Beach Nails

Yesterday I had such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to paint.  I considered not painting my nails at all, but I wanted them to look nice, so I chose a color I had never used and went with it.  I ended up with this:

I started out with a base of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on two coats of an L.A. Colors polish (the sheer, sparkly, tannish color).  When that was dry I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color.  I took three small chunks of a makeup sponge and, with tweezers, dabbed on the color of the waves.  I made sure I dabbed off the excess polish from the sponge on a piece of paper before applying it to my nails.

First I dabbed on Sally Hansen Hard To Get (the white).  I applied it near to the top of my nails and all the way down to the tips.  I made sure not to make it perfectly even on the top because waves don't go on to a beach in a perfectly straight line.  When that was dry I dabbed on some L'Oreal Now You Sea Me a teeny bit lower down than the white.  At times I made it go completely over the white so that it didn't look perfectly straight.  I didn't bother bringing that all the way to the tips of my nails on all of my nails because I was going to go over it with a darker blue.  When the middle color was dry I took my third piece of sponge and dabbed on Essie Go Overboard.  I tried to make it a little more opaque towards the tips of my nails.

To bring the design to life a little more I painted on a star fish with Avon Blossom and a scallop shell with Revlon Impulsive.  I used a small nail art brush for both of these.  I did not like how my scallop shell came out, but I made it a teeny bit better my adding three small lines of Rimmel Wild Orchid to detail it.  I finished off with two coats of Seche Vite, which has already chipped a lot, even though I have only been wearing this design for one day.  Not impressed.  I am a little hard on my hands and I did work today (I did some cleaning at my job), but I would do those same kinds of things with Dries Instantly and that would not chip.  I actually am really happy with the finished product, though.  Having pictures of my manicures makes me feel slightly better when they get ruined.  At least I will be able to look at them when they were first done and still looking perfect.