Spring Bluebonnets in Summer

This manicure was one of those rare, spectacular times, when I was not using anyone else's manicure as inspiration, and yet my nails managed to come out exactly as I was imagining it when I designed it!

I started out with Milani Whitest White as a base, and then used the plastic wrap method to marble on first Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and then Avon Vintage Blue. It came out, as I said, exactly as I had mentally pictured - that beautiful bright but pale blue of the sky on a crisp spring day with a hint of white to imply wispy white clouds.

I used a detail brush to add stems of Sinful Colors Exotic Green, and then my smallest dotting tool with China Glaze Frostbite for the bluebonnet flowers. I stippled the flowers quite thoroughly rather than just putting solid dots of the lacquer, in order to let some of that white/blue from the polish underneath come through, to add texture and depth to the flowers.

I really was blown away by how these nails came out just the way I wanted them to. While I often draw out a design that I want on paper, I only paint an actual practice nail maybe a third of the time, and this wasn't one of them. I just had an idea and went to town on my fingernails, and I was so excited to watch the picture in my mind take shape on my tiny little canvases!