Pink Dot Pond Manicure

I really enjoy scrolling through my social media feeds on Twitter and Instagram and seeing all the lovely manicures other people have been trying out, and in the last few days I have been seeing a few pond manicures pop up here and there and just had to have a go myself.

When I was looking at my polish collection I couldn't find anything quite sheer enough to get the right look.  I decided to use Models Own Pink Fever which is quite sheer with one coat, but when you build up further coats it wouldn't work effectively for this technique.  Using an empty polish bottle I mixed my colour with clear top coat to create something more sheer.  For the dots I used my Mo You stamping polish in White Knight.  The opacity of the stamping polish made it a perfect choice as I knew it would be visible through the rest of the layers.

To start I applied one thin coat of my new sheer pink, and then added on white dots in varying sizes. When this was dry I added another thin coat of pink and white dots.  I continued this process for about four layers.  I love the depth this technique gives.  As you build up the layers the dots gradually change in colour getting darker with each layer giving an ombré effect using only two colours.  I have tried overlapping dots like this before using different shades of a colour and it has always ended up looking messy, but I think the depth makes all the difference here.  I decided to leave the last dots white to make it look as though they were floating on the top layer.  I also thought that another layer of pink might have made the first lot of dots blend in too much.

I really like this technique and want to try it again with something more complicated than dots so I'm on the lookout for some nice sheer colours.  Any suggestions?

Thanks for stopping by
Aimée x

Neon Flower Nails

We have been treated to some beautiful summery weather recently in London so I thought I would match my nails to the bright weather.  I skipped right over the pastels for this one and looked at the brighter polishes in my collection.

In the end I opted for Let's Get Lost from Essence as my base.  You could almost get away with one coat of this polish as it's really pigmented, but I always tend to prefer two coats anyway.  I really like the brushes in these bottles because they are flat with rounded tip, so you get a really good coverage in just a few strokes, but I find I have to be careful not to flood polish at the sides of my nails.

To add the extra bright factor to my design I used neon studs from the Born Pretty Store as petals for flowers.  I added a small dot of yellow polish as a guide for the centre of the flower and then painted a thick coat of top coat over the whole nail.  Whilst it was still wet I carefully pushed the studs onto my nail, sticking them in the wet top coat.  To pick up the studs, I used an orange stick with a small bit of blu-tack on the end shaped into a point.  Once I had finished the placement, some of the studs covered up the yellow for the centre of the flower, but nothing another dot of yellow polish in the centre wouldn't fix.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to add a flower to all of my nails, so I worked from the outside in, and when I had finished the pink flower I really liked the accent feature I had created and thought that any more might spoil the look.  What do you think?

One thing to note is that the ends of these studs do lift away from the nail slightly, as they are flat, and nails are curved.  I added a thick layer of glossy top coat over my finished flowers to seal them in place and prolong the life of my flowers.

If you'd like to get these studs, or anything else from the Born Pretty Store you can get 10% off using code HFG10.  You can see how I used the square ones from this wheel at Christmas here.  I particularly like this shape combination because there are so many different ways you could use them.

Thanks for stopping by
Aimee x

Nautical Nail Art

I've often wondered about painting some nautical nail art, but have always decided against it, until now.  I think my main reservation has been that there seems to be a lot of similar looking designs around and I didn't want to create anything too samey; I wanted to do something a bit different and I hope that I have achieved that.

A while ago I bought some new stamping plates from MoYou including The Sailor 03 plate.  This is where I started planning my design.  I first chose the pattern that I was going to stamp, and worked from there.  Other nautical nails I have seen seem to use white, red, and blue as their main colours, but I decided that I just wanted blue and white.  I started off with a white base on all my nails and then stamped my waves with Barry M Blue Grape, on all fingers other than my ring fingers.  My original plan was to paint anchors on the plain white base to go with the waves, but then I remembered that I had some anchor nail tattoos left from when I reviewed Fake Tattoos Nail Tattoos.

I thought a single anchor on a plain white base might look a bit lost, so I added a large sized tattoo to my thumb nails and then smaller sized ones on the rest of the nails with stamped waves, making sure to put them at different angles and positions on my nails.  I was then left with a conundrum with what to do with my accent nails as I had changed the design I had planned in my head.  I painted over them with two coats of Blue Grape and added three different sized gold studs from the Born Pretty Store.

I am not sure how I feel about this design overall because, once I had finished, I kind of wished that I had started with a blue base on all nails and stamped the waves in white.  Blue Grape is such an amazing colour I am not sure that the stamped design does it justice.  Having said that, I don't think the anchors would have showed up so well if my base had been darker blue, so there's benefits to both.  What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by
Aimee x

My Top Three Nail Colours

Posts like this are really difficult to write because how, out of my collection of 192 colours, can I just pick three?  I figure that if I use a colour a lot that it must be a favourite otherwise why would I keep reaching for it over and over?

I whittled down my choice to these three beauties, and tried to include something for everyone, and to suit most budgets.  Also, they are all great for spring.