Wednesday, August 28, 2013

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 14: Flowers

So I've failed yet again at posting on time for this challenge :/ If anyone is waiting with bated breath every Tuesday and Friday...well, I'm sorry I'm always late! haha I actually had this manicure painted and photographed late last night but I had some misgivings about posting them. I decided to sleep on it and after looking back over my photos, I decided to use these as my flower nails!

What were my hesitations, you ask? Well, I was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on myself for today's mani. I feel like on the whole I am relatively good at doing floral manicures but that has become a bit of a double edged sword! I feel like I've got to outdo myself every time I do florals and I've managed to let it stress me out - sad right!? ;) Please tell me I'm not the only one who is crazy and does this to themselves!? 

I was also a bit hesitant about using this design for my flower look because I don't think they are immediately recognizable as flowers. I saw this print from colourlovers and went for it anyway. They are very abstract and more of a sketched and messy look (Meghan and I were totally on the same brain wave with our flowers!) and I thought that maybe I should stick with a more realistic look. In the end, though, I'm really happy with this mani. 


I just got all the cremes from the OPI San Francisco collection and was itching to use them! I started out with a base of Skull and Glossbones and added a top coat (I like doing this because it lets me easily remove errors with acetone). With First Date at the Golden Gate, I painted the red flower petals, followed by In the Cable Car-Pool Lane with the smaller purple petals. The leaves are several messy lines of A-Piers to be Tan and then with a tiny tiny detail brush and black acrylic paint, I did all my outlining. I didn't worry too much about how clean my line-work was or if I painted outside the lines because I wanted the messy, sketched look. 
What do you think of these? Do you prefer realistic flowers or more artsy looking flowers? 
Happy Polishing! :)