GUEST POST FROM SKYE @ CURLY POLISH

Hello and welcome one and all to my guest post for the lovely Katherine of Nail Art and the Sims! I am Skye of Curly Polish and I hope that you like what I have to show you today :-)

I would just like to apologise in advance for some of the blurrier pictures; I intermittently have very shaky hands and these were the best pics I was able to get when I did this mani - I could barely hold the camera still :-/

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In the spirit of Katherine's request for Christmassy manis, I have a wintry mani to show you today. I chose to do a snowflake mani as these are some of my favourite designs at the moment and I'd never tried them before. Looking back, this isn't strictly a Christmas idea, but hopefully my heroic efforts at nail art will make up for that in your eyes :-)

The guilty parties stand to attention!

The polishes I used for this mani were:

• Collection 2000 Hot Looks - # 23 Show Off (blue shimmer)
• Rimmel Pro Finish - #420 Aqua Cool (blue creme)
• Model's Own nail art pen (silver)
• Essence Stamping Polish (white creme)
• Collection 2000 - #20 Cloud Nine (white shimmer)
• Collection 2000 Sparkle Topcoat

Firstly, let me show you my snow-kissed masterpiece:

Yay! It's winter on my nails!

This angle reveals the depth of the snow
and my best snowflake (ring finger)!

This is the most intricate mani I've EVER done and I'm quite proud of it. Given my shakiness that day, it took quite some doing, but I think the end result was worth it :-) Apart from the snowflakes, themselves, I think my favourite part of this mani has to be the shimmer-to-creme gradient which added so much depth to my design - I can't stop staring at my nails every time they catch the light!

Read on for more info on how I did it, and for a swatch of the base colour :-)


How did I do it?

An elegant work in progress: I just love the two tones here! 
I could have stopped here, as the mani was looking quite delicate, 
but in the end I decided to stick to the plan.

Firstly, I used two coats of my base colour (the blue shimmer). I then decided to sponge on a cornflower-blue creme to give my mani some nice wintry depth, and to add an interesting contrast. I normally don't like to wear blue polishes as they tend to wash me out with their cool tones, however, this warm creme is one of my favourite colours and I will have to swatch it properly for y'all soon! I then freehanded some snowflakes and stars (asterisks) on top of this. I'm a person with very shaky hands and when I did this mani, the shaking was particularly bad. I'm also a bit heavy-handed at times, and so I ended up having too much polish coming out of my nail art pen towards the end of my drawing. As a result, some of my snowflakes look less like flakes and more like blobs... but I think I did a good job mostly :-)

As you can see above, I used a nice thick white polish (Essence stamping polish) to dab some snow onto my tips. I chose a thick polish because this would give my 'snow' more texture and depth. Further down the tips I tried to create some brush strokes for this same reason. I then added dots of a shimmery white polish for more depth (see this post on my blog for a full-nail swatch) and topped off the snow with a shimmery silver top coat. Unfortunately, this last polish is virtually invisible in my photos, but it makes the snow look real frosty in person :-)


Finally, I'd like to show you the base coat I used for this mani - an electric/ice-blue shimmer. I don't use this polish very often, because I realised a few years ago that it made my fingers looked like the motorway signs in Scotland (where I lived for three years). Having since moved back down to England, I should perhaps wear the colour again as I received a fair few compliments before I covered it up with snow ;-)

A beautiful blue base

Interestingly, this mani is the first that's made me wonder about the direction of my art. Do I do it so it faces me the right way up (as I have to see my hands all day), or do I do it so that y'all can see my art the right way up? This mani sorta works both ways - though I actually like it best your way up - but this may be a real dilemma for me in the future! What do you guys prefer? Let me know in the comments!

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I hope you all enjoyed this post, even despite its length. My posts are NOT normally this long; I am quite a wordy person by nature, but I also added some extra info here that I don't normally offer (e.g. my how-to), because I really liked this mani and wanted to share my thought process with you. I hope it gave you a good insight into
my approach :-)

I also hope that you'll consider checking out my own blog to see what else I've come up with; just click on the link in the introduction or find me on FB under 'Curly Polish' :-)

No matter what you do now, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah/Kwanzaa and Happy Holidays wherever you are in the world, as well as peace and happiness for the New Year. Have a great holiday and keep your loved ones close <3

'Til next time :-)

- Skye x