Friday Triad: inspired by Madness Nails

Hi everyone!


A new feature on my blog (although we did do a trial run in November)... a manicure inspired by a design that was chosen by either Juanita of Sarcastic by Nature, Michelle of Ordinary Misfit or me that will be posted on all three blogs on the same day (last Friday of the month) and hopefully the same time. This month, for our official premiere, Juanita picked out Happy Dots by Madness Nails. Of course both ladies have awesome organizing skills so they probably have their post scheduled for ages already (and I think Michelle had this one finished the day after the link was mailed ;) But apparently I lack those genes so it's now Thursday evening, close to midnight and I've just finished cropping the pictures... I guess I better hurry as my alarm is set for 5:15AM... *shudders at the thought*

The original design just oozes summertime to me and the contrast to what I feel when I stick my nose outside the door couldn't be bigger. It's freezing over here, literally! So I decided to go with a more wintery color palette and chose all blue creme polishes to create this:

indoors, no flash

I started out by painting my middle and ring finger with two thin coats of Catrice Pure Nudism C03 Pure Blue, the palest blue that I own. To get it completely opaque I would have needed at least one more coat but that wasn't necessary in this case so I didn't bother.

While those two nails were drying I painted my thumb, index and pinky with two coats of Cirque Colors Midnight Cowboy, a lovely dark navy blue. A coat of Seche Vite to make sure I wouldn't smear it all over my other nails (or desk or clothes or anything in the vicinity) while working on the two accent nails and 3/5 of my manicure was done.

When my middle and ring finger were completely dry I cut up a bit of sponge into smaller pieces, put blobs of polish on a small glass dish that normal people use for tea bags (but that I love for nail art as I can clean it with acetone and it isn't affected by it at all) and dabbed/sponged the colors on my nail in random places. I used (light to dark) Catrice Pure Blue, OPI The I's Have It, Catrice 114 The Sky So Fly, OPI Rich Girls & Po-Boys and OPI Fearlessly Alice. I then made dots on my nails using Midnight Cowboy and realised afterwards I totally forgot the sparkles... so after the dots had dried I added two coats of INM Out the Door Northern Lights and finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

The colors that were used:

INM Out the Door Northern Lights, Catrice Pure Nudism C03 Pure Blue, OPI The I's Have It,
Catrice 114 The Sky So Fly, OPI Rich Girls & Po-Boys, OPI Fearlessly Alice, Cirque Colors Midnight Cowboy

Even though it doesn't look a lot like the original manicure, I was definitely inspired by it and I hope you can still see some of it in my version. I had a great time using a technique I hadn't used for ages and I can't wait to see what Juanita and Michelle did. I'm pretty sure their nails are going to look awesome with pretty, bright colors and gorgeous big dots (that I totally suck at if I try to freehand them... I really have to find something that I can use to make big dots so suggestions are more than welcome!!). Do you like my winter version of Happy Dots?


Last but not least, another challenge of the SBB Nail Challenge crossed off... I mean, this qualifies for number 9 Polka Dots, right? ;)

Cirque Colors Midnight Cowboy was bought from Pretty Polish.