My Coffee Obsession

My not-so-well kept secret is that I love coffee. I would drink it all day, every day if I could. And to me, the cup is just as important as the coffee. I can't just put my coffee in any cup. My family knows this and they are nice enough to get me some of the prettiest cups. Today's nail art is inspired by one of these cups.

Here are the (not so perfect) finished nails. I can't for the life of me get my stamper to work consistently. Though it hardly ever stamps this bad. This likely had something to do with the fine and delicate etching for the flower petals.

And here is the cup that inspired these nails. I started with three coats of Lightening from Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri line of polish.

 It's one of the most perfect yellow polishes, in my opinion. I have owned light yellows and sheer yellows but before Lightening I have never owned an actual, true yellow.

To get the yellow gingham pattern from the cup I used tape and China Glaze's White on White.

I used three strips of tape from cuticle to nail tip and three strips of tape from side to side before painting over the nail with white. This is such an easy design to do and creates such an amazing affect!!

My coffee cup has such gorgeous flowers in various colors, but the ones that catch my eye most are definitely the blue morning glories. To complete this design there just had to be flowers. Sadly, the only flowers I can do without a good deal of time are swirly roses and daisy-like flowers using a dotting tool. I had to use my stamper. I want so much to be good at stamping ... but I'm just not. :( I did manage to get one nearly perfect flower and it really did make the design come to life! It makes me all the more longing of a deft stamping hand.

I could definitely see this gingham pattern being used in a picnic nail art. Use red in place of the yellow and a dotting tool with some black to create an ant or two scuttling their way over the picnic blanket. If you have fimo fruit slices it would certainly add life to the design. :)