Sakura Red

I've been meaning to try doing a cherry blossom mani for a while now and seeing some of the recent flora-related nail art around the blogging world finally kick-started my creative juices in that direction. Well, that and coming home from school with naked nails on Friday! With a severe lack of the pastel jade green traditionally used as a base for this mani however I decided to start with Zoya Sooki (red being one of the two colors on the Japanese flag).

My color palate: Zoya Sooki & Casey, NYC French White Tip, & Sinful Colors Starfish

After applying two coats of Sooki I used a thin art brush dipped in Casey to create the branches. I then used the same brush to put dots of the NYC white in clusters of five dots to resemble blossoms and short lines for flower buds. After that I used Starfish to put tiny pink centers in all the blossoms and finished up with a coat of OTD topcoat.

Here are both hands together.

Close-up of my right hand

Close-up of my left hand

It's now been about 72 hours since I finished this mani and I only have minor chippage and tip wear. I've also been adding another top coat layer each day to help increase wear time. I'm kind of tempted to see how long I can keep this but I also want to try the new Sinful Colors polishes I got with Walgreens' 99 cent sale this morning (for those who are curious I got 24/7, All About You, Daddy's Girl and What's Your Name).