotta pot acting as a toad house. There’s also a part of a concrete plant stand visible above it.

2172

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Happy obligatory romantic observance day! I did these fluid art nails during my Thursday night live stream this week. I created fluid art decals, let them dry, then used a heart-shaped hole punch to create negative and positive hearts that I applied to the nails. I then hand-painted the details.

A close-up of my thumb nail. The swirled pink and white fluid art decal has two slightly overlapping hearts punched out of it to expose the reddish-brown base colour. I painted a tiny arrow piercing both hearts in a diagonal line moving from the feathered end in the lower left to the arrowhead in the upper right.

A close up of the other four nails on the same hand. The middle nail is an inversion of the thumb nail, with the punched-out fluid art hearts from the thumb adhered to the same reddish base in the same slightly overlapping arrangement. I also painted the same arrow shape, but moving the opposite direction, from the feathered end in the upper right to the arrowhead in the lower left.
The index and ring fingers are both fluid art decals with scattered hearts punched out - two on the index nail and three on the ring nail. The pinkie nail has a single fluid art broken heart in the middle over the same reddish base used in the rest. For this nail I took one of the punched-out hearts and cut it in a zig-zag line down the centre, then placed it on the nail with a slight gap between the two sides.

2111

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Every Thursday night I live stream nail art. For my first stream of Black History Month I asked chat to choose between 4 Black scientists I’d pre-selected. Chat, in their usual fashion, said “all 4, please”. Hence: Margaret Collins, Kathrine Johnson, Sophie Lutterlough, and Charles Henry Turner.

A photo of 4 fingernails on my left hand, each hand-painted with a design to represent one of the scientists. The background for each is a translucent blue-green polish with tiny metallic flakes. On the index nail, I painted a termite with a yellow and orange abdomen, thorax, and legs, and a large brown head and mandibles. On the middle nail, a tiny white rocket slingshots around the moon, trailed by a dashed line. The ring finger nail features and large brown mite with yellow legs and head, and the pinkie nail has two black ants in a line.

A close-up photo of my thumb nail with the same background polish. Hand-lettered in all caps, rendered in dark blue nail polish, it reads
COLLINS
JOHNSON
LUTTERLOUGH
TURNER

411240

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Oh and the magnetic rainbow aura gradient mani really needs to be seen in motion to be fully appreciated.

270

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

The other four nails for the Beaker mani had this fun skittle background that I painted little stereotypical lab science imagery on.

A close up shot of the other 4 nails in the Beaker design from the previous post. The index nail is pink with a green shimmer, and features outlines of a magnet, a beaker, and a magnifying glass. The middle nail has an orange polish with green shimmer, and depicts a Bunsen burner with flame lit and a round-bottomed boiling flask suspended above it. The ring nail is in yellow with Greek shimmer, with an Erlenmeyer flask full of bubbling liquid, a nuclear model of an atom, and a light bulb. The pinkie nail is painted green with a pink shimmer, and shows a ringed planet, a DNA strand, and part of a molecular structure diagram.

The same nails at an angle to show the colour shift in the shimmer (toward blue for the first 3 and toward yellow for the pinkie)

1132

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Nail art is basically my only therapy these days so here are some recent therapy pieces.

A photo of my left hand posed to show all 5 nails. Each is painted in a dark purplish- grey polish with a pale sand-coloured magnetic pigment. On my thumb nail, I painted Albireo in orange and blue: a star in the constellation Cygnus which is an optical binary. One component of Albireo (the orange star) is itself a true binary (or possibly a trinary - the jury is still out). On my middle nail I painted the constellation Pegasus and on my ring nail I painted Cygnus. You could call it sort of a self portrait - IYKYK

A manicure I did for slavery and human trafficking awareness. 4 fingernails on my left hand are shown facing the camera, all painted in a light grey with a soft blue shimmer. Across the index, middle, and ring nails, I painted a grey steel chain, which has broken on the middle nail, pieces flying away from the broken link.

