Today I bring you the first of my Valentines Day inspired manicures. I'm usually not a proponent of Valentines Day, the whole holiday just always seems so hyped up more than it is. I guess that's what working in retail does to you, it makes you bitter. My store had Valentines candy and stuff out in January, like literally the week after New Years. Its sort of sickening, I apologize to those of you whole love the holiday, its just my take on it.
But alas I still like doing holiday themed manicures and Valentines day doesn't get an exception. Today I have some balloons to show you. I initially wanted to do something along the line of the conversation hearts that we see all the time, sadly my nails are too small to do them on and be able to write all the little sayings on them. Taking the colorful heart part of the idea I made some balloons. There kind of cartoonish but that's the whole point of it really.
I started off with three coats of OPI I Think In Pink from the 2012 BCA duo. Its kind of a perfect pale pastel pink. The only thing I have a problem with is how any coats you need to make it opaque, the polish is a crème/jelly so its a little tricky.
Once my three coats were dry I grabbed China Glaze Wicked Style, Hard Candy Sky, and Hard Candy Splendid. Basically a darker pink, a sky blue and a yellow. I drew hearts free hand with my nail art brush; alternating colors on each fingers. Once they were dry I went around with a smaller nail art brush and my black nail polish (Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème) and outlined the hearts and drew on their strings.
I let it all dry and finished it off with my top coat.
The lighting is a bit different with these photos. My dad had purchased a mini fluorescent lamp to help replace the one that stopped working in the kitchen above our sink, but it didn't work so I took it and now it helps me do manicures in the living room when I want to sit and used the coffee table.
So these photos have the fluorescent light shining at them and I have to say it helped make the photos come out nicely on my iPhone camera. I only have one other complaint about this manicure, hearts are super hard to do on the opposite hand! I didn't have this manicure on for long since my left hand looked so bad.
If you are more adventurous in nail art and are more skilled at recreating it on your opposite hand then by all means rock this manicure!
I hope you enjoyed this and I'll talk to you guys on Sunday with another Valentines manicure!
<3 Nicole.
