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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Holiday/Christmas Nail Art

Continuation of the first holiday nail set, I have a few more I did over this past Christmas. Christmas was fun to experiment and play around with because there are so many things that go along with Christmas and the holiday season. Snowman, snowflakes, trees, ornaments, gifts, lights, reindeer....arg! It is easy to come up with so many...or simply get lost in the confusion. Another fun Christmas design was Santa and below is the nail design for his head. I did this on a toenail but it could work for a fingers too.



The Santa head is also an easy design for the most part. I started off with a regular base coat and then a I did a base color of a natural beige (Wet & Wild). After than dried, I used red (#94-Fire engine red) and colored the top of the nail area stopping before the halfway point of the nail. This will be Santa's hat. After the red is painted on, the I used a precision fine tipped brush and white polish (ArtClub Nail Lacquer-White) and went down both outer sides of the nail. After the outer edges were painted white, I did the entire front, almost like a french manicure, but a little messier (remember, this is Santa's beard! we are going for scruffy a little). While the beard dried, I used my same white polish and placed a dollop off to the side on the top of the nail, in the red area (this is the little white puff on the end of Santa's hat). Once the red and white polish were completely dry, Santa's face can be put on. I used black for his eyes and mouth, just making two little dots for his eyes and a little swoop mark for his mouth and used my red polish for Santa's nose. I then used a red glitter polish and went over Santa's hat areas that were still red. So that hat look a little darker and sparkles, even though that may be hard to see in this picture.  After that, the design was complete and I ended it with a top coat! I promise I will get better pictures of all my work son!
This was a holiday grab bag of nails! The first nail starting with the big toe is a large snowflake, the second nail is a small Christmas tree, the third nail is the candy cane striped design, the fourth nail is a Santa hat and the last nail is holly and leave. Every toe except the pinkie toe was painted in red polish after a base coat (#94 Fire Engine Red). The pinkie nail was painted in a very light, natural type color. For the big toe, I used white nail polish (ArtClub Nail Lacquer-White) and a precision brush to paint the snowflake. First, I made a crodd in the middle of the nail, going all the way up and down and across both sides. then i added smaller lines on each of the lines I had drawn, almost like an arrow. I drew those same lines again on the crossed lines, this time I drew them close to the tops and they really do look like arrows now. Then I used the same white paint and made smaller dots all around the snowflake. Topped with top coat, as always! For the second toe, I used a green polis (Artclub Nail Lacquer-Green) and a precision fine tipped brush to draw on a small tree. I just drew a thinner green triangle and then drew small but whispy lines coming from it, to look like branches. I used a silver glitter lacquer(Also ArtClub) and made a dot on the other side at the top. I used a toothpick and pulled the dot out a little, down the nail a bit, and it came out looking like a star. Once the tree dried, I put some gold glitter over it to make the tree pop a bit more. Then top coat! The third nail was easy. I used the same white polish as the big toenail and drew a fatter, diagonal line and then a skinny one next to it. I went a space over then made a very fat line and a smaller line but still another fat one. The end product is that it looks very much like the stripes on a candy cane. Seal with top coat and move onto the next! The fourth nail need a white, french tip. After the white tip is on, use the white to create a dot off to the side, in the red. This is the same technique for the Santa head. The pinkie nail gave me very little surface to work on so I made two big green ovals, stuck a red circle between them and holly! Viola! HAHA I seriously had very little room on that nail and I guess it came out okay.... I guess :-/  Ehh, who cares? For those who saw, they appreciated. Most people are too nice to say they look like straight crap but even if they did, it doesn't matter. I think that they all come out looking well, although some look better than others. Practice will keep progressing the skills and thankfully, I plan to continue!


Feel free to leave questions and comments and I hope you enjoyed reading. Thanks!

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