Friday Triad: inspired by Olivia Jade Nails

Hi everyone!


It's time for the Friday Triad to show off their inspired nails again. This month Michelle chose this floral manicure by Tracy of Olivia Jade Nails, and the first thing I thought when I saw her choice was: leadlighting! I've never done leadlighting before so I looked up some tutorials, watched some YouTube and decided I could definitely do that. And hey, it was a month away so I would have plenty of time to pick out a plate (as I didn't own the one Tracy used) and polishes (again, as I didn't own any of the polishes in Tracy's manicure except the white one).

Life happened, time went by, and then this post by Juanita popped up where she mentioned some problems she had with stamping her image for the triad manicure. But hey, it was still a week and a half away and you probably know by now I do my manicures at the latest possible moment (which has absolutely nothing to do with lousy planning on my side... nope, I deny everything!) so I didn't feel the urge to start working on my nails right there and then. Instead I really had to clean up all the bottles and plates and tools I'd pulled out for my last manicure so I sat down and checked the plates to see if they had all been cleaned properly and I noticed a plate with a floral image that might actually work for leadlighting. I decided to try it out (which is very out of character for me actually. Usually I find out things don't work around midnight when I have to have the post ready by the next morning, but still definitely no lousy planning ;) and about an hour later I had a full manicure... over a week before I could post it!! All I could do was shove it under my husband's nose... and I did... repeatedly!

But finally the wait is over and I can finally show all of you what I did:

indoors, no flash

I had already used the last remnants of my beloved OPI Alpine Snow to paint three coats of bright white on all my nails and let that dry completely for a different design (that still hasn't been created yet) so I stamped the image I found on Emily de Molly plate EDM05 on my ring finger and just the leaves from the same image on my middle finger using Hit the Bottle As Black As Night.

It stamped quite nice so I figured I could try and see what this leadlighting was all about. I pulled out every jelly polish I could find (and I still had not put away the 20+ bottles that were left from my last manicure so my desk looked like a small polish store at that point...) and picked out a green, a yellow and a pink, to stay with the same colors as the inspiration (I added a second, more sheer yellow when I noticed the yellow I picked wasn't as sheer as I thought it would be for the petals).

With a small dotting tool I filled in the leaves with green OPI Landscape Artist. The centers of the flowers were done in yellow OPI Primarily Yellow. The petals were painted in two colors, close to the center I used OPI I'm Never Amberrassed (also yellow but more sheer than Primarily Yellow) and on the outside I used OPI Be Magentale With Me. I think I waited at least half an hour before slapping on a coat of top coat as I didn't want to smudge anything... I'd completely fallen in love with what started out as just a test for the plate and the technique :)

Here are the polishes that were mere test subjects but turned into stars:

OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Landscape Artist, OPI Primarily Yellow, OPI I'm Never Amberrassed, OPI Be Magentale With Me,
Hit the Bottle As Black As Night

Like I said, I was completely smitten with my nails. The timing was actually great as it finally started to look like spring outside, complete with sunshine and smiling people, and I felt my nails were spring incarnate. I couldn't be happier with the result and I hope you like them too. Make sure to check out Michelle's and Juanita's blog to see what they did with the same inspiration :)



Hit the Bottle As Black As Night was bought from Hypnotic Polish.