Purple Heart Nail Art

I feel I must start this post with an apology.  It is that time of year when it is constantly cold and it seems that no matter what I do, my hands look like those of a 50 year old smoker.  My cuticles are not too bad since I constantly take care of them, but my skin is constantly dry.  It doesn't help that I am also losing weight.  I mean, it does help my health, but I find that even though I have been keeping well hydrated, my skin is "loosening" and showing that "crepiness", like crepe paper, full of wrinkles.  I need a good paraffin wax!

Today's post is for The Crumpet Nail Tarts Pick-n-Mix challenge.  The theme is purple or/and hearts.  I decided to go with "and".

 I have to admit that I had a very hard time with this manicure.  Not this design exactly, but with the whole hearts thing.  I will have many varied valentines manis this month, so I had plans for this one.  I wanted a cute stamping french tip.  M80 to be exact.  However, my M80 is a fauxnaud (Konad knockoff)  I purchased this before developing a conscious about those kind of things.  I was going to stamp in white and fill in the hearts with pink.  Cute idea!  It just was not meant to be.  I tried every combination of white and stamper that I have.  I tried stamping directly onto my nails and as a stamp decal.  Nothing was working.  I finally gave up and grabbed another image I had set aside for Valentine's Day.


 
PUEEN SE01B.  That cute swirly winged heart.  Once again I tried a couple different white polishes and a couple stampers.  So frustrated though I just gave up.  I have never had so many problems stamping!  I just grabbed another plate and went to work.

I finally settled on PUEEN 68 with much better results.  I was so sick of stamping, however, that I didn't even care if I got my lines straight, just slapped it on my nails, took pictures and said DONE!

This is what I ended up with.  I started with three coats of Dance Legend Mist Way Be Mine.  Such an appropriately named polish for this nail art.  I stamped with the aforementioned PUEEN 68 and A England Lady of the Lake.  The next morning I woke up and went "Ugh!".  I couldn't stand it, so one dimensional and boring.  I decided to add something more.

I filled in some of the hearts with Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer If You're a Seascape, a pretty bubblegum pink holo.  Still not satisfied, but I didn't want to make all the hearts pink.

Instead I grabbed A England Lady of the Lake again and filled in the rest of the hearts with it.  "Sigh".  Much better, but it sure took enough work to get it to that point!  Look how it all sparkles!  My hearts are now happy.

Despite all the trouble, the wonky stamping and my sloppy hearts, I ended up still liking this.  Maybe because I worked so hard at it?  Sometimes nail art is just a pain in the fingertips!

Check out the other purple/heart nail art (I love it when something rhymes).  Let me know if you think I succeeded or if I should have given up a long time ago.  (tee hee)  Thanks for looking and commenting!