Nail Art Tutorial - Rainbow Polka Dots

Hey!

So as I said in my review/swatches of Nfu-Oh #61 last night, I won't be doing any nail art for a while because I'm reviewing, swatching and doing wear tests for the entire Nfu-Oh Holographic Series of polishes. Thus, I'm trying to do some extra tutorials so that I still have some form of nail art for you.
I'll put up another poll today and I'll only let it run for 2 days this time so that I can have another tutorial up for you in a couple of days.

We had a very close poll once again this time and there was a tie between 2 designs: Abstract and Rainbow Polka Dots. In order to break the tie, I asked my polish friends on Facebook to choose which design they would rather see and the design that won out was my Rainbow Polka Dots design.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

White cream polish (OPI Alpine Snow).

Cream finish polishes in pink (Zoya Jolene), orange (China Glaze Papaya Punch), yellow (Orly Spark), green (Orly Green Apple), blue (Zoya Robyn), and purple (OPI Funky Dunky).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Small sized dotting tool (or you can use toothpicks but be sure to have a few of them handy).


Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your white polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
Dab some of your first colour onto some scrap paper (I'm starting with pink) and using your dotting tool, start to make a diagonal line of dots at the base of your nail.
Depending on the length of your nails, you might be able to do 2 lines of each coloured dots (which is what I'm going to be doing here) or maybe more if your nails are really long, but stick with just 1 line of each colour if your nails are on the shorter side because you want to be able to fit as many of the 6 colours on your nails as possible.
Also, remember to stagger your dots with each new line. I explained this technique in my Hello Kitty tutorial so be sure to check that out if you're not sure what I mean.


Step 4:
Once you've completed your dots with the first colour, move onto your next colour (I'll be doing orange next) and continue with the diagonal lines of dots.


Step 5:
Keep going with the rest of your colours until you have filled your entire nail with dots. If you were unable to fit all of the colours on your first nail, start with the colour(s) you weren't able to use on your next nail. This will ensure that you're able to use all of the colours of the rainbow. This is also why you should only work on one nail at a time when you first start the design so that you know exactly how many colours you're going to be able to fit on each nail.
If you look to my design on my own nails, I wasn't able to fit the pink dots on my index and ring fingers which is why I chose to start my middle and pinky fingers with the pink dots. Vice versa, I wasn't able to fit the purple dots on my middle and pinky so I started my index and ring fingers with the purple dots.


Step 6:
Because you've used so many colours, wait a decent amount of time before adding your top coat so that you don't experience any dragging of the colours. After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process, and will also give your nails a nice shine.


As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

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Nail Art Tutorial - Hello Kitty

Hey guys!

The most recent sidebar poll was the closest yet with 3 of the options being super close. However, in the end, my Hello Kitty design won out with 30% of the votes.

The other two options that were very close in the running were my Palm Tree Sunset design with 24% of the votes, and my Ice Cream Sundaes design with 22% of the votes. I'll put both of those designs in the next poll since it seems that you guys definitely want to see tutorials for them.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

Cream finish polishes in light pink (OPI Mod About You), hot pink (Essie Bachelorette Bash), yellow (Orly Spark), black (OPI Black Onyx), and white (Orly White Tips).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Fimo bows (mine are from eBay but if you don't have these yourself, you can draw the bow freehand). If you're looking to buy some of these from eBay (they're really inexpensive), simply typing in "nail art bow" in the search bar will yield a number of results.

A detail brush (mine is a paintbrush from Michael's and the brand name is Simply Simmons).

2 dotting tools: one small and one medium sized (you could also use toothpicks or the ends of bobby pins if you don't have dotting tools like these).

Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your hot pink polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
This is the easy part - the polka dots.
For all of your nails besides your thumbs, you'll be using your medium sized dotting tool to create the polka dots with your light pink cream polish. The trick to making polka dots looks their best is to order them in a staggered arrangement. In other words, instead of placing them directly side-by-side, you'll want to do one row first and then for your next row, you'll place the dots in between the dots of your first row. It's a hard technique to explain in words but hopefully the pictures will help to make sense out of it.
As well, you'll want to do your first row of dots in the center of the nail and work outwards.