A close up of my left thumb nail with a portrait of Beaker from The Muppet Show. The pale green top of his lab coat collar and a bit of his dark green tie peek up at the bottom (proximal end) of my nail. His bright orange hair sticks up chaotically toward the tip of the nail. He’s looking to the left with his typical worried/horrified expression. The background is painted with a plum coloured polish with a blue shimmer.

A photo of my left hand with all five nail showing. Each is painted with a smooth gradient: a rainbow in the centre of each nail, going from red at the proximal end to indigo at the tip. Around the circumference of each nail, the rainbow fades into a dark purple polish. It’s hard to tell in a still photo, but I painted the rainbow part using magnetic polishes, so in motion it looks really dynamic with the colours shifting, brightening and fading with the movement of my fingers.

78815

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Going to a (slightly belated) Boxing Day party this evening, so needed an appropriate* manicure for the occasion. *Note for people from non-commonwealth countries: this is not actually what Boxing Day is all about.

A close-up shot of my thumb nail. It’s covered in a deep smoky slate blue polish, and in the middle of the nail I have painted a Little Tykes Turtle Sandbox. It’s filled with gleaming gold-tinged sand, out of which is emerging a yellow plastic shovel handle. There’s a red pail resting on the sand.

A close up shot of my other 4 fingers, with the same background polish. Each nail has a different kind of box painted on it:
Index - a red vintage style lunchbox with an Astroboy picture on the side
Middle - a pink jewellery box, open to reveal a dancing ballerina in front of a gleaming silver mirror.
Ring - a pizza box, partially open to reveal pizza inside.
Pinkie - a crayon box with the top flap open showing the crayons inside.

2152

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Okay it’s officially Christmas. The Chelsea buns are done.

A bundle of Chelsea buns, arranged in a circle on a pan, surrounded by sugary goo. If you’ve never had Chelsea buns (aka sticky buns), they’re a bit like cinnamon rolls in structure, but have just a little cinnamon and a LOT of butter and brown sugar. They make their own sauce as they bake, and it caramelizes in the bottom of the pan. When you turn them out, the bottom becomes the top, and you have a glorious candy crunch atop pillowy yeast rolls.

2182

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

#ArtAdventCalendar is technically done, but I’ll leave with one last manicure - the one I’m wearing right now. Happy Santaween, y’all!

A close up of my thumb nail, painted in a green magnetic polish with silver holographic bar glitters. The effect is of silver & rainbow tinsel hanging on a Christmas tree. I painted strands in a shimmery indigo with white highlights, connecting coloured lights in red, orange, blue, and yellow. Each light bulb casts a coloured glow on the surrounding green background.

A shot of my full hand with all 5 nails visible. My index and pinkie nails are painted to match my thumb nail, but my middle and ring finger nails have a pearlescent white background with minimalist coniferous trees - just green triangles in the distance, made with magnetic nail polish.

A close up shot of my other 4 fingers. In this photo you can see that the pearlescent white on the two middle nails is swirled to give a frosty effect.

25110

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

I managed to miss day 24 of #ArtAdventCalendar because I was busy spending my entire day in the kitchen 😂 Glad my mom passed on her baking skills and quite a few recipes. She also taught me to sew a bit, but I never got much into that one. For day 24, here’s a quilt she made me, in manicure form.

A close up of my thumb nail. I divided it up into varying sizes of squares and rectangles, each painted in shades of turquoise and teal with black and white accents. Each rectangle echoes a pattern from the batik fabrics mom used in the quilt that inspired this manicure. (Yes, I have a LOT of teal and turquoise nail polish - it’s my favourite colour, and I definitely have at least 50 polishes in this colour family.)

A close up of my other 4 nails, with the same patterns as the thumb. Each nail is unique, but many of the rectangles use the same colours and patterns, since the quilt has many repeated blocks.

A photo of the quilt that inspired the manicure.

1295

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

#ArtAdventCalendar day 23 is a cloisonné cuetlaxōchitl (poinsettia) manicure. Mom always had these around to decorate the house during the holidays. Did you know the red “flowers” are actually leaves, and the true flowers are the teensy yellowish things in the middle? Hand painted in nail polish.

