Mermazing Nails!

Hello nail world, I'm feeling mermazing today! I really enjoyed doing this nail design and wearing it. It was one of those that lasted me about a week. Eventually a few little areas starting losing little chunks of pattern so that was my excuse to try another design! I took my inspiration from Christine at Simply Nailogical on Youtube, who did this in a more pastel-y way, and a neater way!  I ended up quite liking the rustic way mine turned out too though.

I started with a white base coat, and once dry pressed on some fishtail patterned stencils. Next I watered down some acrylic paint and dabbed it onto the nails one colour at a time, with a small nail art brush. The trick is to keep it nice and liquid so that it pools around the edges a little, this didn't work perfectly on all my nails but I think in general it did the trick!

If the colour was too dark I just dabbed on some more water, and if it became to faint I added more paint. It's a good technique as you can be so rough/vague with it. I left it about a minute to dry a little, but didn't leave it too long as I didn't want to risk peeling off the design. It's important to peel up each corner and carefully work your way into the middle to reduce the risk of peeling. There were a few areas on mine that leaked out a little onto the white area. Some of this I scratched off with an orange stick, but the rest I left on for an edgier look (at least that's my excuse!).

(continued below pictures)
Above left is the design pre-glitter. Once the pattern was dry I used a light glitter (Crystal Shimmer form Accessorize) to give it a glowing finish. On my ring fingers I used some clear nail polish to stick on little silver shells I bought from She Sells Sea Shells. These lasted surprisingly well, and weren't even to tricky too prize of my nail when it was time to take off the design.

What I used: White nail polish, acrylic paint (blue, purple and green), fishtail mermaid nail stencils (from eBay), nail art brush and clean up brush, small pot of water, glitter topcoat. silver metal shells
Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Blue acrylic paint, Purple acrylic paint, Green acrylic paint, Crystal Shimmer - Accessorize