Snowy Tip/Holly Tutorial

Good afternoon all!

I've gotten quite a bit of feedback from my last post, the holly on snowy tips :)  A friend of mine (who's awesome at nail art) attempted it but said she had a little trouble with the sponging.  It took me a little while to get it down as well so I thought I would just do a quick tut on the mani :)

What you will need...

 

Base coat (I used Sally Hansen's Acrylic Gel), top coat (I used Love & Beauty's Diamond Top Coat), polish in white red and green (I used SH White On and Julep's Scarlett and Hoch), a piece of sponge, a dotting tool, a striping brush and an angled brush.

I cut off a small portion of sponge from some cheap sponges I had sitting under my kitchen sink.  I hate cleaning with them but they are awesome for nail art.  I have tried sponging with makeup sponges and they just aren't coarse enough to get the desired effect.  The gradient is too smooth.  A coarse sponge is really good for this snowy look :)

 Once you have applied your base coat, apply a small amount of polish to the sponge with the brush.  You want to be able to see the spaces in the sponge, an overly saturated sponge will not achieve the desired effect.

 Lightly sponge the top half of your nail bed.  I prefer doing this with the corner of the sponge pointing down so that I don't get a straight-across gradient.  I want it to really look like fresh powder :)

 The first layer should look something like this.

 Apply a little more polish to the sponge (again without saturating) and sponge on some more polish, focusing more on the tip.

 Make a third pass with the sponge (a little more polish) and cover up any spots that still remain on the tip.

If this is the look you're going for, top coat it and you're done!  If you want to add some holiday holly, continue reading after the jump ;)

So now we're going to focus on the holly.  I had some difficulty capturing this with my camera but the general idea will come across...

 With the small end of the dotting tool, apply 3 dots of red polish to the upper-left corner of your nail.

 

With your striping brush, you will create your leaves by making small V's (two of them) on top of each other. Start at the tip of your nail.

 

 One...

 

And two!

 Then take your brush and paint a small line down the center to finish the leaf.

 Do the same thing going down the left side of your nail.

 With the angled brush, dip it in acetone and clean up any polish that you may have gotten on your skin.

 Be sure to check the underside of your nail, you'd be surprised where you'll find that polish haha ;)

 Protect your design with a top coat, and viola you're done!

 

I hope that you find this tutorial helpful!  If you do attempt this mani (and don't mind sharing a photo) please feel free to post it on my Facebook Page so that I can see :D

Much love ladies, stay warm and enjoy the rest of your week...

Until next time!

Stef <3