BFF Friday: Fishscale Nails

Hi all,

Ooops I've just seen that the last blog post I made before this one was on the 20th June.  That's really bad of me.  Although I've been doing my nails, I haven't really had time to sit down and write about them, which is such a shame.

I've recently discovered Nail Vinyls sold by She Sells Seashells and a lot of my manicures recently have been using these vinyls.  Saz from My Mint Nails has also been using them and we discovered that we had both bought the fishscale vinyl stencils from the store so it made sense that our next BFF Friday manicure was based on these.

The vinyls are quite fiddly - it took me forever to poke the scales out of the stencil.  But once I got that sorted, the stencil stuck down firmly and was really effective and easy to use.

I used Fijian Paradise from Freckles Polish & BiFrost from Smitten Polish (which I bought from Rainbow Connection).  The Fijian Paradise was a base for my accent nail, which I planned to use the stencil over.

The best way to use the stencils is to apply your base colour then use a quick dry top coat.  I usually give it at least 20 minutes then to make sure the nail is completely dry before apply the vinyl.  You have to be so so careful so that you don't pull up the base colour.

Once this is done I apply the top colour.  It's best to use a polish that is quite opaque and applies well with only one coat.  Try not to apply too thick a layer as this can cause the polish to run into the pattern.  Once you've applied the top colour, use a pair of tweezers to remove the stencil.  Follow this up with a top coat once the nail has dried to seal in the design.

Anyway, enough of my blabbing.  Here are my nails:

I cannot wait to see what Saz has come up with, make sure you check out her blog.

Also, I know I'm rubbish at posting here but I still keep my instagram account updated regularly.  My life is pretty hectic so I don't always get time to sit down and write about my nails once I've done them, but I always share them!  Find me @Naileymabob