Mani Monday: Nautical Nails

It's officially summer and I recently attended a nautical themed Stag & Doe, so of course I had to do my nails!

For this look I used:

• Nail HQ Ridge Filler Base
• Ceramic Glaze in 24 Carats
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue
• Formula X in Infinite Indigo
• OPI Alpine Snow
• CND Vinylux Weekly Top Coat
• Wet n'Wild in Black Crème
• Essence Absolute Pure (clear coat)

• Tape and Striping tape
• Tweezers
• Nail Glue
• Gems
• Stamper
• Dotting tool or toothpick (not shown)
  

Here's How:

1. Apply your base coat to all nails
2. Apply 2 coats of Pacific Blue to each nail (except accent nail)
3. Apply 2 coats of  24 Carats to accent nail
4. Using stamper, the Essence top coat, Black Crème and dotting tool/toothpick, create an anchor vinyl (nail sticker)
5. Cut anchor to size of nail and gently press onto accent nail. Finish with Vinylux Weekly Top Coat
6. Apply Infinite Indigo to each blue nail to obtain desired shade of blue (I didn't have a dark blue, so adding this gave me the colour I wanted)
7. Once dry, apply Striping tape as evenly as possible on index and middle finger nails
8. Apply a good coat of OPI Alpine Snow, and remove tape with tweezers while still wet to obtain stripes (make sure you press down on the tape before painting or you wont have full lines, as you can see on my nails). Let dry, finish with Vinylux Weekly Top Coat
9. Since I had no idea how to apply the gems, I used a piece of tape and the following method:
1. Using a piece of tape about 1.5 inches long, pick up a gem (gem side on the tape).
2. Put the tape down and apply a tiny, TINY dot of nail glue to the underside of the gem
3.  Carefully and gently position the gem (and tape) and desired location and gently pull on either side of the tape to apply a little pressure. Carefully remove tape after 30seconds, or once glue has dried). Repeat until all desired nails are done.
4. Apply Vinylux Weekly Top Coat to nail, going around gemstone

Nautical Look