Admittedly, I wasn't entirely sure how this mani was going to turn out when I first thought of it - but it's actually pretty bang on with what I was intending. I tend to lean more towards adorable lovey cuteness when I think of Valentine's Day nails (probably because even though I'm not what I would ever call a romantic, I think there's something distinctly sweet about this particular holiday) but this time I wanted to go for a straight up blood and guts feel... but make it pretty! Anyway, here's what I came up with!

Keep reading to take a look!

For this smoosh, I felt like I definitely wanted to keep it more in the pinky/burgundy family because you can interpret it as either pretty or... well, straight up gory, if we're being honest. So I grabbed a warm pink, a sort of mauvey pink, and a super rich, deep burgundy shade. I used the lightest shade, the warm pink, as my base and applied one coat to all of my nails. Once that was dry and I had applied a cuticle barrier, I placed dots of each polish onto a stamper head and then just pounced it on my nails until I got the blend that I wanted. Interestingly, I did end up with some cells in this smoosh, like you tend to get with fluid art polish, though I couldn't tell you why or how. 

Once I had cleaned up and crisped up my edges, I went in with my stamping. I really, really wanted to use these L-O-V-E images from the Nicole Diary 207 Stamping Plate and I felt like the sort of grungey vibe of them would really work with this design. I went with white stamping polish to get a really strong contrast between the letters and the background, since I feel like that really pops both. 

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed it in with a water based top coat and then followed with a quick dry matte top coat to bring down the shine - which I really felt would also pop this mani and give it the feel I was looking for. And voila!

I suspect that this won't be everyone's thing - but I'm kind of thrilled with how it turned out. You can just take it as pretty and marbley, but there's also that sort of dark vibe that you can take from it as well, and I think there's something really cool about that. Twisted, a little, which can be fun.

Keep an eye out for more Valentine's Day themed nail art - because this woman just can't resist a theme to save her life!

Thanks for reading!