Nails of the Week

After doing a simple design for my Easter nails, I decided I wanted to do something a little more creative for my next manicure. I wanted to mix a few different elements in this design and thought about using my pearl bows, an ombre/gradient, nail stamping, and gingham/plaid or something else hand-painted. Clearly, I couldn’t quite make all elements work together, but that’s probably a good thing.

I started off knowing I for sure wanted to do something with an ombre/gradient, but I wasn’t sure what. (The bows were also a must too at this point.) So I did what I usually do when I need nail inspiration and started clicking around on Pinterest. After some searching, I decided to base the ombre part of my design off of this pin. Then I knew I wanted the design on my middle finger to look a little similar to my new gingham dress (ootd of it will be up this week), but I put such high exceptions on myself for this design that I didn’t want to mess it up by painting gingham free-handed for the first time. So I did something more tried and true and went with plaid. Close enough, right? Since my middle two fingers had a lot going on, I decided to keep the rest plain white but tie them and the plaid nails together by using my black studs.

To do these nails, I first painted my middle fingers dark grey, and the rest white.
Next, I used clear tape to block off the sides of my ring fingers for my ombre. Then I used disposable make-up sponges to sponge on my ombre. Here’s a post where I explain the process step by step. I left the tape on my nails as long as possible to let it dry and moved on to the next step.
Using my thinest nail tape, I blocked off where I wanted my dark grey stripes to go in my plaid design since I don’t have a set of thin nail brushes to do this by hand yet. (Looking back, I probably could have used my medium sized nail tape to better match the other stripes, but it’s hard to know just how thin I will be able to paint with my thin brushed bottles of nail polish. They’re always different.) To create my background color I used my light grey nail polish and painted that over the nail tape.
Once both of my middle two fingers were dry I took the tape off of all four nails. Then I used my thin bottles of white and black nail polish and painted on the rest of my stripes.
After waiting about 20 minutes for my nails to dry (to prevent smearing on my middle two fingers) I applied top coat to adhere my nail decals. I first applied the black studs to my six white nails, then the pearl bows to my ring fingers, and finally black studs to my middle fingers.

Marc Jacobs Enamored Hi-Shine polish in Evelyn (sold out online), similar Marc Jacobs Enamored Hi-Shine polish in Confession/OPI Alpine Snow/OPI Black Onyx/Born Pretty Gold Nail Art Striping Tape/KISS Nail Art Paints/Butter London Sterling/Pearl nail art bows, similar pearl nail art bows/Black nail art metal studs, similar black metal studs