Lazy 15 Nail Challenge - Day 10 Underwater Creatures/Mythical Water Creatures

Today is day 10 of the Lazy 15 Challenge and the theme is Underwater/Mythical Underwater Creatures.

I knew as soon as I saw it I was going to do mermaid nails. I toyed with the idea of octopus/kracken nails, but I just kept coming back to mermaids.

I wanted to give the effect of looking up from under the water at the mermaid against the light, as if she was spotted by some scuba divers or something. I'm fairly certain I'm not describing it very well but hopefully you catch my drift!

I started by applying a gradient over a base of Barry M Matt White.

For the gradient I used a piece of kitchen sponge as usual. On the ring and middle fingers I added Barry M Matt White to the top right/left corners then Barry M Pure Turquoise and Rimmel London 60 Second Nail Polish in Sky High which is a bright teal.

On the pinky, index and thumb I just did a normal gradient of the Pure Turquoise and Sky High.

When that had dried, I mixed a little Pure Turquoise and Matt White and used it on the two middle fingers lightly with a bit of acetone to make the lights rays coming through the water, then roughly at the top of the other three nails to look like light reflecting off the surface of the water.

Next I did the shape of the mermaid in Matt White, then mixed Matt White, Grey and Black, all by Barry M, to do the shading.

To finish I used China Glaze Fairy Dust on the pinky, index and thumb for a little sparkle then topcoated with Seche Vite.

Unfortunately the greeny teal shade of Sky High doesn't show up in the photos, which is a pain as it gives a bit of depth. But other than that I am in love with this one, I'd totally keep it on all weekend if I wasn't going out tomorrow evening!

Hope you all have a fab weekend!

♥ A ♥

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 10 - Gradient Nails

I have only done gradient nails once before. Seen here.

I did them by painting the base colour then sponging the tip colour on in layers.

It took me a whole Saturday afternoon, while the kids were out and MrGT was being entertained by his Xbox.

These afternoons are hard to come by in my house so when I saw day 10 was gradient nails I did consider doing a nice easy glitter gradient, but this is a challenge, and a glitter gradient is no longer a challenge for me.

Knowing it was going to take an age to do I had been putting it off and putting it off. 

Until I got my China Glaze Summer Neons Collection 2012 order through.

They were just asking to be a gradient nail.

(Please 'scuse the shoddy clean up attempt! I had the smallest dribble of acetone left!)

For this I applied two coats of white polish (Boots 17 Mini Skirt) then applied with a kitchen sponge I used CG Sun Kissed (yellow) Orange You Hot? (obviously orange) and Beach Cruise-R (purple) then topped it off with Seche Vite.

I actually painted the colours straight onto the sponge to get this affect, it was a bit messy but the gradient is much better than my first attempt and took a few minutes rather than hours!

If you would like me to have a go at a tutorial for the method I used let me know in the comments and I'll give that a go for you as I'm desperate to try the rest of the CG polishes I bought in a gradient and maybe even try a pastel gradient.

♥ A ♥