Mani Monday: totally turquoise
Turquoise Nails! Let me start out by apologizing for how short my nails are for this tutorial. It's mid August, and we have spend so much time in the garden and out at the river that my nails have paid the price. I had to trim them down nearly to the quick which is why I did NOT have a Mani Monday tutorial last Monday (insert sad face here). Oh well, they'll grow back. Onto the tutorial!
I love natural stones! All of my favorite pieces are natural stones. As a child, my father wore two rings; his wedding ring and this sterling silver ring in the shape of a horse shoe with a large turquoise stone in the center. I would sit on his lap and run my fingers over the silver and the soft coolness of the stone. As I grew up, my mother loved diamonds, and I remember going into her jewelry box (sneaking I should say). I would open up her maroon snakeskin jewelry box, where she kept her rings, and they were always diamonds. As an adult, I keep the diamond for my wedding ring (even though we are considering changing that as well) and fill my other's with some of my favorites. My large turquoise knuckle ring is what inspired this weeks Mani Monday!
I always start with a base coat. I really like Sally Hansen's Clear for Take Off. It leaves a really adhesive base coat for further layers. Then I put on my base color coat, I used Wet N' Wild's I need a refresh-MINT.
After I finished laying the base color, I allowed it to dry and applied a clear topcoat. Once completely dry I laid out a piece of wax paper, and gathered several pieces of plastic wrap. I rolled up the plastic wrap in balls, and applied a layer of Forever21's Emerald Green. I dabbed the excess on the wax paper before stamping it over my nails.
After that layer was completely dry, I used the same technique only using Finger Paints Cerulean Seascape.
I finally dabbed a q-tip into nail polish remover, removing as much of the polish from my skin as possible. I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails and called it good!
I'm really happy with how these turned out, and was excited to share! My nails have taken a serious beating this week, and had to trim them all down! I have not seem my nails this short since.....well I cannot recall! That being said, just because they are short does NOT mean that I can just leave them naked. Lucky for me my nails grow quite quickly!