ocean nails



I had been wanting to do an ocean manicure since I received my Konad

Zodiac plates  m33 and m34  last month.  I love anything ocean related (mythical mermaids included) and was excired to finally do it.  It finally stopped raining and the weather has been hot all week. Today we got to go to the beach for an end of the year program event.  It really feels like summer is starting.  Today at the beach, I got an idea for a watermelon mani.  My daughter has a watermelon bikini, she was eating watermelon, and I had watermelon slippers on.  One of these days I will do it.  I've been getting nail art inspirations from all over lately and have been writing them down.  Last night I got an idea from the hand soap bottle in the bathroom and earlier this week from a gift wrap design.  So many ideas. not enough hands.  My cuticles are wreaked at the moment from overuse of acetone.  I need to take a break from fresh manis and let my cutiles heal.  They are hurting. 

This is 2 coats of Essie Turquoise and Caicos.
My bottle wasn't streaky or runny as some others had problems
with it.  Maybe it's because of the humidity here. The first coat was thin, but the
second coat was perfect.  I'm starting to like this color better than my OPI
Mermaids Tears that stains my nails.



I added 2 coats of OPI Fiercely Fiona to my tips.  It's a tricky
polish to work with due to it's streaky formula.  This is
one of my favorite polishes.  It's a good base color for stamping.



I used a small paintbrush for the seaweed and
coral.  The green seaweed  is a Konad polish and the coral
is Sally Hansen X-treme Wear  Coral Reef (I thought it was a
fitting name) 



I used Konad plate m27 for the seahorse and fish, and m33 for the crab.  I redid
my pinkie 3 times before I gave up and left it as is.  The stamp just didn't want to transfer.
I used dotting tools for the crabs eyes.  The crab was filled in with and INK
nail art polish.  I was so focused on painting within the image, that I 
didn't notice the bead of polish running down the long brush until it puddled on my nail.
I tried to clean it up with a q-tip and managed to salvage the image.



The mermaid is Konad plate m34.  I used Konad black special polish.