Marimekko (III)

Inspired by Marimekko

I recently purchased OPI Alpine Snow, which is the first ever decent white polish I've owned. This one actually goes on smooth and is opaque in two layers (one, if you spread it on thick, which personally I try not to do). I used to feel a resistance against designs with a white base, but that's over now. Hooray for OPI!

Here's an accent nail design that is loosely inspired by a Marimekko bag. I say loosely as I didn't have a picture of the bag in front of me while painting this. It's freehand with a bag in the back of my mind.

Products used:
OPI Alpine Snow
Nubar Hot Yellow
Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris
Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed Top Coat

Pick 'n' Mix

Pick 'n' Mix

A little of this, and a little of that. Lately, I often have a hard time choosing what designs to do and wear. For example, a water marble is always fun, but is it do-all-ten-nails-fun? Hardly. 

The result is a pick 'n' mix, or a "all nails get to be accent nails today!" mani:

Shh, say nothing and no one will notice the chipped glitter on the index finger... DAMMIT

Products used:

Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

H&M Nailpolish Pink (57587)

Nubar Hot Yellow 

Isadora Wondernail #103

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

All That Glitters - Spottie Dottie Dark

Loose craftglitter from Panduro

+ a few hex brew mixes on the middle finger.

Inspired by a textile

The Fox and the Grapes

This freehanded accent nail manicure is inspired by one of my favourite textiles: "Surt sa räven" designed by Kerstin Boulogner and produced by Swedish textile company Almedahls. The Swedish proverb "Surt ,sa räven" ("Sour, said the fox") refer to the fable about the fox and the grapes, though the grapes have been translated into rowan berries in the Swedish version. So, there you have it, tiny foxes and beige rowan berries:

 

Lower left picture courtesy of Almedahls

Products used:

Essie Case Study

China Glaze White on White

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Chanel Holiday

Water Marble (I)

Yellow & Black Water Marble

I've been staying inside the whole weekend due to a flu, and what's better to do if your sitting still anyways than a time consuming water marble? I don't do marbles very often as the clean up is so tedious. Even with scotch tape all around your fingers before dunking them into the marble I find you need a lot of time to clean up the skin closest to the nails. Maybe I just don't have very good taping skills? Anyway, I'm glad I took the time to do these. The dots are made with a needle after a layer of top coat. I always seem to smudge dots like these if I do them before.

The observant reader will notice that the index and little finger designs are slightly different in this picture...

...comparing to this. I accidentally got some paper stuck on those when blowing my nose, and, eew, had to re-do them promptly.

Products used:

Nubar Hot Yellow

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Depend Quick and Shine Top Coat

Froggy (I)

Poison Frog

Lately, I've been thinking about frogs. It started out when I accidentally made a few dots on a green polish base, which made me think about poison frogs, which naturally in turn made me google "poison frogs". One of the first picture results that came up was the frog seen below: Zimmermann’s poison frog (Ranitomeya variabilis). How great is that for manicure inspiration?

So, I decided to try. For this gradient I used a blue base (Isadora Wondernail Bel Air Blue) and a neon yellow (Depend #35) on top. I love using neon yellows on top of blues instead of using neon greens - I find it makes more electrifying neon greens and smoother gradients.

This gradient was done using a piece of a kitchen sponge, and was sponged 4 times before a smoothing top coat was applied. The black dots (Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris) was done with a tooth pick, but any kind of dotting tool or pointy thing found around the house would suffice.

Products used:
Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris
Depend #35
Isadora Wondernail Bel Air Blue

Galaxoid

Dots on dots over dotting

Disco galaxy nails? Not sure how to term these, but I like it. The smaller dots are made the Arya Stark way: the pointy end of [a] needle. The bigger dots are made directly with the nail polish brush on a zip lock bag (see picture below). I like using dense glitter such as Nails Inc.'s Chelsea Embankment (gold), Chelsea Square (rose gold) and Electric Lane (holographic) as the middle dot. It's like pretty, home-made jewellery to stick on top of any manicure!

 

 

Figure 1.

Figure 2. Because I'm both lousy with cameras and indecisive.

This old spoon experiment I've made a while back was the inspiration, and this was in turn blatantly inspired by Disco Nail. If you are not familiar with Disco Nail, check it out. There's no nail artist I adore more. By the way, that hole in the middle of the tallest palm tree is no hole but a large rhinestone shot in the one angle where it kind of disappears. Curious!

I love to premake stuff like this on zip lock bags. You can make thick dots and let them there to dry for as long as you want. I've used this trick to be able to make manis on my 6 year old niece, who otherwise will smudge it during the eeeendless drying time. Because of that, I have quite the experience with making tiny ladybugs on zip locks...

Products used:

Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

Nails Inc Chelsea Square

Nails Inc Electric Lane

China Glaze For Audrey

China Glaze Ride the Waves 

China Glaze Pelican Grey

China Glaze Pool Party

China Glaze White on White

OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!

Lancôme Le Vernis 011 Piha Black

Isadora Wonder Nail #702 

Isadora Wonder Nail #651   

Glitter Bonanza (I)

High grade ore Nails

Inspiration: once again, CND's Tarnished Metal Nails

This is something as unusual as a mani I've worn for two days straight. It did, however evolve a bit on the road:

First, it was simply a black base with some leaf metal in gold, silver and bronze...

...then Nails Inc. Chelsea Square happened.

 And then, the sparkly goodness that is Nails Inc. Burlington Arcade swept me off my feet. The holo hexes and shredded glitter in this polish (from the Nail Jewellery collection) made my mani go from "mildly interesting ore grade" to "close all the other mines, we've got all the metals we need right here". And why, yes, I do probably need dynamite and a staffed drill rig to get this of my nails. 
 
Which version do you prefer?

Holy sparkles, Batman!

Products used: 
Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris 
FIMO Leaf Metal
Nails Inc. Chelsea Square
Nails Inc. Burlington Arcade