My Manicure

Candy cane nails! That’s today’s requested post; and I have two more holiday themed nail art tutorials set for tomorrow and the day after.

To start off this look, paint your full nails with any white nail polish. I used two coats of Sally Hansen’s “All the White Stuff.” 

All this nail design requires is some red acrylic paint and a liner/striper brush. You can buy a “striper brush” at a nail art shop, or a “riggers paintbrush” and an art/craft store. They are the same thing.

Dip your liner brush into your red acrylic paint and drag out a thin stripe across your nail. Making stripes with a liner brush is easy, because the long bristles naturally drag out a straight line if you pull the brush against a surface. “Drawing” a straight line with a short paintbrush is much more difficult. 

This is how acrylic paint can sometimes look over nail polish, but don’t worry. A clear topcoat as our final step will bring paint and polish to the same level and you won’t notice this bubbled-up look at the end. 

Repeat the stripe-step two more times to make three thin lines across the center of your nail. 

Color in a thick red stripe across the corner of your nail. It needs to be thicker than your first three lines because…

The biggest mistake I see with the candy cane nail look, is a “red/white/red/white” alternating stripe pattern, all stripe sections being the same width. If you look at a traditional candy cane though, that’s not what they actually look like. Real candy canes have a three-thin-stripe in between thick-red-stripes pattern.

Repeat the last step on the opposite corner of your nail. Also, this gemstone step is not necessary, but I attached a one to the tip of the nail for added sparkle. 

Very important - coat your entire nail with a clear topcoat. This will even everything out, protect your acrylic paint work and keep your gemstone from falling off. Now your nail design is smooth and shiny just like a real candy cane. :)

I realize this is a very labor-intensive nail design. If I were going to wear this look, I’d wear it on my index/ring fingers only, keeping the rest of my nails in simple white or red nail polish. People will notice your cute candy cane nails without you having to paint all ten, and a little holiday cuteness tends to go a long way.

I love looking at antique rings, and recently while doing so I was inspired to create a nail design themed around a common feature that many antique rings display. 

Here is an example of the style of which I’m speaking:  

The way the smaller stones surround the main stone is the specific part that interested me. I played around with that idea, but in autumn-appropriate colors:

The brown base is OPI’s “I’m Fondue of You.” I surrounded larger gemstones with tiny nail bullion beads to mimic the antique deco look.

Here is a close-up of the antique gem decoration:

While my nail polish was still tacky I attached the larger gems and encircled them in the nail bullion beads. Then I stuck the smaller gems around the main stone in a bit of a sideways stripe. I think this is one of my favorites. :)

Try pairing a dark purple French manicure with gold smile line accents for a simple yet slightly regal color scheme. I used “Juno” by Zoya for the purple tips, and metallic gold acrylic paint for the smile line accents.

Similar to the Argyle Print post, today I’ll be demonstrating a plaid nail art design. Wear this manicure with a little plaid scarf or something and you’ll look so cute for fall. :)

Start with a base of light pink nail polish. Pictured is “A True Romantic” from the Sephora by OPI collection.

To make our plaid print we’ll be using a liner brush: an invaluable tool for making straight stripes on any nail design.

Dip your liner brush into white acrylic paint, and drag out a stripe along one side of your nail.

Create another line next to your first, one on the opposite side, and one horizontally near the tip of your nail.

Wash out your liner brush in water. Then, with a medium brown acrylic paint (I added white acrylic paint to a chocolate brown to make this caramel color,) drag out a stripe along the single white line on the side, and one above your horizontal tip line. 

Always coat your designs in a clear topcoat, especially when using acrylic paint over nail polish.

Now you have plaid print nails. :)

I received a request today for a design involving autumn-appropriate colors. I just bought a gorgeous fall polish that I’ve been dying to use, so I started this design with two coats of that. The color is called, “Because I Said So,” though many fall shades will work for this design. Consider browns, muted purples, rusty oranges and maroon shades.

Using a liner brush, drag out a straight line of gold acrylic paint. You can use gold nail polish instead if you have it, though your line will be much wider.

For this look we’ll be working with yellow and red gemstones. The yellow gems will compliment the gold, while the red gems will match our base color nicely. I’m using almond-shaped gemstones, but round or square stones will work equally well. 

Pick up your gemstones, (I like to use tweezers for accurate placement,) and stick them directly onto your golden stripe. Since we’re placing the gems on right after using our acrylic paint, they will stick without glue.

Coat your nails with a clear topcoat to keep from losing your gemstones. If you have shorter nails, try only one or two gems instead of three. With this design I recommend wearing about six to eight of your nails without any gemstones: just the base and gold stripe. Then place the gemstone line on your index or ring fingernails so you get a little bit of glamour but it’s not overpowering.