Jelly watercolor manicure

Hi everyone!


Today was a lovely lazy Sunday. Hubby was playing some computer games and I had absolutely nothing to do but play with colors... and so I did :) I had to come up with a manicure for the letter J so I decided to do a classic technique that I'd never tried before: a jelly sandwich. About an hour later I had a pile of dirty cotton pads, about half an inch less nail polish remover, and the knowledge that I absolutely can't stand VNL (Visible Nail Line, when you see the white tips of your nail through all the coats of polish you put on) on my nails... so I tried to think of something else that didn't involve jelly polishes. Of course by then any kind of inspiration had disappeared so I was just sitting there, googling for words that started with a J that I could turn into a manicure. Cue hubby who innocently asked me why I didn't use an opaque base color first... I swear, that man has flashes of genius even Albert Einstein would be jealous of :D

I didn't feel like layering a bajillion coats of alternating jelly and stamps on my nails again so I decided to try something else: a watercolor like manicure with jellies (as I still had to do something with a J ;) and this is what I created:

indoors, no flash

I started with two thin coats of a normal pale peach creme polish, KIKO 507 Blush. After that dried a little I added two coats of ella+mila Dessert Island, a lovely peach jelly with a gorgeous but subtle, slightly darker peach shimmer that I received as a gift from a dear fellow polish lover :) That had to dry completely so I sat down in the sunshine and allowed myself some time to relax and read a while.

When the sun had moved away from the couch I decided to get up and finish my manicure. I cut four small pieces from a larger sponge and started dabbing on the jellies I selected: the orange OPI Y'All Come Back You Hear, the dark pink OPI Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em, some dabs of Dessert Island to tone down the pink a little and finally OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston, a lovely coral. I finished with a thin coat of INM Out The Door Northern Lights to add some teeny tiny little holo specks and a coat of Seche Vite to give my nails a glossy smooth finish.

The line-up (I gave Northern Lights an extra shake before taking this picture or you would have seen a clear polish... those glitters settle at the bottom really fast ;)

KIKO 507 Blush, ella+mila Dessert Island, OPI Y'All Come Back Ya Hear!, OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston,
OPI Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em, INM Out The Door Northern Lights

Initially I intended to complete my manicure with some sort of stamping but I like my nails as they are now. Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow and add something but for now I'm going to leave them all girly and sparkly without anything to obscure the view :)

I'm not sure if I succeeded in watercoloring my nails though. What do you think? Do you like the idea? Oh, and do you think I should stamp on them, leave them alone or maybe do something else? When looking at the picture I'm thinking galaxy nails... another classic I haven't done before ;)


This is what the other ladies came up with for the J:

ABC-Challenge - J

PS. I just re-read the text and realized it's still 6 coats of polish, not counting the dabbing... oh well, at least it's not a bajillion ;)