Keep on practicing
Today’s practice session.
On the left, an 80p broch from Temu. Bought for inspiration as I like how sparkly it looks, and nail three is my attempt at repeating it on a nail. Although I only got one of the blue gems on before running out of space. I positioned the top gem first, knowing space was going to tight.
This was then surrounded by caviar beads in the smallest size I had in gold. Then I positioned the clear crystal gem underneath, followed by the caviar bead for the blue gem – making sure I had enough space between the top gem and the centre piece gem.
I placed the blue gem and surrounded it with larger sized caviar beads – large enough so they didn’t slip under the gem at the sides. The gem is a flat back, so it doesn’t connect with the curved shape of the nail – the edges at the side stick up a bit.
Around these beads I added a layer of crystals, using a larger one at the top and bottom to create a little difference – but it’s so slight, you can’t really see any difference at the top. It’s much more noticeable at the bottom.
There was a bit of space at the bottom so I added two larger sized caviar beads in silver – I really wish I had done these in gold to give a little more contrast, and to match the design better.
To finish off I went back to the tiny caviar beads and placed them in between all of the crystals. I applied them one at a time and flash cured – trying to get them perfectly in place and stop them from moving.
To finish off I added a small crystal at the top as there was a little bit of space left to fill. I love this design.
For nails one and two, I used a neutral base – Light Elegance P+ in shade She’s a Knockout. I used Temu alcohol inkies to add a marble effect, and stamped with a mandala from the Moyra Step By Step plate. My foil application hasn’t been the best recently, so I foiled the pattern for practice. These are too busy and pointless. But good for skill building practice.
Lastly, for the fourth nail I wanted to replicate, but tweak, the design form the third nail so used a smaller centre piece gem and used colour in the surrounding crystals, topped off with caviar beads.
These pink crystals must have come from a proper crystal shop – although I can’t remember which one, or which mix it is, but they are super sparkly and really lovely in real life. Again – it’s hard to pick up with the camera. Maybe I need to work on taking macro photos and using filters to improve the pictures themselves.
That’s it for today.
TTFN…
