Glasswing Butterfly Nail Art

Hey y'all!

I recently joined yet another Facebook group for nail artists and enthusiasts, Inspire Me Nails.  The current challenge is Weird, Wonderful Nature, wherein you create nail art inspired by nature.  I found a gorgeous inspiration pic and created these nails, inspired by the incredible Glasswing Butterfly.

The inspiration for these nails came from a pictured shared by Viral Nova on Facebook.

All told, the look needed 4 stamping plates and 6 polishes, but I think it's well worth the trouble.

L-R: Konad Black, George Gel Pro Celebration, MoYou Nails Lilac, Yellow, Orange, and Red

Since this is sort of a french tip design, I prepped my nails as usual with Duri Rejuvacote and then added a few dabs of Celebration to the tips of all my nails except the ring finger.

I then added a line of grass along the tip of that using plate VL019, and overstamped that with the floral pattern beside it on the plate by dabbing on Yellow, Orange, and Lilac over the flowers before I scraped.  This created a multi-color floral stamp that I was about to place over the grass effect I'd just created.  To finish these nails, I stamped on a couple of the butterfly images from the MoYou London Kitty 01 plate in Black, placing them so the background was visible as well as the bare nail.

The accent nail was created using two additional plates from the same makers, VL014 and Pro Collection 03.

I double-stamped the floral image from VL014 in Orange and then Yellow, and then topped it with the butterfly wing from Pro03 in Black.  After the stamp had a couple minutes to dry, I added the Red accents using a detail brush and topped everything with SV.

While I loved the look glossy, I couldn't help but wonder if it would be cool matted as well, and after consulting a couple of friends (Shelly and Cat), decided to try it after photographing the shiny top.  I decided the elf Matte Finisher would give it an awesome wax-matte finish that would be perfect for this look.

Overall I think these came out pretty well.  I would like to revisit the theme again and do them all with the full wing nail rather than just the accent nail, but for now I think this was a great start.  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments!

Also don't miss the other Weird, Wonderful Nature nail art looks in the inlinkz below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Hope you're all having a great week, and I'll see you soon!