A shot of my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. My middle finger and thumb have silver snowflake knuckle rings (just the tip of the thumb one is showing at the bottom of the image). Each nail is hand-painted in sections with a candy apple red nail polish for the false flowers, a bright green for the lower leaves, and a white with a slight pink shimmer for the background. Thin gold lines separate each segment, and connect the tips of the leaves with nearby leaves from other plants. The whole effect looks like cloisonné or stained glass.

A close up of the thumb nail, which has a single red false flower with three green leaves visible around it. The centre has 5 true flowers, which I rendered using the same white as the background.

A close up of the other four nails. Like the thumb, my index and pinkie nails have only one false flower each, but the middle and ring nails each feature sections of two flowers, arranged such that the partial flower at the distal tip of both nails appears to connect to the other. The second partial flower on the middle nail is on the proximal end toward the index nail, and that on the ring nail is at the proximal end toward the pinkie nail. On both nails there are gold lines connecting the proximal flower’s leaf tips to the distal flower’s leaf tips.

56921

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 22, a deceptively simple manicure inspired by the JWST “Cosmic Cliffs” image of region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. I used a polish that was itself inspired by the same image to create the “cliffs” and cremes for the sky and stars.

$A close up photo of 4 finger nails of my left hand. My index and pinkie nails are painted with just the Cosmic Cliffs polish, with no nail art. The polish itself is a mix of metallic microflakes in a shifty reddish copper with a smattering of purple, blue, and green flakes in a translucent pale blue jelly base. The middle and ring nails have the flakie polish on just half the nail, starting from the tip and ending in a jagged line about halfway up. On the proximal half of the nail, I’ve painted a gradient from an almost-black midnight blue to a royal blue, and added a bit of a translucent white mist near the edge of the flakie transition. I then highlighted sections of that edge with a thin white highlight as a sort of rim lighting effect. I added stars with white polish over the entire nail. Most are simple white dots, with a few larger stars rendered with “starburst” diffraction lines.$ A shot of my full hand showing all 5 nails - the thumb nail, like the pinkie and index, is painted in just the coppery flakie polish. You can see more of the shifts in the flakie polish in this photo. The pinkie looks almost pink, while the ring nail cliff segment has an orange gleam, and the thumb nail is closer to a reddish-brown brick colour.

A shot of my full hand showing all 5 nails - the thumb nail, like the pinkie and index, is painted in just the coppery flakie polish. You can see more of the shifts in the flakie polish in this photo. The pinkie looks almost pink, while the ring nail cliff segment has an orange gleam, and the thumb nail is closer to a reddish-brown brick colour.

Another shot of just the four nails from the first photo, but this time angled so that the light hits the flakes differently. In this shot the flakie polish looks like gleaming bright new copper.

0298

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

For day 21 of #ArtAdventCalendar, a nail meme i painted on my nails! The original imagery for the meme is taken from Disney’s Fantasia, when the demon Chernabog is summoning ghosts and fire demons.

A close up of my thumb nail (unfortunately not as crisp as I’d like since I forgot to take a photo of it and had to screen grab this from a video!). The background is a gradient of dark to light blue nail polish with small silver holographic glitters. Over that is painted a black silhouette of the demon with his wings and arms raised above him, claws out. His eyes are glowing yellow slits, and I used blue cremes to highlight some of the muscles in his arms and wings.

A close up shot of my other 4 fingers, showing a scene spread out across all 4: Chernabog with his sings now spread to the sides covering portions of my index, middle, and ring nail. His arms are thrust out before him as though he’s playing a particularly energetic piano piece, and his fingers are splayed, claws extended. Around him a pale blue mist lightens the deep blue background.

A shot of my full hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. My middle finger has a silver knuckle ring that’s a daisy chain of human skulls.

The meme that inspired the manicure: an image split in half. On the left, Chernabog with his arms and wings raised above him, and on the right, the piano-playing pose with fingers splayed. Above the panels, text reads “When your girl shows you her new nails.”

