Dry Garden Nail Art.

Hello lovely people!

I hope you're all doing well.

It has been a nice, quiet weekend for me; I spent a good portion of yesterday in my pj's. It was fun, it has been a while since I've done that and today has just been nail art. Pretty much my ideal weekend - the only thing missing is reading, but I'll be doing that as soon as this post goes live. 

I decided to create a winter-ish design this week. Since it's still quite cold here and winter is showing no sign of leaving anytime soon, it gave me a chance to use some of the colours I don't very often get to. I also got to use another "new" plate!
I'm calling this one Dry Garden, due to the use of the dry brush technique, as well as the dark colours. 

These are the nail polishes I used:

Snuggle Me by Face Of Australia

Instant Adventure by Essence

Mixetaupe by Essie

Black Stamping Polish by Emily de Molly

Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

Top and Base Coat by Rimmel

I also used these tools:

Stamping Plate BP-79 by Born Pretty

Large Clear Stamper

Scraper

Liquid Latex by Lulaa

I started with Top and Base Coat. After drying, I applied two coats of Mixetaupe. Taking Snuggle Me, I wiped off the excess polish from the brush using the neck of the bottle. Once I felt I had the right amount of polish on the brush, I gently swiped it across the nail in varying directions. I continued this for all five nails, reapplying when necessary.
The same was done with Instant Adventure, making sure to leave enough of the base colour showing through.
Next, I applied liquid latex around each nail, then allowed to dry before continuing. I then gathered my stamping tools (see list above). Taking stamping plate BP-79, I applied Black stamping polish over the image, scraped off the excess, picked up the design with the stamper and pressed it onto the nail - rolling the stamper back and forth to make sure the whole image transferred correctly. Again, doing this for all five nails, making sure to clean the stamping plate and stamper between each use.
Once the stamps were dry, I applied a coat of Kwik Dry Top Coat to seal it all in.

I really liked this one.
I think it has a bit of an elegant feel to it, which I'm not so good at because, to be honest, I am not exactly very elegant myself! Hahaha!
I do like to dabble though. Besides, I like to do anything and everything on my nails.

I'm also trying to create more winter-themed nails, using those deep cozy colours. Every time I go searching online for ideas on winter nails, all I get is a bunch of snow related stuff, which is frustrating because it only snows in certain areas here, so it seems a little silly for me to do designs like that. 

I also get a lot of Christmas ones, which I don't even like to do during the holiday seasons. I'm not going to start doing them now. 

What do you think?

What do your winter nails look like?

Leave me a comment below with links to your nail art so I can check it out.

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Thanks for stopping by!

Ohh Shiny! Sequins & Metallic Nail Art

Hello lovely people.

I know we are currently within the holiday seasons, but as I detest all things Christmas, I won't be doing any kind of festive nail art this year (Here is one from last Christmas). Instead, I am opting for my usual style, what ever the heck I feel like, gosh! (little Napoleon Dynamite reference there). I will be focusing mainly on summer themes. This one how ever, is something I've wanted to do for a while. I have purchased a multitude of these nail sequins and they're just sitting in my nail art box, waiting for the day I'm brave enough to try them out. That time has finally come!  

Ohh Shiny! Nail Art

I used these polishes:

Ready To Take Off by UNT Cosmetics (peel off base coat)
A Mermaid's Tale by Face Of Australia, from the Calypso Bay collection
Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

The only products I used were the sequins which happen to have the longest product name ever! They're from Born Pretty store and the 'colour code' is 11.

Ohh Shiny! Nail Art with A Mermaids Tale

For this nail art, I applied a thin coat of Ready To Take Off. I did this so it'd be a hell of a lot easier to remove the sequins. I'm really not sure how these would go with acetone, but I can imagine it would not be fun. Once that was completely dry, I applied two coats of A Mermaids Tale. I then removed a small amount of the sequins from the jar and spread them out on my desk - this makes it a little easier to pick them up. I have a bottle of Kwik Dry Top Coat that's gotten a little gluggy with age, so I used this as a glue. I placed a small dot of polish onto my ring finger, placed a sequin on the polish and pressed it onto the nail using my finger. I continued this using various sizes to fill the nail as much as possible. I then placed a small dot of polish on my index and middle finger, then placed a large sequin on each of them. I finished with my non-gluggy Kwik Dry Top Coat. 

Ohh Shiny! Nail Art with Born Pretty Sequins

This didn't turn out exactly as I had planned it in my head and I know exactly why. Some of these sequins are thicker than I had originally thought. Being that I was applying a flat, non-malleable item onto a rounded surface, there were bound to be some issues. If you look closely at some of the larger ones you'll see they are slightly raised when placed outside the center of my nail. I think if I were to do this again I'd use a lot more of the smaller ones and stick to the center of the nail for the larger ones. 

I do love these colours together, though. The metallic polish being so close to the greeny-blue sequins was pretty exciting. I haven't really used this polish much, due to the streaky nature of it. But for this, I think it totally works. 

What do you think?
Do you like sequins in nail art?
Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by!