Autumn leaves manicure

Hi everyone!


Autumn has definitely started but unfortunately where I am, autumn means rain and wind and cold and gray, no beautifully colored leaves that float down from trees on gorgeous sunny days... So I decided to get those leaves on my nails (and turn up the heating to imitate the sun's warmth) and I'm SO proud of the result!

indoors, no flash

I dug up my silicone baking nail art mat (and spent about half a roll of sticky tape to get rid of all the tiny thingies that stuck to it). Next I browsed through my stamping plates for ages until I finally settled on an image I wanted to use. I actually chose Bundle Monster BM-XL13 at first but my nails are still quite short and the leaves on XL13 are quite large so I wanted smaller ones. I knew the XL-plates contained larger versions of images that were released in earlier Bundle Monster collections so I kept searching until I found the smaller version on BM-H11. All I had to do now was pick out some polishes and I could start.

I had already decided I wanted an off white base and a dark brown to stamp with, so those were easy: Barry M Coconut for the base and Cirque Knickerbocker for stamping. Just three colors for the leaves... so I littered my desk with countless polishes in autumn colors. The first one I chose was the red: Fading Tapestry by Powder Perfect, a gorgeous darker red holo filled with golden shimmer that screams autumn all by itself (I will definitely wear this one on it's own... soon!!). After that came the green. I didn't want a bright green but a more muted, yellow toned one so after careful consideration (and driving my husband slightly nuts by shoving all sorts of polishes under his nose) I picked We Want You For NPA Army by Il était un vernis which is exactly the color of the leaves that are still clinging to the trees in our yard (another one that I really have to wear on it's own). The last one was tough as I couldn't decide wether I wanted yellow, gold or orange. Finally the choice was made for me when my husband brought me a drink and pointed at a bottle at the back of my desk: Lacquer Lust Topaz or as he called it: bottled fall :)

With all the chosen polishes on my desk and all the other bottles put back where they came from, I started by stamping the leaves on my mat (yup, forgot the layer of top coat underneath, that's why it's a little smudged around my cuticles... won't forget that next time). I filled in the leaves with a small brush and my chosen colors and when all that was dry I put a layer of my base color over it, so it looked like all I had done was a few cream colored squares. I left the squares to dry again and painted all my nails with a thin coat of Barry M Coconut as base color. When I could peel off the decals I painted another thin coat of Coconut on a nail, applied a decal on it and repeated that for the other three nails. I used an angled brush and acetone to dissolve the decal around my cuticles and nail walls so I could get rid of the excess. A coat of Seche Vite, small studs on my other nails and voila... multicolored leaves!

I used these polishes:

Barry M Coconut, Cirque Colors Knickerbocker, Powder Perfect Fading Tapestry,
Lacquer Lust Topaz, Il était un vernis We Want You For NPA Army

I can still see a couple of flaws and there is definitely room for improvement but I had so much fun making these and I'm really proud of them. What do you think? Would you spend that much time on a manicure that will probably be gone in a day or two, maybe three?



Barry M Coconut was bought from Alice & Jo.
Cirque Colors Knickerbocker was bought from Pretty Polish.
Powder Perfect Fading Tapestry and Il était un vernis We Want You For NPA Army were bought from The Nailista Shop.
Lacquer Lust Topaz was bought from Norway Nails.