1114141

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 20, a fun little number done as part of a group project in which everyone was assigned characters from the Rocky Horror Picture Show to translate into a manicure (I got Columbia). Hand painted with regular nail polish.

A close up of my thumb nail painted in a sheer nude base with a detailed depiction of the character Columbia’s mouth from the moment in the Sweet Transvestite song where she stage-whispers “bite” and then flicks her tongue out, sweeps it quickly to the side, and then pulls it in before swiftly bringing her teeth together. I’ve captured the tongue out and to the side, teeth bared and surrounded by bright red lips.

A close up of the other 4 nails with the same nude background. Each nail features an item from her sequinned wardrobe rendered in glittery polish. On the index is her gold hat with the black band. My middle nail has her bright red bow tie. On my ring finger, her black corset and gold belt. The pinkie is striped in black and red like her hot pants.

A further back shot of my whole hand showing all 5 nails facing the camera. I’m wearing two knuckle rings on my middle finger: a small silver star, and below it a rocket ship aimed toward a small ringed planet.

0294

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I’m threading this one for #ArtAdventCalendar day 19 for context because I did the thing! Please enjoy my invented species! Thumb: Maratus gingerbreadus Index: Maratus dreidelis Middle: Maratus yuletreei Ring: Maratus kinarae Pinkie: Maratus wreathii

A shot of my full hand with all 5 nails visible. I’m wearing a jumping spider face ring on my thumb knuckle and a snowflake ring on my middle finger knuckle. The background for each nail is painted with a frosty translucent white polish filled with various sizes and shapes of white and light blue glitters, mostly hexagonal but with a few circular and snowflake-shaped glitters, plus a light dusting of blue shimmer. The whole manicure has been coated with a matte top coat that gives an extra frosty vibe. Each nail features a hand painted jumping spider based on the Maratus genus. Most are at the tip of the nail such that the proximal end of the nail is “up” and the tip is the ground, but the thumb nail is reversed so that the tip is “up” and the proximal end of the nail is the ground.

A close up of the thumb nail. The jumping spider on this nail I’ve dubbed Maratus gingerbreadus - this species smells like ginger and makes an elaborate silk house with icing-like trim. It has a grey body, and its third pair of legs, striped in white and black, are up in the air in the classic dance pose of this genus. For the raised abdomen I’ve painted it to look like a classic gingerbread cookie with white royal icing defining a door, eaves, and some decorative marks.

A close up shot of the other 4 nails. All are in the classic dancing pose, with similar grey bodies and striped upraised signal legs.

My index nail is a Maratus dreidelis, whose mating dance involves a LOT of spinning. It features a dark blue abdomen with a light blue and white dreidel and light blue fringe.
My middle nail is a Maratus yuletreei, which has a distinctive green triangular abdomen with rows of brightly coloured red and yellow spots.
On my ring finger, Maratus kinarae features markings that resemble its namesake, the Kwanzaa candelabra known as a kinara.
My pinkie nail features Maratus wreathii, whose green eyespot against a light blue abdomen is adorned with red dots and a red bow-like shape at the proximal end.

2289

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

#ArtAdventCalendar day 18 is one I believe I’ve featured here before. From June of 2024. Still one of my favourite manis - this one is known by my nail friends as my “Priders” mani. For Pride spiders, naturally.

A shot of my thumb with the nail facing the camera, tip down. There is an image painted on the nail of a male Maratus jumping spider in a classic mating dance pose: butt flap raised straight up, and one pair of legs raised to the sky. Instead of real Maratus colouration, I painted the abdomen with the gay pride rainbow, the intersex flag on top of the cephalothorax, and the trans flag colours along with the brown and black stripes from the progress pride flag on the raised legs.

A shot of my other 4 finger nails similarly adorned with Maratus spiders. The index nail spider is painted in trans pride flag colours, the middle nail in the pan flag, the ring nail in the non-binary flag, and the pinkie in the asexual flag.

