Sunday, August 26, 2012

Splatter Toes (with mini tutorial)

Today was filled with firsts. First splatter nails, first time using new polishes, first time taping, and first (mini) tutorial. Let's get right to it.
WARNING: The pictures are all very grainy. I had bad lighting and because the flash distorted the design, I had to resort to less than awesome photo quality. Sorry!

I bought a few new Sally Hansen polishes this week and I'm not sure how I feel about them. I have wanted to start investing in better polishes, but have yet to find any that are reasonable and still effective. I had good luck with the Insta-Dry kind, but not as impressed with the Xtreme Wear. I have some Seche Vite and a China Glaze on the way, as well as some actual dotting tools. I'm looking forward to seeing how those all work out. What brands do you find work best for nail art? Anything on the less than $5 side?

I wanted to go with a yellow constant, as I was hoping my new yellow would work out. It's not as opaque as I was hoping, but it wasn't neon either, so I guess color wise it was a draw. I got out all the colors I planned on using, came up with an idea of the colors I thought would go well together, and started with a base coat. Then I taped.
As I mentioned earlier, this was my first time taping. I'm so glad I did, as the splatter method really is rather messy. I now realize that you should tape first before applying any polish, since I smudged a couple nails as I applied the tape. It worked really well and didn't take any of the color on my nails off when I removed the tape. I'll definitely be using this more often. It saved me a ton of time and acetone.

Next, I got my small coffee straw (which in the tutorials I've seen were recommend), put down my tinfoil, and dipped the straw in.

It took a surprisingly long time to get the method down right. I had to twist my leg around, hold my foot at what was hopefully the right angle, and stay that way long enough to get the paint on the straw and blow. It didn't work very well at first. I thought I could use a bigger straw, so I got creative and used an old pen (just take the ink out and use the shell). It worked MUCH better (although it was still tricky). I think another contributor to the difficulty was that my paint was a bit thin and fast drying. If you've done this before and have some tips on what tools/polishes work best, please leave a comment.

I started to get the hang of the technique, and eventually figured I was close enough to getting it right to call it quits. Before clean up, it sort of looked like a nail salon threw up on my feet (which actually looked pretty cool).

And although it was hard to blow on my toes, it was not hard to hit my fingers!

I let everything dry for a while and cleaned up in the meantime. Eventually I became impatient, took the tape off, cleaned up the edges, and put on some top coat.


Each foot had a few toes that turned out pretty well, and each had some that were a little sad. But overall, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out- especially the big toes.

So that's it! If you haven't tried this method, give it a shot. It's pretty cool. 
I'll definitely try this again, although I may need some assistance next time.



Next week I'll start the 31 day challenge. Because I'm busy and don't like to change my polish that frequently, I'm going to change it to 31 weeks, most likely with a few interruptions in there. Have you done the challenge? Link to your pictures.

Happy painting!

A short introduction

For about the past 3 or 4 years I've taken on the fun, tedious hobby of nail art. The thing is, I never paint my fingernails. I have a terrible habit of picking the dirt out of my nails, so I find it rather pointless to wear polish.
But I adore painting my toenails in fun designs. This came out of my insecurity of having large feet with long toes. I figured if I had cool designs people would focus on that rather than notice my somewhat unattractive feet. So far it seems to be working.
Nail art is a great hobby, and it's always nice to have respected artist friends give your feet props (or really anyone, for that matter).
I rarely would take pictures of my designs, but as I have become even more obsessed with the hobby lately, I figured now is as good a time as any to start documenting my work. I mean, they only last a week or two.
The reason I decided to start this blog is that while there are many sites dedicated to nail art, there is a surprising lack of sites dedicated to toe nail designs. Feet are important too, people. Most of the toe designs I've come across aren't up to par with fingernail designs, so my goal is to bridge the gap. Yes, toes are more challenging (having to contort for an hour or more isn't very pleasant and you have a smaller work space), but they're also really fun.
I'll possibly do some tutorials as well. I'm going to be trying more designs out of my comfort zone, and I'm hoping through this process I'll become a better artist.
Thanks for checking out my little blog!