FingerFood's Theme Weeks - Monochrome Mother's Day!

This week we have a bumper crop of themes! Due to an overlap between an old and a new set of prompts, I could combine two ideas - one for Mothers' Day and a Monochrome one. Challenge accepted!

Polishes used: Revlon Guest List, Color Club Nouveau Vintage and Sugar Ray, Ciate Cookies & Cream, Nails Inc Langham Place and OPI You Don't Know Jacques

When I was still planning for the single theme of Mothers Day, I decided I wanted to finally try my hand at freehanded vintage roses. I've always loved how they look, and the instructions were simple enough - and so many amazing bloggers posted excellent tutorials! For this manicure, I followed the advice of the incredible Nailasaurus. The addiction of the monochrome prompt forced me to consider a few colour options, and after some deliberation (and a whole lot of polish dots on paper) I chose sepia as my main colour scheme.

Vintage sepia roses and dots.

I started by painting my index and ring fingers with two coats of Color Club Nouveau Vintage - a brown polish with a strong gold and green shimmer. The thumb, middle and pinky were covered with two coats of Color Club Sugar Ray - a pale nude with a fine pink shimmer.

The dots were added with a medium dotting tool. The centre row is Noveau Vintage, the next one outwards is Nails Inc Langham Place, and the out-most row is OPI You Don't Know Jacques. For the roses, I blobbed the Langham Place as the base with the dotting tool, and then added the shadows and highlights with a fine detailing brush from Born Pretty Store using You Don't Know Jacques and Ciate Cookies and Cream. The leaves are the only departure from the sepia tone, but I wanted to add a bit of contrast to the whole design. These were made with the detail brush and Revlon Guest List. After everything was properly dry, I added one coat of Seche Vite.

Vintage roses and dots.

This manicure was surprisingly easy to do. I had practised the drawing technique a few times on a bit of paper, and then recreated it on my nails. Getting the dots even was probably the hardest part of this manicure! I am completely in love with it right now - it looks gorgeous, and I will definitely be adding roses to my nail art arsenal.

Polishes I used: 

• Revlon Guest List - a muted khaki green crème. A bit runny in application, but it's opaque in two coats.
• Color Club Nouveau Vintage - a gorgeous multidimensional gold and olive shimmer in a brown base. Opaque in two coats, easy to apply and did I mention it's beautiful?
• Color Club Sugar Ray - a pale nude with a fine pink shimmer throughout. Opaque in two easy coats, but it dries a bit frosty - not noticeable under nail art, but it would bother me on its own.
• Ciate Cookies & Cream - a pink-leaning nude crème, transparent and opaque at the same time. A wonderful polish for nail art base, or details.
• Nails Inc Langham Place - a warm darkish nude crème, nicely opaque and easy to apply.
• OPI You Don't Know Jacques - the legendary taupe crème, perfect for nail art. On its own opaque in two easy coats, super easy to apply and incredibly versatile.

Thanks for looking, and check out other theme manicures below!

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