Friday Triad: inspired by @juli_addicted

Hi everyone!


Another month has passed so that means Triad time :) This month Juanita picked the inspiration and I don't think I've had an inspiration that was this far out of my comfort zone... heck, at times I didn't think I would be able to find my way home! This is what she chose: an Easter colored, freehanded manicure with decals by Yulia from @juli_addicted. Believe me when I say it was a struggle, but I think I managed to make it mine after all... a bit. You be the judge:

I chose colors that just appealed to me and looking at them I can see I'm definitely moving away from the bright Summer colors and towards the more dusty, cozy ones that I associate with Fall and Winter.

On my thumb and index you can see two coats of Zoya Hera, a beautiful, dusty rose pink creme that has the usual, heavenly Zoya formula. My pinky was done in two coats of Catrice ICONails 87 Enjoy The Lilac Things (ETLT), a dusty blue-leaning purple with a great formula. Last but not least my middle and ring finger were done in three coats of OPI Beyond The Pale Pink, my favorite cream-colored (with a hint of pink) creme.

While waiting for the bases to dry, I painted four squares of polish on my mat, two in Hera and two in ETLT. I let them dry completely, carefully peeled them off of the mat and cut them into random, not too narrow strips. After some shuffling to see what arrangement I liked best, I decided to do just one nail to see what it would look like with the lace stamp I picked. First I painted a thin coat of clear polish on my nail to make sure the strips would remain where I wanted them to be. Then I placed a rather wide strip of Hera near the cuticle of my middle finger and pressed it down firmly and I did the same with a narrower strip of ETLT closer to the tip of my nail.

Last but not least I picked up an image that reminds me of doilies from LilyAnna by Messy Mansion plate 04 using Painted Polish Midnight Mischief, removed the lines that were at the bottom with a bit of sticky tape and rolled it on my nail, making sure it was placed exactly on the border of the Hera strip. I repeated the procedure to stamp some lace on the border of the ETLT strip. I instantly regretted removing the lines at the bottom of the image so I attempted to stamp them but that didn't work so I finally grabbed the thinnest brush I have and drew a black line at the bottom of the stamp (very much assisted by the slightly raised edge of the strips) and after that had dried as well, I painted a coat of Seche Vite on top of everything to seal it in... and that was it!


The mugshot:

Catrice 87 Enjoy The Lilac Things, Zoya Hera, OPI Beyond The Pale Pink, Painted Polish Midnight Mischief

Even though the strips were waiting for the second accent nail, I decided to stick with just one multi-colored nail. I actually started doing the second nail but after just placing the strips on my nails, I stopped. I loved that all colors came together in that one decorated nail and adding the second one was just too much, so one accent nail it was :)

I hope I did Yulia's manicure some justice... and I hope you can see my nails WERE inspired by it. I really want to see what Michelle and Juanita did. If you are curious too, just click their names.