Owl Nail Design

July 6, 2011

You can click on a picture to enlarge it!

I am extremely proud of this manicure because it was all hand painted. My first two attempts at hand painting did NOT turn out good (see peacocks gone wild and hand painted flowers), but I still shared. This is something I need to work at, so I took my time on this manicure. If you have any tips you would like to share, please do!

For this manicure, I finally bought proper nail art paint brushes instead of using regular acrylic paint brushes even though they appear to be the same thing (who knows). I knew what I wanted to do for this manicure for a long time and have tried to do this manicure many times, but I wasn't able to figure out a way to draw the owl. BUT... my friend from work (thanks Niki) gave me a quick lesson on how to draw an owl. So yesterday, I came home and did the manicure..... Tell me what you think....

I also had better luck drawing the owl with a THIN paint brush as opposed to a nail art pen. I tried first with the nail art pen, but it looked SLOPPY. So I removed it and started over. The second time I used strictly a paint brush and got this result. On the rest of my fingers, I was going with a tree branch look. I hope that is what you see haha..

This is my INSPIRATION for this manicure. I got this photo off the web.

More about → Owl Nail Design

Hand Painted Flowers....

June 24, 2011

This is the first manicure I have really been disappointed in. I had such high hopes for this manicure, but it didn't turn out how I pictured it. My cuticles have been really dry lately, which makes makes cleaning up polish in that area difficult. Oh well, maybe someone will like it. 

I used two base coats of Konad Regular Polish in pastel green. Then using a paint brush, I painted on the petals of the flower with  Orly Hawaiian Punch. The leaves/stems are painting on with Sinful Colors Last Chance. The dot in the center of the flower is painting on with Revlon Cooper Penny.

More about → Hand Painted Flowers....

peacocks gone wild...

 June 17, 2010

Peacock Nail Design

My sister asked me to do a peacock nail design, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use my dotting tools and a paint brush for the first time. If I ever do this design again, I would add more defined brush strokes. But here is what I did to create this look.... tweak my step by step instructions to make it your own! (P.S. sorry my cuticles are so dry---ugh, finger nail polish is harsh).

Items I used: 

(If it is in a colored font, it is hyperlinked to a website for purchase)

1. Revlon: Copper Penny
2. Konad Regular Polish: Shining Brown
3. Sally Hansen: Night Flight
4. Sinful Colors: Midnight Blue
5. Sally Hansen: Mint Sprint
6. Sinful Colors: Last Chance
7. OPI: Who the Shrek are you?

1. Paper Towels

2. Paint Brushes

3. Dotting Tools

4. Bundle Monster Stamping Plate 

5. Konad Nail Art Double Ended Stamper and Scraper

Step 1: Paint entire nail with OPI: who the shrek are you?

  Step 2 and 3: Add a dot of Sinful Colors Midnight Blue and outline bottom half of dot with Sally Hansen Night Flight using dotting tool

               

Step 4: Using a thin paint brush and a smooth, light stroking motion apply Konad Shining Brown, Sally Hansen Mint Sprint, and Sinful Colors Last Chance

In this step, I would add more defined brush strokes than I did, blending the blue/black center dot better.

Step 5: Add a dot of Revlon Copper Penny in the center using dotting tool

Step 6: Using Bundle Monster stamping plate, Konad stamper, scraper, and Sinful Colors Midnight Blue stamp on the peacock

More about → peacocks gone wild...