Roses are... pink, sometimes

It has been gorgeously sunny and warm in London for the last few days, perfect for enjoying al fresco weekend breakfasts on the patio, Calippo ice pops, mooching around secondhand furniture stores, and discovering new-to-me cocktails.

It's also ideal weather for wearing pretty little roses on your nails, maybe rendered in summery shades of pink on a light and breezy base colour.

Much like this here mani, in fact.

I handpainted these bad (or good?) boys using the brushes of the polishes themselves. I applied one colour at a time to all the nails in a rose-ish shape (no need to be too precise) and simply built up the detail by adding a layer of colour to all of the flowers before moving on to the next shade of pink-ish polish.

To draw the fiddly stems and leaves, I used a small detailing brush. And that's about all the detail I can give you, because in a fit of domestic enthusiasm I tidied away the polishes I had used to create these nails before making a note of them.

DOH. Nail blogger fail.

But at least my sitting room was tidy.

The slightly iridescent fuchsia might be Essie Jamaica Me Crazy. Maybe. 

Of course, it doesn't really matter because you can use any selection of three or four shades for floral nails, as long as there's at least one lighter colour for highlights and a darker one for shadows (although those terms suggest a level of precision polish placement that's really not required!)