Shimmer and Matte - The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with Dandy Nails Cashmere Night

My niece's fifth birthday was on Saturday and I had to have pink in my nails. She loves pink! So Shimmer Jelly Strawberry was the obvious choice. After several trials and errors I decided to combine the shimmer with some Matte, and Cashmere Night immediately popped into my head. This was my end result, but I got there not without some more trials and errors...

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night. Indoor in artificial lighting

I wasn't sure how I wanted these two combined in a mani. I started with looking for the pattern and decided to try a flower pattern from a paper puncher that I have. I punched some white tape, applied Cashmere Night to my nails and when it wsa dry, I applied some Jelly Shimmer Strawberry through the cut tape.

But I wasn't happy at all. Over the dark base, I felt that the glorious Jelly shimmer is loosing it's shine. It wasn't right and it wasn't what I wanted. So I decided to try again, with the Jelly Shimmer as my base and Cashmere Night being the flower.

It was indeed better but I felt that I kind of lost the contrast between the Jelly Shimmer and the Matte. I had to come up with another idea. I decided to use the cut flower shape for my mani and not the framed tape. But then I realized I had to leave some part of the flower out of the nails because without it I couldn't remove the tape after applying my polish. And I didn't like it at all. 

By now timestarted to become an issue and I really needed to get my mani done. Thankfully, at that moment  my cat decided to scratch and dig into a drawer next to me. As I turned around to check on her, she was chewing vigorously on some reinforcement stickers... And as I rescued them from her, I realized they were my perfect tape for this mani! They are large enough to anyway leave some part out of the nail, but they don't have any special shape that will look odd when it's not complete. And so this mani was finally made!

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night. Indoor in artificial lighting

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night. Indoor in artificial lighting

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night. Indoor in artificial lighting

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night in direct sun

The Nail Junkie Jelly Shimmer Strawberry with  Dandy Nails Cashmere Night in direct sun

I hope you liked my mani. I think my niece liked it! But for her birthday I gave her some Piggy Paint polishes and she was too busy playing with those then noticing anything else around ;-)

Both polishes can be found in their maker's Etsy store: The Nail Junkie and Dandy Nails. Make sure you check them both!