Polished Indulgence: Nail Art Wednesday: Snowflakes Inspired Nails

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Nail Art Wednesday: Snowflakes Inspired Nails

I'm a big fan of snow. I love how the whiteness blankets everything and makes even the most horrible looking places look absolutely magical. I like the way it can look like thick frosting or at times, a light dusting of sugar icing. My favorite kind is the wet variety that clings to everything and sparkles like diamonds when the light shines on it a certain way. After so many winters, this island girl at heart is still enamored of the frozen white stuff. But do let me just get this straight. Snow = Yay but Cold, arctic winds = Boo. It's a good thing they don't usually come hand in hand although I find that here in the GTA, they kind of do. That certainly doesn't diminish my great fascination with it. (See, it even snows on the blog!) So it really doesn't come as a surprise that I'd eventually come up with nail art that's inspired by snow:

Snow-inspired sparkly tips!

What I Used:

Blue shimmer: Sally Hansen Blue It
Blue/teal duochromatic glitter: Confetti Ice Ice Baby
Silver stamping polish: Rimmel Lasting Finish Pure Silver
Holographic microglitter: Sally Hansen Silver Slightblade
Stamping plate: BM- 213 using the design encircled below (the one directly above the bats).

How I Did It:

***I actually remembered to take photos while doing this design so we'll skip the how-to drawings in favor of actual nail swatches.

1.) After prepping your nails and applying your favorite base coat, apply two (or more) coats of your chosen base color. For this design, we're using a blue shimmer. Make sure you get full coverage and the polish is dry before proceeding to the next steps.

2.) Apply a layer of the blue/teal duochromatic glitter. If you don't have any glitter that fits the bill, any regular silver glitter or multi-colored glitter will work, too.

3.) Place some of your silver glitter or holographic glitter at the tip of the nails. I was thinking this would make it look like the snow is falling on it but once you see the completed design, the holographic glitter didn't really show up that clearly. Feel free to skip this step.

4.) Stamp the design using your silver polish.

5.) Top it all with a layer of holographic microglitter and top coat to seal in the design. All done!

Easy peasy, right? I know the pattern doesn't quite look exactly like snowflakes..more like snow balls or something. But hey, I was happy to sport these and they looked perfectly fine from afar. ;) My camera had such a hard time taking photos of this. I guess the glitter overload was a little too much for it to handle.