714839

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Day 17 of #ArtAdventCalendar - we’ve reached Halloween. (I’ve been mostly posting stuff in chronological order). I don’t often do manicures that require specific poses to totally make sense but I felt like this design still works alright without the proper pose. Simple and super quick but fun.

A photo of my hand with all my fingernails facing the camera. My thumb is coming up from the bottom of the photo such that the nail slightly overlaps the tip of my ring finger nail. Together, the two nails complete a partial skeleton, with the skull painted on the ring nail and the neck and rib cage painted on the thumb nail. My index, middle, and pinkie nails all have simple spermy ghosts painted on them - one each on the index and pinkie, and a cluster of 5 on the middle. The ghosts and skeleton are all painted with white nail polish on a background of a dark brown nail polish with a red shimmer that appears to almost glow.

A close up shot of the thumb nail and its simplified rib cage. This is perhaps the least detailed set of bones I’ve ever painted 😅

An angled view of the other 4 finger nails - the shimmer that appeared red in the first photo is instead a gleaming gold at this angle.

13913

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

It’s #ArtAdventCalendar day 16 and I have a plant mani for you! This was done to celebrate the birthday of a fellow nail nerd, and was inspired by photos of her house plants. All hand-painted with nail polish, as usual.

A close up of my thumb nail painted with a metallic pink polish with green-gold flakes. Over that, I painted two plants: the one in the lower left is very dark, almost black, and has lanceolate leaves on alternating petioles. Across the top and trailing to the right edge of the nail is a pothos plant.

A close-up of my other 4 finger nails with the same pink and gold background polish. Each nail has a monstera leaf painted across most of the nail surface, originating at the proximal end of the nail. The leaves are variegated, with multiple shades of green from almost-black to almost-white.

A further back shot of the 4 nails that have monstera leaves on them, against a grey background. My middle finger has a silver knuckle ring with a small white flower.

2346

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

My stream buddy is dressed for the season

050

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 15, here’s a manicure inspired by Cherry Springs State Park, in Pennsylvania. The park has some cute little observatory domes, which I tried to capture on my thumb nail. All hand painted with regular nail polish.

A close up view of my thumb nail. It’s painted in a gradient of sparkling dark blue with rad shimmer near the tip to lighter blue at the proximal end. Both polishes in the gradient contain holographic pigment, so there’s a scattering of rainbow sparkles throughout. In the foreground at the proximal end of the nail, I painted a silhouette of trees in black, and in front of those, two observation domes lit in blue and purple. There are a few stars painted in the sky - simple white polish dots.

A shot of 4 finger nails with the same night sky gradient (except here the horizon is on the tips of the nails so the darkest part of the sky is at the proximal end of the nails). The basic design is the same as the thumb nail, but the horizon is simplified, as though further away from the viewer, and the scene across all 4 nails shows a wide slice of the night sky, complete with the Milky Way stretching across three nails, starting at the horizon on the ring finger nail, and travelling across the middle and index nails. The Milky Way is painted using sponged-on white polish layered with a variety of sheer shimmer polishes in pink and blue and yellow.

A further-back shot of my hand showing all 5 nails. My middle finger is wearing a silver knuckle ring resembling a ringed planet, with a metal band orbiting an embedded moonstone.

33710

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

And for #ArtAdventCalendar day 14, I’m back on my bug shit. I painted this during a live stream. I hadn’t set out to do a wasp manicure, but early in the stream a tiny parasitoid wasp landed on my nail desk, and I started talking about them. Chat ended up demanding I paint cuckoo wasps on my nails!

A shot of 4 of my finger nails, painted in the bright yellowish green of new growth. The index, middle, and pinkie nails have leaves painted in a darker olive green, and a magenta shimmer over the whole nail. The ring finger nail features a cuckoo wasp in blue and purple and green glittering iridescent polish with black legs and antennae.

A close-up of my thumb nail, with the same green background. A brightly coloured cuckoo wasp is painted in sparkly red, purple, blue, and green iridescent nail polish with black details and a touch of white on the wings.

