"Nail art"

Hello lacquered lovelies! How are you all doing today? I'm feeling good but pretty tired. I'm super excited about this weekend though, I get to see my parents! I haven't seen them for... over a month, probably, which doesn't sound like a lot to some people but what can I say, I love my family. Sometimes I have to go ages without seeing them - I didn't see my twin for four months - from when I left to come back to uni in August until December! It was horrible and sad. I've lived away from home for three years now but I still miss my parents a lot. And I still cry like a wimp whenever they leave LOL, though I usually manage to keep it in until they leave my place! Usually...

Anyway, for today's mani I have some "nail art" to show you. I have it in quotation marks because it really didn't require much skill at all - clearly, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it. I've got no patience for nail art, no matter how hard I try it always comes out crap! I suppose it's not surprising, given that the only thing I draw well is a stick person, but still... I wish I had inherited some of my mom's artistic ability, she's amazing. There are a lot of skills I didn't get from my parents... *glares at parents* but ah well, c'est la vie!

This is an idea for a mani that I've kind of had kicking about for ages, since I heard the name for Sea Spray. Sometimes I'm inspired by names of polishes and this was one of those times!

I used a TON of polishes. First, I did two coats of China Glaze Sea Spray. Then I started a sponging gradient mani, which my overly caffeinated hands (if you follow me on twitter you'll know that I have a bit of a coffee addiction, especially during end of semester!) had a bit of trouble with. I also think I might've chosen to use too many polishes, but what can you do! For the gradient colours, I used:

Revlon Blue Lagoon

Essie Coat Azure

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear blah blah (I always feel bad for calling it that but seriously, LONGEST NAME EVER) Pacific Blue (which is stunning)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It

So I sponged those, going from lightest to darkest, from around my cuticle to the tip of my nail. Topcoat, then used a dotting tool to make what were supposed to be bubbles - I think it would have looked better if I had used varying sizes of dots.

And then I got started on my accent nail. First, I started out with Barielle Coco Bar, a polish that I got from Jen's blog sale! You guys know I'm madly in love with brown and this was perfect. Not right for sand, of course, but it was more to cover up the dark blue at the tip of my nail before I kept working on it.

Okay. Then I used a Bundle Monster plate, BM08, and stamped an anchor on. Then I used two Color Club polishes, Love 'Em Leave 'Em and Sultry, and China Glaze Golden Enchantment, for the sand. I used multiple coats of everything, especially Sultry (the glitter), and it was raised and gritty at the end - textured like sand. 

WHEW! Lots of words, not enough pictures! Let's remedy that!

I apologize for the junky clean up and poor lighting. I took these under a lamp because I didn't end up wearing the mani for long - I was going to a friend's birthday party and the theme was glitter, and this clearly wasn't enough!

You guys know how I love the roughness of glitter... I know it's weird, but I can't help it. This was so textured and fun! Apolgies for the stained nails, I was swatching oranges that day and it clearly shows... Also, you can see that I had issues stamping... when I did it the first time, the circle at the top didn't transfer! So I just moved really slowly and worked it back on. Macro shows all the flaws, but it wasn't obvious at all in real life.

And the accent nail! (Complete with dry hands courtesy of a swatching day - I'm sorry!)

I liked this mani, I thought it was cute. I might try it again when I'm less caffeinated/when it's more season appropriate, since I wore it on a miserably cold and rainy day. 

I wasn't going to post this originally, but I twitpicd it and a lot of my lovely blogging friends said it was cute, so I changed my mind. :)

What do you lovelies think? Do you like this manicure? Would you try something similar? Doesn't it just make you want sandy beaches and scuba diving right now? 

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!