Swap with Maria Leads to Nail Art

Maria, the creative woman behind Maria's Nail Art and Polish Blog, noticed me pouting about not being able to give Catrice my money because they don't sell their polishes here. She kindly offered to do some shopping for me when her travels took her to places which do have the brand, and of course I took her up on that and we arranged a swap. Before too long, I got a box full of Catrices (plus a surprise from Essence); she even had to cut some flaps off the box to keep it under the weight limit.

The first one on my nails was the vibrant purple shimmer, Heavy Metallilac. I swatched two coats, no topcoat.





My eyes loved this one; my camera, not so much. I tried all sorts of settings and lighting conditions and angles but never managed to get as close to reality as I'd hoped. The purple is warmer than it's showing here, and the shimmer is quite pink. Aly over had Mai Senza Smalto had more success; go peek at her photos to get a better idea what this really looks like.



Because the polishes came from Maria, I really had to try some nail art with them, so I grabbed Catrice Pool Party at Night from the package as well as a couple things from my stash, LA Colors Art Deco White and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Quick Canary.



I thought I'd do a version of a mani Maria had done that had diagonal color blocks in blue and purple with little white flowers on the border between them. Her original is here. Now behold my interpretation:



Yeah, my flowers are not nearly as delicate, nor are their petals as well formed as hers. A couple of my blossoms look more like fried eggs to me than flowers. Considering I'm really inexperienced at freehand art and was working with a long and floppy striper brush instead of something more suitable for the task, it's not too hideous, I suppose.





In addition to my wonky petals, you may have noticed some bumpiness in the blue sections, even though I put topcoat over the design. This is because instead of painting on the blue, I sponged it on. Why? Because Maria had sponged on her second color. That worked fine for her, since she was using a shimmer. Why I thought sponging a creme would be a good idea, I can't say. There's no shimmer to disguise the texture. Here's what it looked like before topcoat—not so pretty.



Despite my brain freeze with the sponging and the not so charming shapes of most of my flowers, I did have fun doing this, enough that I'm thinking the next time I get a Sally Beauty coupon I'll buy that nail art brush set I've noticed they carry so I can make better petals and other stuff.

Thanks to Maria for the swap and the continuing inspiration!