In natural light

Under artificial light

Holding my inspiration – a keychain from Melissy Made It

OPI The “It” Color, Essie Marshmallow & Turquoise and Caicos

Hello Berry Patch!  Just as the title says, today’s mani was inspired by something that I would have never thought of – a keychain!  One of the Berries in the Patch started her own Etsy shop where she sells awesome handmade fabric keychains, and she contacted me about reviewing some of her products.  I have to admit that I was skeptical at first, but I got some advice from other nail bloggers and decided to go for it.  So Melissa, of the etsy shop Melissy Made It, sent me four adorable keychains (some for me and some for a giveaway!).  They are extremely well made and great quality, so I know these will be long lasting.  But since I write a nail polish blog, I decided to create a mani inspired by the pattern of one of her keychains in order to make this review relevant.

Such adorable packaging!

You could win one of these high quality fabric keychains! Enter below!

Even though Melissa sent me an adorable strawberry fabric keychain that is perfect for BerryPolished, I decided to use the other pattern as my inspiration since I have already done strawberry nail art and I loved the color combination of the abstract pattern keychain.  I started with a base of Essie Turquoise and Caicos, which is a dusty teal cream.  It reminds me a lot of OPI’s Mermaid’s Tears, which I used in one of my very first posts – the Domo-Kun manicure – but I think the OPI version might be slightly more dusty and green.  Turquoise and Caicos was unfortunately very thin and streaky during the first coat.  And I am really not a fan of the tiny brushes Essie polishes have.  But after the second coat, I was able to to achieve an opaque look.  Then I hand painted on some zigzags and stripes with OPI The “It” Color and Essie Marshmallow.  And, as usual, I finished it off by adding a layer of my favorite top coat – Seche Vite.  This manicure did very well in terms of wear – I am currently on day 5 and I only have a little bit of wear on the sides of my thumbs and minimal free edge wear.

Now I have to say, I am so glad that I decided to do this mani, because I think it has turned out to be my second favorite manicure ever, after my Black Swan nail art!  And I would have never thought to use a keychain as my inspiration; that just goes to show you that inspiration truly can come from anywhere  So make sure you go check out the Melissy Made It store, maybe you will find some inspiration for your next manicure and snag a great keychain in the process.  I will also be giving away two of these awesome keychains below, so make sure you enter the rafflecoptor giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Products used:

• Zoya Anchor Basecoat ~ average $5.00
• Essie Turquoise & Caicos ~ average $5.00
• Essie Marshmallow ~ average $5.50
• OPI The “It” Color ~ average $5.50
• Seche Vite Top Coat ~ average $4.50
• **All prices base on current Amazon prices unless otherwise noted.

Thanks for reading, I post every Sunday, Wednesday and occasionally on Fridays.  And please don’t forget to “like” my Facebook page for extra news!  I also have a Tumblr and a “nail ideas” board on Pinterest.com under the user name “berrybear”.

~ A. Berry

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2012 at 10:55 am and is filed under Creme Finsih, Essie, OPI, Sponsored Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.