#31dc2014 Day 12 - Stripes

I went into today with no plan in mind. I had a vague idea that I wanted to use my nail art pens somehow but they ended up dinging my base colour and annoying me so that idea went out the window. I had the red and orange polish sitting on my desk from yesterday's mani that I hadn't put away yet so I grabbed them and some striping tape and just started sticking bits on hoping it would come together. It turned out interesting enough, especially the swirl inside the outline decal. It looks like a flaming eye! 

Polish:

• China Glaze - Seas the day (red)
• China Glaze - Stoked to be soaked (orange)
• OPI - Skull and glossbones (grey)

Sometimes when you just cant figure out what to do...go the polish swirl and hope for the best.

An InLinkz Link-up

Even more fun with striping polishes

I seem to be going through a striping phase, I just cant get enough stripes! For today's nails I didn't use my normal striping brush set. Instead I used dedicated striping polishes by Le Chat. So what's the difference between a striping brush and a striping polish? Read on for all the details and a quick tutorial to recreate this funky striped look.

The difference between a striping brush and a striping polish is simple. Striping brushes can be used with any polish you have in your collection. You put a few drops of polish on your working surface (I use baking paper), run your brush through your polish then add to your nail. Striping polishes are nail polish that comes with a very thin brush the same size as the large brush in this striping brush set.  They are thicker than normal nail polish and you can only use the brush with the polish it came with, meaning you need to buy a few different colours if you want to create stripes.

To recreate this design start with the colour you want in the middle of your nail. Add one stripe to the middle of each nail. Then fill with more stripes working from the middle out to the cuticles. You may need a few extra stripes on your thumb to fill the space. The trick to using striping brushes is to move your finger not the brush. Place the brush on the nail then move the finger backwards as the brush slides along it. 

Le Chat has a range of striping polishes that are great quality and reasonably priced. The range is called Color Madnic - CM Nail Art. They are opaque in one coat which allows for precise lines as you don't need to go over them twice. They dry shiny, even the neons. The colours I used today are: Silver Glitter, Hottie Pink, Black and White. 

This silver glitter is denser than most glitter striping polishes. It still stripes easily and the quick opacity makes it a winner even if it is a little bit chunky in the bottle. I just love this photo, the light playing with the glitter in the bottle is beautiful. These are in my top 5 fav nails of 2013! I hope you guys like them as much as I do.

More fun with striping brushes

One of the most versatile tools in a nail artists arsenal is the striping brush. They are a little like dotting tools in that they can do much more than just dots, or in the case of a striping brush more than just stripes. Now you could go out and buy a whole heap of striping polishes or you can buy one set of striping brushes which will allow you to use any of the polishes you already own. You may not get the precise perfect lines that you would achieve with striping tape or stamping but there is a whole lot less mucking around and its much quicker. So lets take a look at another design created with striping brushes. This design is inspired by Hey Nice Nails.

 

 

Freehand stripes are a great way to start experimenting with your striping brush. I did my accent finger in 2 minutes with none of the hassle of cutting and placing tape, not to mention being able to skip having to add a layer of topcoat before applying the tape so it doesn't pull your base colour up. The trick to using striping brushes is simple: Move your finger not the brush. Place the brush on the edge of your nail as and you pull the brush back roll your nail from one side to the other to create the stripe. This is my very first time doing freehand horizontal stripes with a brush and whilst they are far from perfect I found the technique easy and feel confident I can improve and get my lines to be a more consistent width.

 

To create the animal print I used the smallest striping brush in my set and made "c" shapes around the glitter dots with Barry M - Black. I placed the glitter dots randomly just using the brush from the polish bottle. I love animal print because its not meant to be perfect. If you don't have striping brushes you could create this print with dotting tools, or a striping polish. The striping polish in this picture is Le Chat Colour Madnic - Black.

 

 

The pink base is Essie - Not just a pretty face. Its is sheer jelly and it took 3 coats to get this colour. It could have done with another coat actually because there is a little bit of VNL on my middle finger, but the colour is so pretty and I don't have any cremes in this shade. The glitter is China Glaze - I'm not lion. So don't be afraid to give freehand stripes a go and experiment to see what else you can create.