A different angle on the 4 nails shown in the first shot - the shimmer looks red instead of magenta at this angle.

24613

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

I missed day 13of #ArtAdventCalendar! This was one of my many attempts to recreate pottery I own on my nails. The inspiration was a lovely little pot from Little Crow Pottery in Maine (their etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/littlec... )

Close up of my thumb nail, painted with messy, swirling, interacting horizontal stripes of blue and green and brown. There’s a reddish-brown dot near the tip of my nail, giving the whole thing the look of an alien landscape.

A shot of my hand holding the pottery vessel that inspired the manicure. 4 of my finger nails are visible, painted in the same slightly chaotic lines as the thumb nail and the cup. There’s a reddish-brown dot on the vessel, which inspired the dot on the thumb nail.

A close up shot of 4 of my finger nails to show the manicure a bit better.

0215

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Day 12 of #ArtAdventCalendar takes us to the circus! I took inspiration from vintage circus posters for this one. As usual, all hand-painted with regular nail polish. I was particularly proud of the elephant in this one.

A close-up of my thumb nail, which is painted with radiating stripes in blue and off-white in the background, and a red and white circus tent in the foreground. There’s a yellow tent pole in the centre with a red banner waving in the wind.

2399

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Bugs! It’s day 11 of #ArtAdventCalendar and it’s time for more bugs. And plants, of course. I took inspiration from a fabric pattern and changed up the colours for this one.

A shot of my hand with all 5 finger nails visible. They are painted with a dark indigo polish, with abstracted flower and insect designs in pink, blue, green, and red.

A close up of 4 finger nails. My index nail has a bunch of red-stemmed mushrooms with pink fruiting bodies. There are also some tiny red ants and a blue daisy-like flower. My middle nail features a Luna moth and some small pebble-like shapes in all colours. The ring nail has a sinuous feather-like shape in greens pink, and blue, as well as some blue flowers and red leaves. The pinkie nail has a pink insect and several of the colourful pebbles.

A close up of my thumb nail with a blue and pink branched plant structure with many alternating leaves. There are also a large red leaf, the edge of a mushroom cap, some pebble shapes, and a tiny blue isopod.

26914

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Had a rather busy day and neglected to post #ArtAdventCalendar day 10! As it was Human Rights Day, I’ll go with this “Water is a human right” mani I did just the other day.

A close-up shot of my thumb nail, painted in a glittery royal blue polish, with the word “water” painted sideways on it in all caps using white nail polish. Toward the bottom of each letter it turns to light blue, and under the letters there’s a pool of swirled white and light blue polish with reflective glitter sparkles.

A close up shot of my other 4 finger nails, painted in the same glittery blue background as the thumb. On my index nail I painted a metal spout on the proximal end, with a single large droplet shape in light blue and white. The middle nail has the word “is” in light blue across the proximal end and the letter “a” in white written sideways underneath. My ring nail has the word “human” written in light blue, reading sideways from the tip of my nail, and my pinkie nail has the word “right” written in white vertically from the proximal end to the tip of the nail.

A slightly wider shot showing all 5 nails facing the camera so that the full phrase “water is a human right” can be read.

0135

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Yes, I can confirm that Jammie Dodgers is a pseudobiscuit.

The face of a grey Scottish fold cat, sort of upside-down. She is lying beside me on the sofa and craned her neck waaaaaaay back to look up at me past my arm, but thanks to the angle of the camera all you can really see of her is her face and those big amber eyes.

020

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Day 9 of #ArtAdventCalendar is a mani I did as part of a challenge - the idea was to create art based on the name of a nail polish. The polish I chose was called “Life Sprouts From Death”, which gave me a great excuse to paint some bones and pose with one of my skeleton buddies.

A close crop of my hand holding a miniature plastic human skeleton, my fingers wrapped partly around its torso so that 4 of my nails are in view (my thumb is on the skeleton’s shoulder and turned mostly away from the camera). My thumb, index, and pinkie nails are painted with a shimmery teal (the polish that inspired the manicure). My middle and ring nails have a turquoise creme polish for the background sky, and depict a rib cage (middle nail) and skull (ring nail) of a fox, with grasses and yellow flowers growing through and around them.

