Bridal designs

A collection of nail designs suitable for brides-to-be (IMO). The collection will start from earlier works down to the latest work and are mostly light colours. Hopefully we can see some kinda progression (you rely on your own assessment criteria ^_^).

One of the first french manicures I did. Its a light purple base with classic white tips. Note the tips were drawn straight across? I remembered using scotch tape then.

A nude coloured base with glitter on the tip. It was one of the first bottles I owned and the glitter was so hard to remove, I actually had to cut my nails off! Now, all the glitter I have has a finer grit compared to this one and much easier to remove.

First set of nails done for a bride who was a good friend and lab neighbour. The sample was a light purple base and lace tip emailed to her. The final product was a manicure with metallic pink polish overlay with pink glitter and a pedicure using bronze polish. In those days, we didn’t even think that we had to match the colours for the mani and pedi! She was really good at staying still….as long as the tv is on 🙂 Its fun to reminisce.

Light blue base with a lace-and-polka dot sticker. Although it was nice to see up close, it didn’t really show up against the blue background. I found a pairing with a darker purple made the sticker design pop (to be shown in future posts). A lesson was learnt in colour coordination and am still learning about it till this day.

Manicure done for the photo shoot of bride-to-be and good friend, Jen. This design may have looked simple but it took 4 hours to do! It was mainly due to inexperience and obsessive compulsive behaviour on my part. To cut the long story short, there were 9 layers of varnish. Jen was a really great sport and still smiling at the end of the session.

Jen’s actual manicure on the wedding day. A nude polish with a metallic sheen was chosen as I slowly learnt that light colours, especially in the neutral tones would complement the bridal outfits better. Variations of the classic french tips were attempted and I must say, there were less layers of varnish and it took a shorter time too!

Jen’s bridesmaid’s manicure. Metallic pink and light pink glitter base with sakura stickers. The dots were hand painted.

YP’s nails. Testing session for bridal shoot and actual day. Jeremy was watching Heroes Season 1 (Yup. It was that LONG ago.) on my iMac while she did nails in my other room. This was a metallic pink base with pink glitter (I had other colours in my limited collection then but this was a really popular combo for brides-to-be). She had tiny nails so the lace tip on the thumb was really a good fit.

YP’s nails for bridal shoot or was it the Msia wedding? It was a light purple base with nail stickers adorned with jewels and topped with a frilly tip. I didn’t manage to do her nails for the wedding dinner as she was too busy. HOWEVER, I enhanced the classic french manicure she had done with a sprinkle of silver glitter and tiny flowers. It was done in the hotel bathroom while her makeup artist was touching up on her hair and makeup! I don’t have pictures of her nails (if someone has it, please send it to me) but I did a replicate of it on myself. See below.

My nails are much larger than YP’s. I used a champagne coloured base, did the silver sprinke and scattered some flowers. Think I got better painting the french, note how it follows the curve of the nails.

The ever popular combo of metallic pink with glitter up close and personal.

Nude base with a slight metallic sheen. White french tip and adorned with heart-shaped and round jewels.

Pink glitter base with heart spangles. White french tip. Did this design for Grace’s bridal shoot. See below.

Fingers and toes. All pink and prettied.

Grace’s sister’s nails. She wanted a diva feel. Its a cream beige with gold/silver glitter french tip.

My own nails with champagne base and silver gradient. Not bad for a 1st attempt, eh?

My own nails with frost white base. The design was diagonal white with lace sticker. Was bored with french tips then.

Champagne and Metallic Pink bases with lace tips. Samples for another bride who was a classmate and lab buddy who wanted something simple. I had to test the drying time of the polish while doing them (Champagne wins!) because…..see below for the full story 😛

Wanshe’s nails done at 6am on actual day!

Unlike the YP experience, the makeup artist and myself did everything from scratch. So, the drying time for the nails were pretty crucial. It was a pretty interesting experience especially for the photographer who had never seen a manicure done on the actual day.  At some point, he startled me by pointing his huge lens right next to my face and the hand I was working on! Anyways, Wanshe said something about the first time having her nails look so pretty. Aww….

This is a light frosty green base (yes, it really is green. nope, not silver.) sprinkled with silver glitter. White french tip. Seriously, its green. I passed my colour blind test.

Light purple base with sprinkle of silver glitter. White french tip and flower stickers. Cannot seem to remember any stories behind this one so it was prolly done on a bored weekend. Not bad eh?

Prolly not for all brides….it was done for valentine’s day 2009. I just did a nude base and went ballistic with the glitter polish, jewels, pearls and Konading the “LOVE” and little white hearts. It was done after 2 hours (vast improvement from 4 hours. I’ve got my own measurable KPIs. Thank you very much.). I am extremely grateful to my super supportive and patient colleague, Jo-An, for lending me her fingers and letting me do whatever I wanted for this piece and loving it too.

Hazel’s pink glitter gradient base embellished with pink and white jewels (finger) as well as pink and white stars (thumb). This piece was done really fast (30mins?) but the photo taking took a much longer time (potential KPI) due to inexperience on my part to get the shot I wanted. But she helped me a lot with her tasteful choice of accessories and dress. Looked like a trendy Japanese girl the photos really don’t do the overall look justice!

Light pink glitter base with diagonal mauve tip embellished with pearls. Sample for HM’s wedding. Nice concept but I’ll have to keep in mind the size of the pearls in proportion to the nail. I tot it seems a litte too big?

Sample for HM’s wedding too. Base with purple graduating into pink. The flowers decorated with jewels. Dots were randomly (for lack of a better word) dotted. Latest update is that I’ll possibily use acrylic roses.

Samples for a bride-to-be who is a good friend and lab buddy. (Left) All time favourite combo in pink and glitter base. (Middle) Variation of the frost white. (Right) Champagne base with gold glitter gradient. The samples were sent to Europe for her to chose with a letter listing the concept of the design as well as the pros and cons.

Are you still reading this long post?