Make waves.....with your striping brush!

Since I posted the picture below on Instagram I get asked almost daily for a tutorial on how to recreate this wavy design. I never thought it would be popular so at the time I didn't take any extra photos to show how I did it. But it really is a very easy design and I'm glad so many of you liked it and wanted to give it a go for yourself. Read on a for a mini tutorial.

Today I have substituted the original polishes which were all from the first Zoya Pixie Dust collection with neons. In the original design I used Godiva (nude), Dahlia (black) and London (grey). Pixie Dusts are textured polishes that you apply without topcoat. They give a matte glittery finish that is rough like sandpaper to the touch. The above picture was taken in direct sun and they are really gorgeous polishes alone or mixed into any nail art.

I switched to neons partly because I was dying to use my Lush Lacquer Neon Lights at the time and I thought I could match it with some wavy neon lines. I actually hated the final result and took it off straight away. I shouldn't have put the yellow and green next to each other...anyways as usual with me I put photos away for a while then get them out a few weeks later and I don't mind it now.

To recreate this design you need a medium sized striping brush.  Start with a white base, this is one coat of OPI My boyfriend scales walls.

Pick one of the colours you want to use, put a few drops onto foil or baking paper, dip in your striping brush and start by making a wavy line across the middle of each nail. Starting the lines in the middle vs. at one end of your nail will increase your chances of keeping the design fairly evenly placed across your fingers. Ignore the yellow line on my middle finger, I was testing to see if my yellow was going to be opaque enough.

Clean off your brush in acetone and repeat the first step with another colour. I tend to work from the middle up to the tip of my nail, and then from the middle down to the cuticle area. Keep adding colours until the space is filled. Clean up the skin around your nail with your clean up brush then add topcoat to blend the colours.

If you decide to give this a go I would love to see. Tag me #dramaqueennails on Instagram or share to our Facebook page. Thanks to everyone who requested this tutorial. Please email me any other ideas you would like to see.

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.

Puzzle your friends with your amazing nails

Rubik's Cube! I had to throw these up here even though I did them a while ago as I still get heaps of questions about them from my followers on IG and FB. How did you do these? How did you get them so neat?

Simple answer...they took agesssssss! I will do a tutorial for them when I have more time but for now here is a quick explanation.

1. Paint your nails black. Wait for them to dry COMPLETELY or apply a fast drying top coat to cheat a little and get them to dry fast.
2. Cut up 30 pieces of striping tape
3. 3. Lay them in a tic-tac-toe arrangement however also add a strip to the top and bottom of the nail
4. Fill in all the little square spaces with a small detail brush. 
5. Remove tape in the reverse order to how you applied it - super important! 
6. Use a black striping brush/polish to run over the lines if they are a little messy and add some black to each side of the nail.
7. Wait for at least 10 min before applying top coat so that your lines or colours don't smudge or smear.

It's really not too hard just a little time consuming :) As for the polishes I used, well I kinda mixed and matched a few polishes together to get the right hue for the Rubik's Cube colours. If you give them a try I would love to see so please share. On a side note...I had a Rubik's cube when I was little and for the life of me I could never work it out and drove me to despair that I couldn't solve it lol