A view of my hand (no longer holding the skeleton) with all 5 nails facing the camera. I’m wearing a silver knuckle ring on my middle finger, featuring skulls linked together like a chain of daisies.

A close up view of 4 finger nails - you can see all the detail in the flowers and skeleton here. The flowers are Helianthus angustifolius, the swamp or narrow leaf sunflower - one of my favourite local native flowers!

03811

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

For day 8 of #ArtAdventCalendar, I give you…spaghetti. This one was for a fellow nail art nerd’s birthday, and was something of an inside joke that I won’t bother explaining. All hand painted using regular nail polish.

View of my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. The thumb shows an overhead view of a bowl of spaghetti, with the noodles extending across the full nail, and the sauce and 4 meatballs plopped down in the middle. The other nails all show a side view, each of a heaping pile of spaghetti topped with sauce and 2-3 meatballs. The negative space above the heap is painted with a sheer nude jelly polish. On all nails, the spaghetti noodles and the meatballs are matte, while the sauce and the nude background (where applicable) are glossy.

A close-up of the thumb nail. A tangle of noodles are rendered in multiple noodly shades for depth and made matte with a special mattifying top coat. The glossy sauce is a bright red blotch in the centre, a little translucent in spots so you can see the noodles underneath. The 4 mattified meatballs are perhaps a little overcooked - I probably could have mixed a bit less black into the brown polish I used! There are even some dry-brushed dabs of a creamy off-white to simulate grated Parmesan in the middle!

A close up of the 4 fingernails that show the side-view of the spaghetti. Each nail has two meatballs except the middle nail, which got 3.

0144

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 7 we travel north to the Brooks range in Alaska, where a photographer named Rolf Hicker took a beautiful photo of an inuksuk, which I used as the basis for a mani! Inuksuit are made in a bunch of types - this human-like form is called an inunnguaq.

Photo showing my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. My thumb, index, and pinkie nails are painted in a frosty, glittering silvery-white with a faint blue shimmer. My middle and ring nails have a deep blue base with snow-covered mountains painted in white, blues, and periwinkle. The middle nail has a realistic painting of an inuksuk in the foreground, with a light dusting of snow over it.

A photo my hand a little further back wit just 4 fingers shown, pointing down to the right. I’m wearing a silver ring with a single 5-pointed star above another silver ring depicting a mountain range.

A close-up photo of 4 finger nails showing the inuksuk more clearly.

1213

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Okay I’m finally all caught up with this post (yay) for #ArtAdventCalendar day 6! One of about a gazillion beetle-inspired manicures I’ve done over the years. This one is Calligrapha beetle elytra! Sadly in real life they’re not shimmery and shifty like these ones, but they deserve the glow-up.

A close-up of my thumb nail. The almond-shaped tip is painted with a flaky, sparkly green polish to echo leaves. The actual beetle elytra take up the part of the nail that’s attached to the finger (making the green section a sort of “French tip”. I painted the elytra in white creme polish with black lines and dots based on actual beetle species, then topped them with a shifty, shimmery polish topper that gives a pink and yellow sheen over the white areas and green in the black areas.

A shot of 4 fingers at an angle to show the blue shift of the shimmer topper over the black areas of the elytra designs. Each nail has the same basic design as described for the thumb, but with different patterns of black markings to denote different species.

Another close-up shot of 4 nails, this time straight-on. All 4 of the shimmer shift colours are visible here: pink and yellow over the white, and blue and green over the black.

39630

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

#ArtAdventCalendar day 5 (almost caught up!) this was a fun mani, and an unusual subject matter for me: fishing buoys! I took inspiration from the wonderful displays found on fishing shacks along the shore in Cape Cod, and chose a magnetic background polish that shifts and shimmers like water.

