Friday, June 20, 2014

Vintage Floral - The Love Affair Continues...


Happy Freakin' Friday, all! I had a pretty rough work week and I am so beyond glad that it is time to relax and not stress for a few days. To celebrate, I did a mani just for me. Not for a tutorial or a challenge, but for me!  I found a pattern I loved and just did nail art for the sake of doing nail art.

While I love doing challenges and tutorials (okay, I don't love tutorials, but I do them because I love you guys!), they can be really taxing when you're not feeling in the mood or are lacking inspiration so painting my nails with something just for me was incredibly cathartic and refreshing for me. This was one of those manis that I was literally squealing with joy once I had finished them. I am so incredibly smitten with how they turned out. 

One of my all time favorite blogs is Print & Pattern. As I'm sure you can guess, they share some phenomenal prints and patterns and as I'm sure you know by now, I'm obsessed with prints and patterns. Everything they share seems to be exactly my taste and I can almost always find something to spark a creative thought. One pattern in particular (that I pinned awhile back) is from Alice Potter's website and is my favorite thing in a long time. 
I started with a base of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls then added the pink roses using a mixture of pink, white and red acrylic paints. I started in the center of the rose and worked my way out, taking care to leave space between the petals. I used a similar concept for the teal (Essie's Ruffles and Feathers) flowers, making sure I left white space between the petals. With another mixture of dark and light green acrylic paints, I used my striping brush to add the leaves. Finally, I finished off the look by filling in the white space with teal and green almond shape dots and added a matte top coat. 
To say I love this mani is an understatement. I am obsessed. I think I love it so much because I wasn't stressing about whether or not the general masses would enjoy it or not. I just painted them because I loved the pattern and needed it on my nails right away. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything I've been doing lately, so this mani grounded me a bit and reminded me just how much I love painting my nails. 
I'd love to hear what you think of this look! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! 

Happy Polishing :) 

P.S. I've added a quick pictorial for this! Just a note, the colors in the pictorial look a slightly different because I used polish for the roses and the green leaves instead of the acrylic paint mixture I mentioned. Since I did the pictorial after the original mani, I only painted one finger and didn't want to waste time or paint mixing up the same colors. Enjoy!
1. Start with a white base polish and let dry completely. 
2. With a pink polish, start the center of a rose with 3 sections, like a pie. 
3. Add 2 more rows of petals around the center. These are just random oblong squiggles, and I tried to keep 3 per row. Try to leave a white gap between each petal. 
4. With a teal polish, paint a tear drop shape in another part of your nail. 
5. Add 4 more petals, spacing them evenly so there is a white gap between each. 
6. Add a few tiny dots in the center of the teal flower. 
7. With a light green polish, use a striping brush to add a long thin line in a blank part of your nail. 
8. Add leaves to the stalk. 
9. With the light green polish, add a short small dash in the surrounding white space, leaving room for the teal ones in step 10. I tried to keep a majority of the dashes going in the same direction, but it's up to you how you paint them. 
10. Add in teal dashes in the rest of the white space. Try not to touch the dashes and I tried to use more teal dashes than light green ones since the leaves are already the green shade. 

I finished it off with Seche Vite and then a coat of matte top coat. 

Let me know what you think and I'd love to see if you give it a try! :)