Monday, June 11, 2012

China Glaze Summer Neons Nail Art: Starfish Manicure (+ Tutorial)

Hello everyone! Today I have another post of nail art for you using the China Glaze Summer Neons. I've got some pictures here to show you and then at the end, I made a Photoshop graphic tutorial illustrating how to achieve this look.

The nails for toady are... STARFISH! I was thinking about this China Glaze collection and how all of the names are beach or ocean themed, and I decided that I wanted to do something that fit in with the spirit of the polish. Starfish popped into my head and the rest is history!


I started with a base of China Glaze Sun-Kissed, a neon yellow shimmer. I used three coats for this manicure but could have probably gotten away with two.

The starfish bodies are done in China Glaze Love's a Beach, which is actually a neon pink shimmer, despite looking kind of coral colored in this manicure. I think layering it on top of the yellow altered the color a bit or something. Anyway, it's definitely a hot pink when worn on its own.

The dots on the starfish bodies are China Glaze Splish Splash, a medium blue shimmer. This is the same color that I used for the frame in my first framed manicure.


All of the colors were easy to work with for nail art. They all dried fairly quickly, as they are neons. While that can make nail art a tiny bit more difficult, it wasn't totally unworkable and it's a great quality in a well-rounded polish.


Aren't the little starfish just darling? I was actually surprised by how much I liked this manicure, as I was kind of making it up as I was doing it. The blue dots are important to the starfish, because otherwise they kind of looked like paint splatters, haha.


On to the tutorial...


  1. Start with a base color. For this exact look, use China Glaze Sun-Kissed.
  2. Using a small nail art striper brush, make five thin lines in the places where you want the arms of the starfish to be. For this exact look, use China Glaze Love's a Beach.
  3. Connect the outer points of the arms with wide, draping lines.
  4. Fill in the body of the starfish with the same color. 
  5. Add small dots in a contrasting color to represent the starfishes’ bumpy skin. I used the same small striper brush for this part, in order to help make the dots extra small. For this exact look, use China Glaze Splish Splash.
  6. Once the design is totally dry, topcoat it! 
Pretty easy huh? 

I'd love to see if you attempt this manicure. In fact, I just started a board on the Chalkboard Nails Pinterest for pinning other people's recreations of manicures from my site! So make sure to comment here or email me with a link to your post. No blog? Send me an email with the picture and I will upload the pin manually!

The products in this post were sent to me by the manufacturer or their PR.
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47 comments

  1. This is REALLY bright! Cute design!

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  2. i love the colors in this mani! they are so bright and summery! and your starfish are great!

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  3. I love this!!! This is so cute!

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  4. So cute and I love the colors you used!

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  5. Thanks for the tutorial, I really like the design and the colors you chose.

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  6. Oh Cute!!I am going to do this on my toes!!

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  7. This is so adorable!!! You never cease to amaze me with your nail art!

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  8. Lovely, I think I'm going to do this!

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  9. Love it, your design is sooo cute!!

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  10. k, yes...I'm so doing this!!

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  11. Excellent. These are fabulous summer nails!

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  12. I love this!! I will have to try it soon.

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  13. These are adorable, I can' wait to try them out

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  14. Starfish! Echinoderms!!! (Yes, I'm a nerd...) I have to try this out soon! I love it! :D (Starfish are cool.)

    And here's a link to my take on your floral manicure (I loved doing it because it was so easy!):

    http://romancedelalunatm.blogspot.com/2012/05/22-hawaiian-flowers-manicure.html

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  15. Fabulous mani! I picked up a couple of China Glaze's neon's this weekend and will have to give this mani a try!

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  16. You have got a really steady hand, your manicure looks amazing, I really want to try it out soon :)

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  17. This is so cute & bright, and the tutorial makes it look easy! I'm def gonna try this out!

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  18. I will def attempt to do this mani and I hope it will turn out as awesomely as yours!

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  19. I loved the tutorial :) And the look is really lovely!

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  20. I LOVE this mani! It looks so pretty and bright! I think I should try it :) Thanks for sharing the tutorial!

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  21. This is so cute! Starfishes, I don't see a lot of that :3

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  22. Oooh this is so cute, Sarah! And it reminds me of Patrick, who I adore! <3

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  23. This is adorable! Whenever I get a chance to recreate one of your amazing looks I'll let you know. :)

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  24. This is super adorable and seems like it could be quite versatile - different colours, stars rather than starfish...

    Loving the colours you used! :)

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  25. Love this!! Your photoshop picture is perfect - brilliant tutorial, thanks :)
    JJxx

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  26. These are sooo summery and cute..perfect vacation or beach nails.

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  27. Love those nails! Great tutorial too. Very easy to understand! Good job!!!

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  28. You are too clever! I love starfish! They are beautiful and your nails definitely reflect them! Nice job :D

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  29. this looks so perfect! and thank you for the tutorial!

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  30. This is so pretty! Makes me wanna get to the beach asap!

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  31. I couldn't wait to try this mani. I love it so much, It is easy and looks summery:) Here is a link of my starfishes:
    nailpolishism.blogspot.com/2012/06/starfish-mani.html

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  32. omg!! This is the cutest mani ever! Aww the little starfish...so cool!

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  33. Love the tutorial! Super cute starfish :) Please check out my blog!!!!

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  34. Me too, I like it. These are cool neons nail art and the art for today is Starfish Manicure. Thanks for the tutorial. I am so amazed with the arts that you do. Thanks for the post, just keep on blogging for nails. :)

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  35. These are so cute! very fun manicure. Also, i was just wondering what you use to watermark your photos, because i've been looking for a good website/app to help me out. Thanks! ☺

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    1. Hi Megan! I'm sorry to say I use Photoshop, which is not a very cost effective option.

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  36. Appreciate this post. Will try it out.

    Here is my page ... Air Jordan

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