Leopard Nail Art Tutorial

Well, I was so disappointed with how sheer Essie "Action" came out, I felt the need to do something to save this manicure.  I decided that some bright leopard spots would be just the cure.  These are super easy and super cute! See below for the tutorial.

1.  Start with a base color of your choosing.  When it is dry, take some of your acrylic paint, and paint little dots or c shapes on your nails.  I used pink.  I suppose you could use a nail art brush and some polish instead, but it will take longer to dry, and you will have a little less control over the paint than with the acrylics.

2. Next, take some black acrylic paint and paint little c shapes around the pink spots. For some of these I did c shapes on both sides, and for some I did a c shape along the bigger c and a dot on the others.

3.  If you feel that you don't have enough spots, you can go in and add a few random spots with just black.

Thats it! So simple, and such a cute way to spruce up a boring manicure, right?  Do you think you will try this?

Blueberry Jam nail

Today I went to my parents house to make jam with my mom. We made blueberry and raspberry flavors. It looks delicious and I can't wait to eat it tomorrow for breakfast.  My manicure was inspired by our blueberry jam. Enjoy! 

                                                   

Blueberries on the vine!

For this manicure I used NYC Quick Dry in Uptown as the base color on both thumbs.
The next part is the secret to doing this manicure. Instead of nail polish for the design, I actually used acrylic paint. Thats right, regular acrylic paint like you can buy in the craft store. It is safe and non-toxic. If you mess up, just wash your hands with soap and water and it comes right off! Cool right? It is actually much more opaque than regular nail polish so you only have to do one coat. It is also a lot more firm, so it will not run while you use it .

My cheepo acrylic paints that I bought at the craft store for $4

I started off by making the dark blue dots for the blueberries. I used the end of the paintbrush without bristles, and just dipped it in the darker blue paint then pushed it against the nail with different pressures to make circles of different sizes. I used the paintbrush end because my dotting tool didn't make the circles as big as I wanted them. Next, I made a smaller light blue dot inside each darker blue one. 

After that, I painted the vines. I used the darker brown paint and put some accents in with the lighter paint. Then, I used green to paint some leaves.

I used the blueberry thumb as an accent nail, and painted the other nails with Sur La Pointe Des Pedis Tip Toe polish in Navy. I got this in Old Navy last year. I think it is from the Sara Jessica Parker line. It looks black in the pictures but it is actually a really beautiful navy color. It also has great application with full coverage color in just one coat. 

I also painted my moms nails for her!

The color is Revlon Teak Rose. As usual, I used Revlon Quick Dry top and base coat.