Step 4:
This is where the more difficult and precise freehand work comes in. I won't lie, the rest of the design, i.e. Hello Kitty, will take some patience and precision. If you're not comfortable working with your non-dominant hand, I'd suggest just doing the polka dots on the thumb of your dominant hand so that you don't have to go through the frustration of doing precision work with your non-dominant hand. However, practice makes perfect so if you're up for the challenge, I encourage you to go for it!
You'll start off by making a simple french tip with your white polish. You want to make sure that the edges of the french tip are curved instead of straight across - this will look more like the shape of Hello Kitty.


Step 5:
Using your small dotting tool (or toothpick) and your black polish, make the eyes. You'll want to make them pretty far apart leaving only enough room on either side for some short whiskers.


Step 6:
After cleaning the black polish off, use the same small dotting tool and your yellow polish to make the nose. You'll want to make it in between the eyes but a little closer to the tip of the nail.


Step 7:
Using your small detail brush and your black polish, you'll want to freehand 3 wispy black lines on each side of the face.


Step 8:
In order to get the fimo bow to stick, you'll want to add a small blob of top coat to the area where you're going to place the bow. You'll want to place the bow on a slight diagonal above Hello Kitty's right eye.


Step 9:
After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process and will also give your nails a nice shine.
Unfortunately I was a little impatient waiting for the design to dry so the top coat dragged the black of the whiskers. However this won't be a problem for you as long as you wait for your design to dry completely before adding top coat.



As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

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Nails of the Day - Gradient Cheetah

Hey guys!

I've spoken before about the Monday nail art challenge that occurs weekly in the Facebook group Polish-aholics Anonymous. Well, this week's theme was sponging and I had a whole design planned but it ending up changing dramatically during the actual process.

I had planned to do a sunset using deep purple, pink and orange but once I sponged the pink on top of the purple, I loved the result so much that I couldn't bear to add any other colours. So, this gradient with a cheetah print on top was born.

I could seriously wear animal print nail art every single day so I am of course in love with this. Hope you all like it as well!



Products:
CND Stickey Base Coat
China Glaze - Grape Pop (base)
Essie - Super Bossa Nova (sponged over base)
OPI - Black Onyx (cheetah spots)
Seche Vite Top Coat

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Nail Art Tutorial - Rainbow Splatter

Hey guys!

Thank you to everyone who voted in my poll regarding which nail design you would like to see a tutorial for next. With 39% of the votes, my Rainbow Splatter manicure, which I did in celebration of LGBT Pride Month was the winner.

I'll be putting up a new poll after I post this tutorial so be sure to vote in that one as well. I also have another poll up right now asking for your feedback concerning what you would like to see more of on my blog, and even though there's still a little time left to vote, it's clear that you guys want more tutorials. So, I'm going to make a point to make at least one nail art tutorial a week and the designs I do will be entirely based on your votes.

Anyways, onto today's tutorial.
To refresh, here's what I'll be showing you how to do:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

White polish (OPI Alpine Snow).

Cream polishes in pink (Zoya Jolene), orange (China Glaze Papaya Punch), yellow (Orly Spark), green (Orly Green Apple), blue (Zoya Robyn), and purple (OPI Funky Dunkey).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

2 dotting tools (one large and one small). You could also use a toothpick instead of the smaller dotting tool and if you don't have a larger one, it's not entirely necessary, it just makes it a little easier to execute the design. And I know mine are a little beat up looking but that's what happens when you let these sit in acetone for long periods of time (oops).

Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats of your white polish (or until it's opaque). This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
You can use your colours in any order you choose but since this is a rainbow design, I did my splatters in the colour order of a rainbow. Thus, I'll be starting with my pink polish.
Using your larger dotting tool (or, if you don't have one, simply use the polish brush), place a large circular blob near the base of your nail. Make sure the blob is rather thick (you can even add a second blob to it to make sure it's thick enough).


Step 4:
Next, using your small dotting tool (or toothpick), start to pull the polish out from the blob to create the splatters. Still using the small dotting tool, add dots of the pink surrounding the splatter. There is no perfect guideline to go by when making your splatters so just pull the polish out from the blob until you're satisfied with your splatter.
It's best to work with one colour at a time so when you do the pink splatter on your first nail, move on to your other nails and do the pink splatters on those as well.


Step 5:
Continue making your splatters with the rest of the colours (orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple). If you have shorter nails, make your splatters smaller than I'm doing here so that you'll be able to fit most, if not all of the colours of the rainbow on each nail. And remember, it's ok for the splatters to overlap some. However, you don't want too many of the colours to overlap because it can start to look muddy.






Step 6:
After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process, and will also give your nails a nice shine.



As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

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