Helen Dardik Week : Swan Song

Evening all ! The weather has been pretty miserable today here in Salzburg, so we stayed in for a few hours this afternoon, but still went out in to town this morning ! There was an amazing farmers' market we had no idea about, which was selling all sort of amazing food - mainly cheese and meat, but there were loads of vegetable stores and pretty autumnal floral wreaths on stands - it was just so colourful ! We fought the rain for a while and did a bit of shopping in the old town and then we went for a coffee (a hot chocolate in my case !), where my mum had a very nice looking slice of Black Forest gateau !

Today is the last day of my Helen Dardik Week series, and it's going out with a bang ! It seems appropriate that the title of this pattern is "Swan Song", since this is the final design in the series ! This is the design that is on a par in first place with the design I posted yesterday, although my mum has admitted that this is her favourite !

When I chose to replicate this pattern I was originally set on painting the swans, the flowers, however, ended up really catching my eye and, knowing me, I of course went down the floral route ! The two different beige nail polishes I've used for this design aren't as contrasted as they are in the original pattern, but I do like the subtlety of it ! I added the tiny flowers on at the end because I thought the design needed something more than just the big flowers, and I really think the orangey centres bring this design to life !

I started with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff for this design and then painted the big black stamens with American Apparel Hassid. The petals were done using OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, with little accents of American Apparel T-Shirt on the ends and in the black parts. The little flowers were done using American Apparel Hassid and Essie Meet Me at Sunset.

So what do you all think then ? Which design has been your favourite from this week ? I'm glad I was able to wear this design for a couple of days before having to change it, as it was the last design I painted for this series when I was preparing it all back at the beginning/middle of the month ! I'm still torn as to which design is my favourite between this one and yesterday's design !

I need to go and get ready for bed now, but I'll be back again tomorrow, this time with a new tutorial for you all ! See you then !