Thursday, December 20, 2012

Nail Tutorial: Here Comes Santa Clause!

Christmas is without a doubt my favorite holiday!! In honor of this awesome day, I decided to do a Santa themed manicure. I found a lot of different ideas online when I was getting ready to do this, so I decided to put everything together, and do a different design on each nail. Keep reading if you want to see how I did my festive nails!

What You'll Need:
  • Basecoat and Topcoat (I love Orly's Bonder and Won't Chip!)
  • Red, White, Silver, Black, Yellow, Nude, and Pink Polishes
  • Green Striper
  • Glitter Polish
  • Dotting Tool/ Bobby Pin
First Step:
Apply a coat of basecoat on all of your nails to protect your nails from staining.

Pinky: Fancy French Tip
Use the red polish to do a French tip. Then, use the silver to add a thin line under the red. 

Ring Finger: Santa's Coat
Paint the entire nail with two coats of red, and let it dry.
Then, make a vertical line down the center of the nail with the white polish. Make dots at the tip to make fur.
Paint a black line across the nail for Santa's belt. Then, use the yellow to make the belt buckle.

Middle Finger: Santa!
Paint the bottom third of the nail red.
Then, paint up to the tip with the nude polish for Santa's face.
At the tip of the nail, make white dots to form Santa's beard. Then, make two small dots for Santa's eyes, and a pink dot for his nose.

Index Finger: Santa's Hat
Paint a red triangle with the point at the bottom of your nail. Then, make a white dot at the point  and more white dots at the tip of the nail to look like the fur on Santa's hat.

Thumb: O Christmas Tree!
Apply two coats of red polish, then let them dry.
Use the green striper to make a triangle with the point at the bottom of your nail.
Then, make a yellow dot at the top of your tree to serve as the star. Finish off the design by adding some glitter to the tree for Christmas lights. 

Finishing Touch:
Apply a coat of topcoat to all of your nails to add a nice shine and make your design last longer.

There you have it, a super cute holiday manicure! If the full mani is too much for you, you can always choose just one design, but I think it's perfect. Happy holidays and thanks for reading!
XOXO Kayla

Monday, December 3, 2012

Nail Tutorial: Purple & Glitter with Leopard Print Accent Nails

Thank you to everyone who read my first two posts! I'm new to this blogging thing and it's been hard fitting in blogging with school and college applications. I haven't even done my nails at all since I did them for my galaxy tutorial! I finally found some time this week, so I decided to do purple with glitter and leopard spots for an accent. Keep reading if you want to see my first attempt at leopard print!



What You'll Need:

  • Basecoat and Topcoat (Orly's Bonder and Won't Chip are the best!)
  • Base Color (I'm using Metro Chic by Sephora by OPI)
  • White Polish
  • Black Polish
  • Striper/Bobby Pin/Dotting Tool/Toothpick (any of these will work)
  • Glitter Polish


Step One:

Apply one coat of basecoat to protect your nails. Then, apply two thin coats of your base color.

Step Two:

Paint a coat of glitter (or more if you're a glitter addict like me!) on four of your nails, followed by a coat of topcoat to keep them from chipping and make them more shiny.

Step Three:

Dot the white polish randomly on your accent nail. Be sure to leave some space between each dot. I prefer to do this with the brush from the bottle, because leopard spots aren't naturally uniform.

Step Four:

Use the striper to outline the white dots with C shapes. If you're like me, you'll actually have to try not to make the outlines too neat. The messier they are, the more realistic they look.

Step Five:

Make random small black dots in the spaces between the white dots to make your print look more realistic. If you feel that there is too much empty space, you can add more spots by starting with the outline and applying the white over it. This will also contribute to the messy look. Then, apply a coat of topcoat to protect your design.


There you have it, pretty glittery nails with a leopard accent. I hope you guys like it, and thanks for reading!

XOXO Kayla