Monday, 25 March 2013

Aussie Nails Monday - Blue



It's no secret that blue is probably my favourite polish colour.  So I was pretty stoked that this week's theme for ANM was BLUE.  At first I was a bit daunted, especially considering I used blue in my ANM manicure from last week.  But being fairly new to nail art and the polish world, I knew there were heaps of different ways I could do my nails that I hadn't tried before and I was excited.

I was originally going to do a blue skittle manicure - dots, stripes, gradient, stamping, etc.  But then I chickened out.  I was worried it would all look great and then I would suck at one part of it (dotting - I can't figure it out... and I failed miserably at the gradient I tried on my sister's nails last week...).  So I decided to do something that I was semi-familiar with, but that also challenged me.

So I bring you my blue geometric nails!


I'm actually pretty happy with how this turned out.  Some of the striping is not as crisp as I would have liked, but it is far better than I imagined it would be.  Clean up was also a bit tricky - I was covered in sparkles from removing my previous manicure, and while blue is notoriously difficult to clean up, I think I was also a bit lazy and tired after doing my nails...

For my base colour (the stripes), I used Essence Sleepy, a gorgeous pale blue with a subtle shimmer.  The other blue polishes I used were:

China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le
China Glaze Frostbite
China Glaze Dorothy Who?
Sinful Colours Why Not?
Color Club Over the Moon

I started by applying two coats of Essence Sleepy and topping it with a coat of HK Girl and leaving it for an hour to dry.  Then I used striping tape to mark out my 'areas' and used a small nail art brush to apply the blues, one colour at a time.  For my very first nail I did all five colours and then removed the tape, but it took FOREVER and I had to constantly clean my brush for the new colour.  So for all the remaining nails, I applied the same polish to all the nails, then cleaned the brush, then started the next polish, etc and then removed the striping tape right at the end.  I then sealed it all in with two coats of HK Girl TC.

Please check out the awesome manicures of the other ANM participants.  I love seeing what they come up with and they are all awesome nail artists!

Next week's ANM theme is 'Inspired by Clothing'.  I have no idea what I am going to do.  I could be lazy and use my houndstooth SH Nail Strips, but I would much prefer to try some 'art'.  Looks like I'll be scouring google during the week for some inspiration!   


Check out the other awesome girls participating in ANM!

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