Roses Are Blue... Vintage Rose Nail Art Part 1

The other day I posted a little preview of my latest nailart love, roses. Inspired by the dress I wore for my boyfriend's graduation, a white dress with blue roses, I decided to finally try out rose pattern nails!

With summer in full swing, Britain engulfed in a glorious heat-wave, and the roses in full bloom, floral nail art seems perfectly fitting and is a beautifully adaptable way to bring some summer to your nails! Here's what I did with mine...

L-R: Barry M 'Aqua Glitter', Rimmel 'Sky High', Miss Sporty 'Pop Fiction', MaxFactor 'Cactus Green'

For the glitter gradient I used Rimmel's 'Sky High' (my new favourite blue) for the base, and another new addition to my collection, Barry M's 'Aqua Glitter', for the shading. The two colours are nearly identical so they blended SO well together for a glitter gradient! I would definitely recommend trying this yourself, with or without the rose art. It's a really simple look that takes just a few minutes to acheive! Here's how to do it:

1. Paint all your nails with a good base coat to strengthen nails, prevent staining, and provide a smooth base for your colour.

2. Paint on your base colour (Sky High in this case) on your chosen nails until opaque and allow to dry.

3. With glitter its important to be more accurate as it's a nightmare to get off skin. Therefore using either an eyeshadow sponge or small cut up piece of sponge painted with your glitter polish (Aqua Glitter in this case), apply to the nail concentrating on the tip, and moving about halfway down the nail.

4. Try to allow for a thicker coat of glitter on the tips, letting it get thinner as you move in. This makes it appear more blended and smooth.

5. Clean any excess polish on the surrounding skin with acetone, add a couple of layers of clear topcoat, and leave to dry.

Once that's all nicely dry it's time to start on the feature nails! I usually pick my ring finger and thumb nails for these but you can do it however you like. 

1. Paint the nail with your base colour. I used Barry M's 'Matte White' for this look. 

2. Allow to dry, and paint with a top coat for easier correction if mistakes are made in the next steps.

3. Select your rose colours. You will need a lighter and darker version of your chosen colour to create the base and detail.

4 Once completely dry (tacky nails make for messy art) coat the end of a dotting tool in your chosen lighter colour. I used Rimmel's 'Sky High'. Place around 3-5 dots, depending on the size of the nail, nicely spaced out to give room for leaves and other detail.

5. Coat a thin nail brush or thin dotter with your chosen darker shade. In this case I used Miss Sporty's 'Pop Ficton'. Paint the outline of half of each dot, swirling the end into the centre, as seen in the picture above.

6. With the same colour, outline a smaller part of the other half of each dot, as seen in the picture above.

7. Clean the tool and coat in a green colour for the leaves. I used MaxFactor's 'Cactus Green'.

8. Creating the leaves is really up to your own design flair. I made them a sort of pear shape and placed them wherever there was space without making it too crowded.

9. Add your top coat and leave to dry.

Here were my finished results!

For a first attempt I was very happy with how it turned out. It's not the quickest style to do, and it's certainly not one for the quick tempered, but with a bit of patience and persistence it's a style really worth trying. In my next post you'll see just how much I loved the style... I did it all over again with different colours!

Finally for reference, here's me in the dress that inspired it all:

Disclaimer: Totally not just an opportunity 

for this incredibly proud girlfriend to show off...

For more nailart, click on the tab at the top of the page! Leave your comments and questions below and I'll try to reply ASAP :)