Ladybug Nail art

Like most Londoner's, I was fooled last week into thinking Spring was here. How wrong was I? This week has seen the coldest March for 27 years with flurries of snow to top off the icy wind (I work outside, so I really am not liking this change in climate. For me it has been a VERY loooooooong Winter.) I'm an optimistic type of girl, and I am sure that Spring really is just around the corner, so decided to create a Springtime piece of nail art to share with you all. Other than flowers, butterflies, and the sun, which to me resembles Spring, another creature which I find synonymous to this time of year are ladybugs.

 

 

This is a very time consuming manicure (at least 1.5 hours) using a numerous amount of polishes and tools and it is definitely not for the faint hearted. There is also a lot of drying time involved, hence the lengthy time frame. It took me three attempts at this manicure to get it right. I managed to smudge it the first time using the top coat, where all the colours ran into each other - very disheartening. I ended up with dents and a squashed design on some of my nails as I decided to cook dinner too soon after painting my nails on the second - which caused my heart to sink even further. On the third attempt, I learnt that patience really is a virtue and literally did not move for hours afterwards - success, yay!

Nail polishes used:

 

 

Base colour – ‘London’ by Nails Inc.

Base Colour for ring finger and ladybug bodies – ‘Cherries in the snow’ by Revlon.

Black dots and heads of ladybugs – ‘Black Taxi’ by Nail Inc.

The eyes – ‘Pearl White’ by MUA.

Top Coat – ‘Top Coat' by MUA.

 

I first painted all nails with my base coats, including the two accent nails and waited for them to become touch dry before I moved onto painting the ladybugs. To create the ladybugs I used three different size dotting tools; a large one for the body, a medium sized one for the head and a small one to create the spots and eyes. You can pick up dotting tools at a reasonable price from eBay and Amazon; they always seem to be in stock. I'm not too sure where my ones are from, as I got them as a little stocking filler gift from Santa. I like to have the ladybugs facing all different directions, to me it makes them appear they are scattering all over the place. You can have them in a more uniformed fashion if you prefer. Wait for all to dry completely before applying your top coat. You could probably speed up the process by applying a fast drying top coat such as Seche Vite, which I am yet to purchase and try out. However I have heard lots of very good things about it, and is currently on my wish list and top priority when I next go on a nail shopping haul.

 

 

I used the ring finger for the accent nail, creating a large ladybug. I didn’t want the manicure to be too overbearing, so opted for an accent nail and to have small lady bugs on the remaining nails, which are the ones I actually prefer. I think they look cute.

So there you have it, ladybug nails in time for Spring, whenever it decides to come…

 

 

What do you think?

 

Until next time…

 

Laura-Jane x