What's that stuff you use to like, paint stuff with?

Oh yeah. Paint.

I have problems using nail polish for nail art. My mum got me a set of the dual-ended pen/striper tip polishes for Christmas last year, and while I do like them a lot - for creating larger shapes such as my poodles and Pikachu nails, polka dots, etc - the pen nibs are a little large for detail work. I bought a set of nail art brushes off eBay a while ago and ruined half of them before I realised that you can't get polish off of them. Also, I find that, even with Seche Vite (which I hate but I don't have another top coat atm) that polish often smudges when you apply a top coat.

So I though I'd dig some acrylics out and see what I could do!







Base Coat - Barry M Red Black
Flowers - black and white acrylic

So sorry about my manky hands. They're so chapped and dry at the moment - I really need a better hand cream!

Anyway, I tried to do the one-stroke thing... Didn't come out so great but I can see where I went wrong. One-stroke is basically where you have one colour on one side of the brush, one on the other and this creates a gradient sort of effect. Anyway, the acrylics were really easy to use on my nails! The best thing is that acrylics dry super fast, and if you have any whoopsies, you can clean it up with water!





Base Coat - Barry M Matte White
Writing - acrylic for the black writing, LA Colors Perfect Sunset for the orange.

Just a fun manicure! I love Paramore! The video for Misery Business came on telly the other day and right away I realised I should do the album cover. Writing 'Riot' a hundred million times really makes it look like gibberish! I'm glad I didn't do this with nail polish as it would have taken aaaaaages to dry and I'd have smudged it. It doesn't look so great up against the album cover but my friends liked it and that'll do for me!

I was planning on having a couple more manicures to show you guys but I have a massive cut on my finger and I didn't want to subject myself to the agony of inevitably getting polish remover in the cut. Anyway - big thumbs up to using acrylic. There are cons to it - most of us will probably want to use the different colours and finishes of the polishes we have being the main one.

What craft items find their way into your beauty routine?