Coral and Gold Nails

I was given a load of nail art equipement for Christmas and have been experimenting with it ever since. It has taken a while to get used to using some of the bits and pieces, and its safe to say I've had a few mishaps! But I came up with a coral and gold design the other day which I thought worked quite well so I'm sharing it with you...

I think the colours work great for summer, but also have a bit of an autumn/halloween vibe, making this design quite versatile. 

I'll put detailed instructions below with a list of everything I used and where to get them from. The trickiest bit was putting on the chevron stripes...I tried a few different techniques and found that it was easiest with a pair of tweezers, but you can experiment a little to find the easiest way for you.

What I used...

* Base coat/Top coat

* Coral nail polish (I used Boots Natural Collection Antique Coral, but you could use any)

* Gold and green caviar nail beads (I actually used a set I got from Primark, but these are all the rage at the moment so you can get them from most places)

* Gold nail tape (If you search for nail tape on Amazon, there are load of different options like these... )

* Gold nail jewel (Again, there are load of nail jewel sets. This is the one that I have.)

1. I always start with a base coat and then two coats of my colour, however with this manicure, you need to choose the nail that you want to do the caviar on, and only do one coat until you are ready with the caviar polish. I learnt how to do the caviar manicure properly from this video, which can explain it much better than me!

2. Once you've got a base of colour, you can get on with the fun bit! The jewel nail is the easiest to do. Paint on your top coat, and then quickly pick up the jewel with a pair of tweezers and put it in place before the top coat dries. 

3. The nail tape it a little harder to use. As I said above, you may need to experiment a little to find the way best for you. For the striped nail, I found that placing the end of the tape at one side of my nail, and then sticking it all the way to the other side and cutting it after it was stuck down worked best.

(sorry for the blurry pic!)

4. The last and hardest thing to do was the chevrons. For this, I cut tiny strips of the nail tape, and lined them all up ready to be stuck on. I then carefully picked them up with tweezers and placed them in zig zag lines. Be patient with this...it does take and while and can be a little infuriating, but the results are so worth it!! :) 

5. Finish with a coat of top coat on your non-caviar nails and voila! 

Enjoy! :)

xoxo