Sea Creature Inspired

There was a sale at Walmart for two Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear polishes for $5!  I bought two polishes that I thought would go great together.  I wanted to do a mermaid design, or something oceany.  It turned out to look a bit like fish scales:

I started out with a base of Sally Hansen Double Duty (I can't compare this to other base coats--except for that Essie one--because I haven't tried any others.  This definitely prevents staining better than using no base coat, though!)  I then painted on two coats of Sally Hansen Jazzy Jade (one of my new polishes.  I don't usually buy shimmery polishes, but this one is only slightly shimmery and I love the aqua color!)  Then I used the diamond pattern on Bundle Monster plate BM-315.  My stamping color is Essie Go Overboard.

After that was dry, I dabbed on a coat of Sally Hansen Sea-ing Stars (my other new polish.)  This is a very pretty, blue tinted glitter polish with teeny and slightly bigger than teeny iridescent glitter.  I dabbed it on to avoid smudging my stamped pattern and because I wanted to make sure I had enough glitter pieces on my nails.  (This one has pretty fine glitter, so you don't really NEED to pat this on.  That's the technique for large glitter.)  I then applied 1.5 mm half pearls onto the wet glitter polish on my ring fingers and thumbs.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.