Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Nailed it!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which is my super favorite holiday! Other than the heat, there is nothing I don't like about this holiday. In that spirit, I decided to rock an awesome 4th of July manicure. Before I start, I should mention that one color and a little glitter is about all I can ever manage and even then I usually make a mess. 3 colors is so far beyond my skill set, it's amazing any of them turned out. I started out by painting my nails with a coat of white. Next I grabbed some painters tape, although the tutorials online say you can use basically any type of tape, from medical to Scotch.
Then, because who wants silly straight lines, I grabbed an old pair of scrapbooking scissors and cut the tape into shapes
Here, make a note, when the tutorial says wait for the first coat to be completely dry, it means it! 100% totally completely dry is a requirement. In fact, if I do something like this again, I would likely do the base coat one day and the tape the next. Once things are completely dry, apply the tape to your nail. Make sure that it goes from the nail bed all the way over the tip. Also make sure that all your edges are sealed tightly, to prevent bleed. Next, I painted one side of the tape with a dark blue and the other side with red. Once that coat of paint was dry, I carefully peeled off the tape and came out with this:
I had several issues with the white peeling off, because it wasn't dry enough when I put the tape on but I was able to touch it up for the most part. I'm hoping it all smoothes out a little bit once I get the clear coat on it.

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