Little Aquarium Nails

Arden: Hey everyone!  I have a super cute manicure for you today.  I found this picture from the French nail blog Mademoiselle Emma and knew immediately that I needed to try them out for myself.

from http://mademoiselle-emma.blogspot.be/2013/08/nailstorming-retardataire-ocean-etoile.html

I started with my trusty L'Oreal One Stop Base Coat and then added two coats of Zoya Neely.  (This polish was on Lisl and my wishlist for a looooong time before we were finally able to snap it up during a sale.)

I then painted on the seaweed fronds using Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost and one of the smaller brushes from our MASH nail art brush set.  I then added bubbles using Sally Hansen White Out and a dotting tool, and drew on the fish, starfish, and jellyfish using Zoya Arizona (orange), Zoya PixieDust Miranda (texture pink), Zoya PixieDust Liberty (texture royal blue), and Julep sea salt finish Tracy (purplish blue texture polish) using the nail art brush. 

I finished up with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat (used this one instead of my trusty Essie Good to Go because Zoyas and Essie top coats don't play nice).

I think I probably should've added the bubbles after I drew on the fish, because I ended up having a bunch of bubbles on nails with fish-- the poor fish look a little crowded!

And here's my proof that it's possible to draw on this pattern using your non-dominant hand! (I actually think painting my nails has really helped my non-dominant hand become much more dexterous.  See, mom, there is an upside to my nail polish habit!)

Drawn using my left hand!

Left-handed artwork! And yes, I messed up under the goldfish. But you can barely tell!

Has anyone else tried out any fish-themed nail art recently? (Ok, that might be a little specific.)  But still, tell me what you think!

As Seen on Pinterest: Fish Scale and/or Mermaid Nails

Arden here: Today I tried something I've seen a couple of times on Pinterest, a nail design that looks like fish or mermaid scales.  This is one of the favorite ones I've seen:

from http://little-nails.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/picture-polish-blog-fest-2012-pshiiit.html?m=1

I decided I'd try to model my fish scale nails after the most famous literary fish scales of them all-- yes, that's right, I'm talking about The Rainbow Fish.

I started by applying on two coats of Maybelline Color Show Shocking Seas. 

Then I took A BUNCH of colors and dotted on colorful scales!

On the Dot: Peacock Nails!

When I first saw a version of this design online, I thought, "That looks so cool, but there's no way I could ever make dots that perfect!"  Then I looked at it again, and decided that maybe I could!

Full disclosure: The original version of this design DEFINITELY had better dots than mine that were actually in a pattern of perfect concentric circles, not weird concentric oval-ish shapes like mine, but I still really like how mine came out!

I started with two coats of Essie Midnight Cami. (Aside: Why do navy polishes ALWAYS photograph black?  It took a lot of finger contorting to get these to even look a little blue.)

Then I dotted a little flower pattern of 6 dots on each nail using Essie Good as Gold.  I used a dotting tool to make these dots, but they easily could've been made with a wall nail, toothpick, or basically any other household object with a tapered end.