Sunday 9 March 2014

FingerFood's Theme Weeks - Dots & Stripes

Polishes used: Sinful Colors Thimbleberry, Seventeen Monochrome, Sinful Colors striper, Nails Inc Kensington Mall and OPI Alpine Snow.
This week, the great Finger Food's challenge has rolled to the theme of dots and stripes. I'd been wearing some blues and greens recently, so my mind went straight to the warmer, more tropical end of the spectrum. A quick rummage through my drawers, and a session with my colour planning notepad, and I had a design ready.

Dots and stripes and glitter, oh my!


I started with a single coat of Thimbleberry, and then sponged on a subtle gradient of Kensington Mall. Both are saturated corals, but Thimbleberry is pink based, while Kensington Mall is very much in the orange category.
I added the matte black and white glitter Monochrome over my thumb and ring finger. It has hexes and bars, so it's perfect for the theme. Then, I took my black striper and drew two vertical lines on the edge of my pointer and pinky - I really like the effect, it's bold and doesn't cover the base colour too much. On my middle finger I dotted on OPI Alpine Snow with my largest dotting tool. It looks a bit like fly agaric :) Everything was topped off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Dots and stripes over a gradient - tropical and graphical at the same time!
I am really happy with this skittlette, despite the minor imperfections - it's one of my first ones, and only my second use of the striper pen. I must say that using a nail art sketchbook has helped me with visualising the effect considerably, and I will be using it to plan out my manicures from now on.

Polishes I used:
  • Sinful Colors Thimbleberry - saturated tropical pink-coral crème, opaque in two easy coats and fast drying. This polish applies like a dream and is perfect for nail art.
  • Seventeen Monochrome - a mix of black and white matte hexes in different sizes, with some black bars thrown in. Super easy application, due to the very light base and excellent glitter payoff. An amazing topper from a popular drugstore brand.
  • Sinful Colors striper - black striper, very opaque and manageable.
  • Nails Inc Kensington Mall - a gorgeous super saturated orange coral crème.Opaque in two coats, excellent for gradients, and very easy to apply.
  • OPI Alpine Snow - white crème, perfect for dotting over coloured designs due to the good opacity.
Thanks for looking, and check out other challenge manicures below!

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful nails as always :) I love the subtle gradient and I esp like the Thimbleberry colour! I've never thought of planning my nails out in a notepad first, I usually just go with the flow and see what I end up with but I might give the planning a go in my next manicure and link to you as the inspiration for it :) x

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  2. great mix! I love combo of black&white with red:)

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  3. Lovely gradient! The black stands out well over the top :) ! I love the Nails Inc colour :) very summery!

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  4. Love skittlete ... colors look perfect too.

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  5. great choice of colors that work well together for this mani good job xxx

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Thanks for all your comments! I read and appreciate them all :)