Friday Triad: inspired by @clairestelle8

Hi everyone!


This month has felt like a runaway train with no brakes and me running behind it, trying to catch up... But this evening I FINALLY sat down with a mug of tea and declared I would turn in early. My husband grumbled something in agreement so when we were about to get ready for bed something suddenly dawned... this wasn't a Monday, it's a Thursday and not just any Thursday, it's Triad-day!! So my oasis of tranquility immediately turned into a frantic search for polishes, plates and, most important, inspiration to create something worthy of the beautiful, colorful, summer manicure by Claire of clairestelle8 that Juanita picked. Fortunately the polishers patron goddess (there has to be a deity devoted to nail art... I've been calling on her this entire evening) took pity on me and here I am, it's not even midnight yet and my nails look like this:

Instead of Claire's rainbow of neons I chose three shimmery blue beauties with scattered holo sparkles from Cirque Colors: Cirque Colors Hygge (pale blue with strong peach-copper shimmer), Cirque Colors Nocturne (periwinkle blue with turquoise shimmer) and Cirque Colors REM (royal blue with green shimmer). And after I decided on what stamping plates to use, I was ready to start painting.

My base was two coats of Cirque Colors Carpe Diem on all nails. As my pinky is REALLY small I decided to switch up the two designs and have the large rose on my index and middle finger, so after the white polish had dried, I used a sponge to create a circular gradient on my thumb, ring finger and pinky using all three blues and I stamped small roses from B. Loves Plates B.02 Flower Power using Cirque Colors Memento Mori on top.

For my index and middle finger I picked up a rose from Born Pretty BP-L067 and colored in the petals with my chosen blues, going from darkest in the center to palest at the outside. After carefully rolling the picture on my nails, I found they looked unfinished. There was too much white and too little color, so I grabbed a small sponge and carefully added some dabs of Hygge at the tip, turning the white base into a white-to-pale blue gradient. And after that all that was left for me to do was add a generous coat of Seche Vite and take pictures (and pick out the best of them and crop it and watermark it and write a post and schedule it :)


The usual line up:

Cirque Colors Carpe Diem, Cirque Colors Hygge, Cirque Colors Nocturne, Cirque Colors REM, Cirque Colors Memento Mori

I don't think I've done many manicures that are this far out of my comfort zone and that I loved this much when they were finished. I skipped the double stamping, even though I had a bottle of silver stamping polish waiting on my desk, as I really liked the way the subtle holo in the blue polishes sparkled when the light hits my nails and I felt the silver would have overpowered it. I sure hope I did some justice to the original... what do you think?

Of course Michelle and Juanita had their version ready and scheduled ages ago... just click their name and you'll be whisked over to their site and their nails.


Last but not least: there will be another post with the three December manicures that I haven't posted yet, but in case I don't get that done in time: I wish you and yours all the best for 2019 and if you're going to set off fireworks, please be careful!