Golden Starfish Nails

This week my nail polish is once again inspired by an outfit - this time it's a dress! A few days ago a friend posted a Facebook picture of herself wearing >> this beautiful Reese dress << from Boston-based clothing designer Laurla. Here's the photo collage my friend Lauren posted:

.  cutie patootie  .

I think both dresses provide great inspiration for nail polish interpretations, but I decided to tackle the starfish dress first. I used Ruby Ruby by Sinful Colors (red), Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro (shimmery gold), and a holographic gold glitter polish by Color Club.

Step 1: Paint all your nails two coats of red polish and allow it to dry completely.

Step 2: Put a few drops of gold polish onto a piece of scrap paper and use a toothpick to dab the gold polish onto your nails in a curved star shape - which makes it look a bit more like a starfish and less like a regular star.

Optional Step 3: I also added a coat of the holographic gold glitter to the top of my thumbnails for some extra sparkle.

This was a fun and nautical look to try. As it turns out, the dress that Laurla makes is actually a burnt orange color and not a red at all, so... Joke's on me! It looks red in Lauren's pictures though, right??

What do you think of this look? Will you try rocking some golden starfish nails?

p.s. Lauren's own Demoiselle Jewelry inspired a past nail polish look here on my blog! Check out my Fancy Jewelry Nails.

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Random Nail Inspiration: Demoiselle Jewelry Designs

I have a running list of ideas for blogs posts and nail polish designs, and some of them are more random than others. This is one of the rando's.

I was recently inspired to create a nail polish look based around a Demoiselle Jewelry Designs piece, and once I began it, it only took a few minutes to complete. It's very simple, but I like it because it's different!

Demoiselle is a small jewelry design business run by Lauren Hastings - the girlfriend of a friend of mine... which by direct association and the strong level of love between all of my friends means that she is my friend now, too, whether she likes it or not. ;)  Lauren's Quincy, MA-based home business has been increasing in popularity over the last year or so and she's now basically famous for her colorful pearly creations. You should definitely check out her jewelry right n'yah: Demoiselle Jewelry Designs. She even has a fancy Flash site. Sew sassy.

As of late, Lauren has been posting a lot of pictures on her Facebook page of antique brooches being used as centerpieces for pearl necklaces, which brings us to the nail polish design that I made. I wanted to create a pearl necklace with a brooch centerpiece, JUST LIKE LAUREN'S:

.  you'll notice that lauren's is a bit more.... talented than mine  .

Here's what I did:

Step 1: Paint all your nails with a dual action base/top coat polish to make ya shit really shiny.

Step 2: Using a dotting tool dipped into an off-white, pearly polish, add one strand of "pearls" across all of your nails except your middle fingernail:

Ignore the two rogue dots on my middle finger in the above photo. They belong to an original version of this nail polish design that I tried, which I ended up re-doing entirely for this particular version. 

Step 3: Add a second strand of pearls, if you're feeling feisty. I clearly was.

Step 4:  Paint your middle finger two coats of a gold polish. It's the start of ya brooch, bitches!!

Step 5: Add a pearl to the center of your middle fingernail as the center of your brooch:

Step 6: Add your green flower petals. I used a toothpick dipped into green polish to do this:

Step 7: Add these little orange dot things between your petals. Again, I used a toothpick to do this.

Step 8: Finally, add some tiny white dots to the top of your orange dots. I don't know what these little guys are, but they are amongst the decorative touches in the brooch in Lauren's necklace, SO. 

And you're done!

Now that I've done one type of "pearl necklace" nail, I'm going to do mo' fo' sho'. I think it's a fun idea and is super versatile, considering the number of things you can use as your accent nail. 

What do you think? Will you try "pearl necklace and brooch fancy jewelry" nails? I'd love to see it if you do! Tweet me a pic @akaBailey!