Friday, September 14, 2012

31DC2012: Day 14, Flowers (+ Tutorial)

It's day 14 of the 31 Day Challenge and today's theme is flowers. Last year's manicure was a loose interpretation of a stargazer lily. I think that manicure has held up really well, in terms of aesthetics and how much I still like it. I actually considered redoing it, but then changed my mind and decided to do something new.

Keep on reading for more information -- there's even a quick tutorial at the end!


The base of this manicure is OPI My Very First Knockwurst, which is actually quite a nice nude on my skin tone. The base of the flowers is Sheswai f*ckyeah, which has recently been re-released as "hot damn." The shading and highlighting on the flowers was done by mixing white and black with the Sheswai color. The leaves are Essie Mojito Madness.


Not my most original floral print ever, but I do love me some full nail patterns and the colors on this come together nicely, in my eyes.


Not sure what kind of flowers these are. Does anyone know? I just kind of made them up as I was going so I suppose we'll just have to make a guess as to what flower it is closest to in real life.




Here's my little tutorial that I made with my iPhone as I was doing these nails last night! Kind of a "quick and dirty" tutorial but maybe it will help some of you visualize how it came together.

(click photo to enlarge)
  1. Start with a base color. Using your base flower color, paint on some imprecise flower shaped blobs. It's okay to get some polish on your fingers when painting some of the flowers along the edges. We'll clean this up later!

  2. Using a small nail art brush, mix some white polish with your flower color. Using a light touch, add some lighter marks on the inside of your flower shapes.

  3. Repeat step two but mix black in with your flower color instead of white. Concentrate these marks closer to the center of the flower.

  4. Using pure black, make some small dots in the center of the flowers.

  5. Using a small nail art brush, add some leaf shapes in the spaces between the flowers.

  6. Take a small makeup brush and dip it in remover. Use the brush to clean up any polish you may have gotten on your fingers or your cuticles.

  7. Topcoat your design to smooth and protect it!

Thanks for reading! :)
Share:

29 comments

  1. This is pretty fab!! I might just give it a shot! You make it look so easy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW! These flowers look amazing! My first thought was - hey, she made those from silk-paper or something! They have so much depth I actually see what looks like the wrinkles of the paper!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want to try also. First I have to finishing painting in my son's room first. I like flowers alot!

      Delete
  3. They look like Hibiscus or Petunias to me. Lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Second the pansies, that is definitely what they look like to me. I like dat color combo too girl.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They look exactly like one of varieties of "Viola tricolor" (I'm not sure what's common name for this flowers in English, that's how wikipedia translated the Russian name). Have a look!:) http://www.alldesign.biz/uploads/posts/2008-05/1209996443_prevju3508na2480-300dpi-11.3mb.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  6. They look like pansies to me. I love all over floral patterns like this- very pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love these, they're beautiful and thanks to your tutorial and will be giving these a try very shortly! x

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow! These are so cute! And they definitely look like pansies.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gorgeous! Great job:) I'd say they look like violets or petunias.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You did a great job, your flowers are lovely- and thanks for the tutorial:)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Definitely pansies! What a gorgeous job :)))

    And WTF, they are renaming it?? Glad I have my 2 "original" bottles :P

    ReplyDelete
  12. Pansies! Love them. Love that you took the time to include a tutorial too

    ReplyDelete
  13. Soo pretty! Loving these

    ReplyDelete
  14. Looks like the Unikko print from the Finnish fashion house Marimekko, so I'd say poppies.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Pansies, definitely! Love them... :-*

    ReplyDelete
  16. These are so pretty! I'd say definitely pansies :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. I think they do look like poppies, but I've never seen poppies that colour! Either way, they are ace and thanks for the tutorial! I roughly followed it (changing the colours etc) here: http://plainnails.tumblr.com/post/43896321506

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment! Please avoid link dropping and spamming. I reserve the right to remove any comments that I feel violate this policy.

© Chalkboard Nails | Phoenix, Arizona Nail Artist | All rights reserved.
Blog Design Handcrafted by pipdig