Union Jack & Polka Dots Mani

Hi all! I just got back from studying abroad/vacationing in Europe and one of my stops there including London.... obsessed. I already loved everything British beforehand, but going to London just solidified my love and obsession with it. So, being on my British high, I of course had to incorporate something British into my nails! For the pink I used Essie's "Mod Square" and for the turquoise I used Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos" ... both great colors for summer too! For the Union Jack, I used a striping brush, and for the polka dots I used Sally Hansen's nail art pens.. both incredibly easy to do! For the Union Jack, I did the "X" first.. a wider base of white, then a thinner stripe of the pink. BE SURE THE WHITE & PINK ARE DRY!! Before doing all of the separate layers, be sure that each color is dry, otherwise there'll be spreading and mixing and it'll just be a big mess. After the X is dry, I did the "+" part of the flag. Again, wider stripes for the white and thin stripes for the pink. Once all is dry, seal it in with your top coat and you're set! It's brilliantly British!! xx

Caviar Spiderweb Mani

So I know I haven't posted in a while, but Halloween is coming up and I'm super into holidays, so I will be posting a bunch for Halloween. First up is an accent finger with a spiderweb made out of caviar beads (AKA microbeads from a craft store). I'm already apologizing in advance for the horrible quality photo... forgot to take it with my camera before I left, they got ruined, blah, blah. Anyways, the color is Essie #760 Carry On (it's an extremely dark purply brown). Then I used my top coat (Out the Door) and lightly brushed my dotting tool I got from Sephora with the top coat and painted/dotted little sections with it on my nail. Moving quickly I dipped the dotter into my silver microbeads and positioned them onto my nail to begin forming the spiderweb. You have to keep repeating these steps and do little sections one at time, as the polish will dry too much for the beads to stick if you just did one coat. After I finished the web, I put an extremely thick top coat over it.... huge mistake. The top coat itself wasn't a mistake because otherwise the microbeads would've immediately started falling off, but the thickness of the coat was. It gave me SO many air bubbles. So, what I would suggest is doing a thin top coat, waiting for it to dry, and then doing another thin coat, because those suckers fall off so easily.