22 January 2014

Elegant Gold Tips with Black & White Flowers

Hello beautiful ladies and dapper gentlemen! I hope you're having a nice week so far. I think I'm adjusting to this hot weather, and my "nail polish room" is finally coming together, so mine is going fairly well!

Today I have a simple, elegant, refined look for you--some gold tips with flowers I made using the "plastic bag decal" method:


Before adding any colour, I used a new base coat I haven't really tried before, but have already decided will be my go-to as the base for French tip designs, or any where bare nail is showing. It is Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. I don't normally use base coats labelled as 'hardeners'--I have strong enough nails thanks to biotin!--opting instead for Seche Retain or other ones that focus on holding in moisture for strong yet flexible nails. However, this one is great for occasional use, for me personally at least. The consistency is a bit thicker than regular polish, kind of halfway between a polish and a gel, but it dries quickly and SO shiny and 'juicy'.

I then used two coats of my favourite ever gold polish, OPI Goldeneye, for the tips. Can't say enough about this polish. B-E-A-youtiful!

For the flowers, I finally tried the "plastic bag DIY decal" method. There are many tutorials for this online which a quick Google search will bring up for you, so I won't go into much detail here, but you watch one of my favourite YouTubers show you all about it here if you like! And if you can't watch a video, Marta shows you how with a picture tutorial here, only she uses a nail stamper instead of a plastic bag. This method is ideal if you just want to do one or two decals for accents :D

Basically, I stamped the hibiscus flowers from Konad plate m29 onto my Ziploc bag with Konad white special polish, then filled in the flower with black paint and the leaves with a bit of green. Once that all dried, I added a layer of topcoat over it, let it dry completely, and peeled the 'decals' off to attach to the nail with another layer of clearcoat. And once that dries, one more coat seals it in and makes it smooth and ultra-shiny. (KBShimmer Clearly on Top, by the way.)

See? Ultra shiny!
I am in love with this method already. I can't believe I never really played with it before. It's such an easy way to get a gorgeous and personalised decal, and to use multiple colours with a stamped image. You can also freehand your own patterns with a brush or dotting tool, and you can even pre-make them in advance so they are dried and ready when you decide to change your manicure!

Indoors with flash you get more of that rich glimmery gold <3

And one more. I added a single gold glitter from Born Pretty Store over the centre of the flower on the thumbnail, but decided I didn't really like it, so didn't carry it over to the rest.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this one; I am certainly enjoying wearing them. They're so bright and shiny in the sun :) Have a wonderful hump day and rest of your week, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

2 comments:

  1. Stunning! So So Sooooo pretty!

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    Replies
    1. aww, thank you! High praise from such a talented artist. Thanks for always being encouraging and a wonderful inspiration. Have a lovely day! xx

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Lots of glittery love to you! xoxo