Glitzy Strawberries

Hello!

It looks like I'm back to regular posting, so yay!! I was in a nail art mood last night and was inspired by this video to try some strawberry nails. I also came across this picture while looking up pictures of strawberry nail art so I decided I needed to try it. I also got some nail art brushes for my birthday that I didn't include in my haul post because they just came a few days ago. They're really cheap ones my mom found on Amazon.com (for like $7) and they're not that great and there's no dotting tool but that's okay since I already have a homemade one.

So last night as well as doing strawberry nails, I was inspired to do some "food" nails for Leslie at Nail Polish Art Addiction's contest where you have to create nails "good enough to eat"! I'm not allowed to show you my entry on here yet and I'm not sure if I'm going to go with the design I came up with because its not super good but since I spent over an hour doing them (mixing colors and junk) only to snap a few pictures and then immediately remove them it seems like a huge waste of time and effort not to enter them. I just know I could do a lot better. : / I guess it wouldn't hurt to say what my theme was since the rules just state that I can't post a picture of them... I did breakfast nails and that's all I'm saying!! 

Anyway back to my strawberry nails, here they are!!

Please excuse the tip wear which I have no idea where it came from... I did these less than 24 hours ago, haven't done anything today and somehow I have tip wear??! I don't understand!!

Here's what I used:

I built a super crappy and small lightbox this afternoon and tried taking some pictures in it. The bottle pics look pretty good but the nail ones aren't so great so I took some outdoor pics in the sun, since I can do that now that I'm home! :)

From left to right: China Glaze Ruby Pumps, SH XW Going Green, Sinful Happy Ending, Sinful Let's meet and SV. I used the brush closest to the bottles for the leaves and whatever the hell that metal thing is for the seeds. I don't know what its for but it looks to me like metal toothpick... or a super small dotting tool with a pointy tip??

I thought Ruby Pumps would be perfect for the strawberry color and now realize its a little too red and not pink enough. I wish I had Zoya Reva which would be better for this but hey, it still looks good!! RP is notoriously hard to photograph but I managed to capture it pretty accurately in the sunlight pictures. I'm sure you've heard all about RP unless you're new to nail blogging so I'll spare you the usual ramblings about how gorgeous it is and let the pictures do the talking. (It really is as gorgeous as everyone says it is and I think its a must have for any addict. I don't know if its part of the core line or not but I got mine pretty cheap on Amazon.com, it was like $2.50 with $3.99 shipping.)

Anyways, after doing 2 coats of RP for the base, I painted some flowy looking leaves with SH XW Going Green which is very opaque (and GORGEOUS, a must have for any green lover) and is actually very good for stamping! Thanks again, Amanda for finding this for me! *hugs* Then I highlighted the edges of the leaves with Sinful Happy Ending (am I the only one that finds that name kinda dirty... or do I just have a dirty mind?) Last I used Sinful Let's Meet, a shimmery golden yellow perhaps comparable to China Glaze Lighthouse?? for the seeds using the metal toothpick thingie. I finished with a coat of SV.

This mani was ridiculously easy, the only hard part was not getting polish all over my cuticles and skin when doing the green tops. The leaves are basically like painting a ruffian and then adding flowing leaves from it. So I think if you would like to try nail art but are not that confident in it, watch the video I linked above and I'm sure you could achieve a similar result with a toothpick or striping polish like she uses in the video if you don't have brushes. I'd love to see what you come up with if you try this!!

This is my thumb which I think came out the best and looks the most like a strawberry because of the shape of my nail.

This is also a pretty accurate representation of RP, its simply stunning!!

Whoa, check out my corpse fingers! This shows how shiny this is and my ring nail is exactly what RP looks like! It almost glows from within! YOU NEED THIS!! Haha!!

Oh and here's one of the pictures taken in my crappy lightbox (I Googled "DIY lightbox" and found a tutorial on how to make one, its so easy!!)

Yeah... it makes it look kinda matte and sooooo NOT color accurate!! That is the real color of my skin though... :)

So, I hope you guys liked this! Take home point: don't be afraid of nail art and give this a try! Also, get Ruby Pumps and Going Green (if you love green)!!

Have a great day/night and thanks for looking!

Fiona