Pink Petals

I was trying to choose (quite literally) between light and dark nails this week. So I let hubby choose, and this pretty "Golden Rose" color from Avon was the winner. Another polish from their fall collection, you can sort of see from the photos that it has gold mica in it to give it that "golden" shimmer. Very pretty polish. I've been wanting to play with these little gold metal petals too, so even though it's not very fall-like, I've got a flowery manicure going on this week.

It's occurred to me that I don't actually show my nails "in the buff" much (because really, if you've seen them once, you've seen them). So I thought I'd post a photo of my naked nails today, so you can see what they look like just before I start polishing them up again. To get to this point, I removed last week's polish, washed & scrubbed, trimmed my pinky nails (they were hitting wrong keys when I typed), filed the edges and buffed the tops (file and buffing done with a crystal nail file). And voila, boring nails roughed up and ready for base coat.
I used Avon's base/top coat, but really need to order some better quality of each. I've been a bit lazy with the ordering lately. One coat of base, then two coats of "Golden Rose".
Avon has a thing for quick drying polish. They have a whole line, actually, but this pro stuff dries nearly as fast. Good for doing a rush polish job, not so good for nail art, especially with these little petal things. I really had a hard time getting these set quickly enough to stick into the top coat.

I started by laying out some petals in a basic flower shape.
Then I added a few extras on the side of the flower for little embellished stems. Would have been much easier with a different brand of top coat - I'd recommend China Glaze, Zoya or OPI. Something that doesn't dry too quickly.
I repeated it on all my nails, then sealed with two coats of top coat over the tops.
Clean 'em up, and voila! Pink and petally. You'll notice my index finger and thumb on my left had are a little goopy in the polish...I had to fix mistakes with layers because the tool I use to pick up stones, etc kept slipping off the petals. Frustrating.
And a shot outside in natural light.
I think I'll be going back to fall browns next week. Until then, happy polishing!