A shot of all the finger nails facing the camera. The background polish is a deep blue with pale silvery-blue magnetic particles, and looks like sun glinting off the water. The buoys are hand-painted in bright creme nail polish shades, featuring many different types and colours of buoys arranged as though hanging off a net.

A close-up of the thumb nail - there’s a white and baby blue striped buoy in the lower right, a white buoy with two horizontal green stripes and a row of peach dots in the lower left, a fat white and yellow buoy with a bright red lobster in the upper left, and just the corner of a green buoy in the upper right.

A shot of 4 finger nails at an angle. Notable buoys include a bright yellow with a vertical stripe of baby blue dots on the index (it looks like the Beatles’ yellow submarine), a blue and white buoy with a red lobster on the middle nail, and on the ring nail, a yellow buoy with a peach stripe along the bottom and a white strip above it with a line of green dots.

3468

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Who can know the mind of a kitten?

0283

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

#ArtAdventCalendar day 4 is a cute little space otter I did for a friend’s birthday. Done in nail polish - the background is built-up layers of different shimmer polishes dabbed and sponged over a deep blue creme base. Painted some stars and the otter overtop with creme nail polish. #OtterSpace

Close up of the thumb nail with swirls and blobs of shimmering purple, green, blue, and orange over a deep blue base. There are two large white 4-pointed stars and a bunch of smaller pinprick stars scattered all over.

A view of all 5 nails facing the camera. The otter is on the ring finger nail, appearing to be poking its head out of the “water” of the nebula.

A close up of 4 fingers, which shows the otter a bit better.

35912

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Still playing catchup on #ArtAdventCalendar - for day 3, how about a little cottagecore cuteness? All hand-painted with nail polish. We call this style where every nail has a different base colour a “skittle” 😅

All 5 fingernails aimed toward the camera showing a cottagecore manicure. The thumb features a frog playing the banjo, with a swampy, flaky background. The index has a pair of fly agaric mushrooms, one with a snail on top, on a murky green background. The middle nail has a navy background with pink and green flowering vines. The ring shows a white duck with a blue bow around its neck against a red shimmery background. The pinkie is more of the flowering vines but against a sage background.

A close-up shot of the same manicure but without the thumb nail visible.

A close-up shot of the thumb nail with its banjo-playing frog.

5417

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

And for #ArtAdventCalendar day 2, some fishing lures 😅 Variations on this design have trended on social media for a while. I used creme polishes for the bases, some with gradients, and topped them all with a sheer holographic magnetic polish. Then I added details using more creme polishes.

A close up photo showing all the fingernails and thumb nail facing the camera. There’s a gradient of colour across all the nails such that the pinkie and thumb and both fully blue, the middle is fully green, and the index and ring finders are ombré. The rainbow sheen of the magnetic topper shows best on the pinkie here since it’s a little out of focus. Each nail has either stripes or dots in dark orange, in addition to the black gill lines and black and white eyes.

A different angle close up on just 4 finger nails - this one shows the rainbow sheen a little better.

520658

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I’ve been forgetting about #ArtAdventCalendar - imma start with a belated day 1 because I can do what I want and you can’t stop me. The first is a unicorn design I painted back in June.

Close up on four fingernails showing a hand painted white unicorn against a shimmery blue, green, and pink nebula with white stars. The unicorn’s head is on the index finger, while the neck and mane flow across the middle finger and the ring and pinkie fingers just have the nebula background and stars.

Same as the first shot but at a slight angle so the light hits the shimmery nebula differently, pulling out gold and turquoise shades.

A close-up of the thumb nail, which has the same style of nebula background as the other nails, with a scattering of stars.

3338

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

No costume for Timiny Cricket this year but I did catch a nice little illusion.

A young grey tabby (Timiny Cricket) sits on a stair, 2 steps down from the landing, with his face turned toward the camera. Behind him on the landing is a black witch’s hat with gold skulls & crossbones. The hat is lined up perfectly so it looks like Timiny is wearing it.

2483

Peggy Wolven @vexedmuddler.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Happy Meowloween from Jammie Dodgers (and the rest of us)!

2243