Whether it be the Union Jack, cups of tea or strawberries and cream, this summer has been one of celebrating and embracing all those British stereotypes- even the 19th century top hat and monocle combination made an appearance in the Olympic opening ceremony!
In a last grasp attempt to relive this summer before I carry my many boxes full of stuff down to the University of Sussex and up the massive hill on which I will be living (hurrah!), I tried out this bit of nail art in correspondence to the great Wimbledon stereotype- strawberries and cream. But without the cream.
Anyway, I grabbed my trusty Collection 2000 red nail varnish and used this as my base colour. I love this nail varnish, and this brand- this red from the Lasting Colour range is hands down the best I own and you only need one coat to achieve a beautiful, rich, shiny colour in two easy strokes. It kind of helps that it only costs £2.99 too.
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| My worn out, ex-trusty favourte Collection 2000 varnish |
Unfortunately, it was not my favourite nail varnish for long. It's now an ex-varnish. I made the most of the sun and went outside on the patio to do my nails, dropped the red nail varnish, and despite my Matrix-like reflexes (I wish) it smashed on the floor. But never mind, it had served me well.
When the red was dry, I took some Scotch magic tape, which I'd bought a while ago after seeing it being used in some amazing manicure designs, and cut little triangles in a row on the end of the tape, before cutting it into nail-size sections. That's a really bad explanation but all becomes clear in the picture.
I then stuck a little section onto each nail, making sure the cut-out triangle bit was at the tip- these make the leaves of the strawberries. The good thing about this tape is that it's not clear like sellotape, but more of a fuzzy, misty transparency which then turns clear when it's stuck down properly. You need to make sure it is stuck down properly else when you paint over it, the colour will seep underneath to the part you don't want it to go on.
Once I made sure they were stuck on well, I took this citrus green 2True nail varnish, which also featured in my cupcake manicure post, and painted over the cut-out triangles. Make sure you paint enough on for the colour to be opaque in one coat, as you need to peel the tape off immediately after you've applied the green polish.
I made that mistake on my left hand- I left the tape on while the green was drying and when I took it off, most of the green came with it, meaning I was left with very small, wonky leaves. If you want to see how it's supposed to be done, see my right hand!
To finish off the strawberries, I used the Andrea Fulerton nail art 'Dot and Flick' brush in black which I also used in my zebra print nail post. I decided to use this instead of a cuticle stick like I normally do firstly because it was the colour I needed, and secondly because I needed a finer finish for this look- anything other than this kind of brush would be too fiddly and chunky.
With the nail art brush, I painted on tiny lines, a couple of millimetres in length, all across my nail as shown in the picture, to create the seeds on the strawberries. This dries pretty much instantly, so soon after I gave my nails a quick top coat of my life-saver (Rimmel's clear Nail Rescue Hardening Treatment) and the look was finished.
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