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 - Gold Studded Granite

Remember Gemma? You met her first for her Christmas mix'n'match nail art but she's been having Shellac since September last year. You'll probably be seeing a bit more of her on here, she likes to experiment nail-wise.

She had seen my Asphalt 'granite' look I did way back here and wanted the same but with a little extra something-something. So I suggested some gold square studs from the Born Pretty Store (2mm ones from memory) which we put on the ring finger as an accent.

For details on how I made the 'granite' look (essentially Asphalt and a grey glitter swash) see my post from early 2012.

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 :)

CND Additives - Antique Bronze

So the hectic Christmas and New Year period are over and these cold winter nights mean catch up time for some of my Shellac nail art. Here's one I meant to post yonks ago (in fact a lot of the upcoming posts should have been published ages ago... I just never got round to it!).

This is Becca who you may remember from here with her ever popular green and purple glitter fade. Well before our Greek holidays back in September, Becca opted for a glitzy gold number with the Antique Bronze additive from CND.

I applied base coat and two coats of Iced Cappuccino as normal and then brushed the Antique Gold shimmer pigment into the sticky residue layer, before applying topcoat and adding some square gold studs that I got from the Born Pretty Store.

I can't wait to get playing around with some of the other pigments when I get my hands on them!

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 :)

CND Shellac Nail Art - Super Chevrons

Following my first trial with striping tape and Shellac - here - I was keen to try it out again with other designs. So of course in steps Stacey, offering me a blank canvas for a little experimentation - we called this one "Super Chevrons"...

Inspiration came from Jane at nailside.blogspot.co.uk - her designs are always so neat and striking and especially brilliant to recreate in Shellac. In particular we liked the look of her South Africa? post but changed the colours up a little bit.

I started of with two white coats (cured between each) of Cream Puff as a base colour. I then added a vertical strip of the beautiful blood-red Decadence to the left half of each nail. After curing the red, I added two strips of thin striping tape to each nail, in a chevron style, near the tip. I mixed some Gosh Nail Glitter in Gold with some Shellac Mother of Pearl to make a glitter paste and painted it into the chevron 'V' area. I removed the striping tape and cured the glitter tip. To create the blue accent, I mixed some of my Cerulean Blue Additive with Cream Puff and painted a border along the 'V' edge of the chevrons, with a small detailer brush, and cured. I sealed it all in with top coat and then Stacey decided to add some studs to her ring fingers as a little extra. So I pressed those into the tacky layer of the top coat and added another coat, before curing for the last time.

And there you have it, Super Chevron nails, 'super' because there's just something very superhero about them don't 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. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)