Practicing to Make A Spectacle

One day last week I sat and practiced some nail art ideas on fake nails. I got 500 nails from Amazon for under $3 woot. I figure it'd be a good way to practice a bunch without getting cruddly cuticles from taking off nail polish over and over all day. This sparkle nail was one of my favorites I made up that day so I recreated it last night.

Zooooom close-up so you can see the loveliness of this glitter. The base is two coats of trusty Wet 'n Wild Black Creme. I went to pick up dinner wearing Black Creme on every nail of my left hand and nothing at all on my right hand last night and the checkout lady complimented my nails. Uhhhh thanks? :)

I swiped one coat of China Glaze Rare & Radiant, a gold green holographic polish, along the right side of my nail. Then I used two coats of China Glaze Make A Spectacle on the left side. Make A Spectacle is so holographically beautiful! Teensy holo glitter and larger pink green gold teal orange shimmers of holographic hexagon glitter all over.

I tried to take some photos inside and outside to show the color changes at every angle of both these polishes, but it's hard to capture.

I returned a bummer of a polish to Sally Beauty and picked out Make A Spectacle on sale because it looked like a snow globe in the bottle. I thought it would be white glitter but it is so much better. I need to figure out a way to incorporate it into a Galaxy nail. These nails make me think of glittery beetles in space.

Black Striped & Rainbow Nails

I was inspired to try rainbow nails with a pattern of black on top after seeing this tutorial for Mardi Gras Harlequin Nails on Nail Nerd. Instead of painting some skittle nails, I used a tiny little paint brush to dab bits of polish directly on my nails. Dab dab dab dab. That part was fun and I used some jelly polishes and some shimmery ones. Layers of dabbing China Glaze Red Satin, Rimmel Sunset Orange, Wet 'n Wild The Wonder Yellows, China Glaze Cha Cha Cha, Wet 'n Wild Bijou Blue and Eggplant Frost dab dab dab dab. The right hand, I tried to use a sponge to lay on the rainbow gradient and it kinda worked. The dabbing method worked better.

I used a top coat and let it all dry. I tried to hand draw on the triangles in the tutorial...but that just got all blobbity. My nails aren't long enough yet or maybe I need a thinner brush. Instead, I used tape for the design since I have a wee bit of experience with tape manicures. After Christmas, I bought a ton of Christmas themed washi style tape on super sale called Recollections Crafting Tape at Michael's (examples of washi tape in this blog post here reviewing different kinds of washi tape). It isn't as sticky as masking tape and easier to see than trying to use clear tape when laying it on your nails.

This was the part that took forevers and evers. Note to self, cut all the bits of tape when your hand isn't wet with paint. Also, make sure you watch something really boring on TV like "The Bourne Legacy" so it seems like your manicure is taking more forevers than just one forever. This is somehow inexplicably an important part of this manicure....

Right Hand!

Left Hand!

My favorite two fingers on my left hand. I made most of the rainbows start with red at the nail tip, but my ring finger had a reverse rainbow. I also think the taping came out looking crisp and sharp here.