CND Shellac Nail Art - Nautical Nails

Aye aye Cap'n! You may have spotted me donning a rather nautical themed outfit and hat a couple of weeks back on my instagram. They were in aid of my friend Rachel's nautical themed hen party, ahead of her impending nuptials at the end of August.

So of course for the hen's nails, she needed something truly appropriate to the theme. And not just one design, she went all out with a mix'n'match red and white theme.

The colours I used to create this were Hollywood, Ruby Ritz, Cream Puff and Water Park.
It's probably easiest if I breakdown what I did on each nail individually:
Thumb - Hollywood with two 1.5mm round gold studs (from eBay)
Index - Hollywood base with Cream Puff polka dots
Middle - Cream Puff base, horizontal stripes in Hollywood and a blue heart in Water Park
Ring - Hollywood base with Ruby Ritz over the top
Little - Cream Puff base and vertical stripes in Hollywood

To create the stripes I cheated a little and used some striping tape (from eBay) as a stencil and the polka dots were just done with a small dotting tool. The heart was free handed using my dotting tool and a small detailer brush.

What do you think?

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

CND Shellac Nail Art - Additives and WAH inspiration

Now this is my best friend Fung-ling (twitter: @fungling_y), you've yet to be introduced to her so here you go - blog readers meet Fudge! My gorgeous and oh so fashion forward friend has been the only person that I have known CND Shellac to last 4 or even 5 weeks on! But, yes, the grow out is a little extreme :)

She used to have acrylic extensions, overlays and 3D nail art but has recently been testing my nail art capabilities with Shellac. This is the first real nail art I did with her and she'd picked out a classic design by WAH nails (wah-nails.com, twitter: @wahnails, instagram: @wahnails) - the basketcase and candy stripe manicure.

Fudge was really keen on having a pastel toned base, so I played around by mixing Cream Puff with my Cerulean Blue Additive pigment to create the pale, baby blue colour. I mixed the white and blue in a ceramic mixing palette and applied two coats, curing between each. It applied a little grainy, but once topcoat was applied later, you would never know. To create the vertical candy stripes and the basketcase pattern, I used a small striper brush and Rosebud.

I absolutely LOVE the colour combination and the design was a little painstaking but very effective once complete. Check out @wahnails on instagram for loads of exciting and inspiring designs from their Dalston and Topshop salons in London.

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)