Abstract Dreamcatcher Nails

Here is my companion piece to the dotted bow nails, a slightly less girly mix and match manicure in pink and aqua. I used a detail paintbrush, a cosmetic sponge and some rhinestones as far as tools needed for these nails.

Materials and methods, from right to left:
Thumb: Two coats of OPI's "Got a Date To-Knight," seal with matte topcoat, gold glitter gradient with Orly FX "Too Fab" on top 2/3 of nail.
Pinky and pointer: 2 coats of Sally Hansen "White On." Load up cosmetic sponge with Layla "Aqua Zen" and "Got a Date To-Knight." Blend onto nail with sponge so that the aqua is on the tip of the nail. Seal with regular fast drying top coat.
Middle Finger: 2 coats of Essie's "Mint Candy Apple." Painted design with small nail detail brush and OPI's "Black Onyx." Three rhinestones were randomly placed on design and sealed in with more top coat.
Ring: 2 coats of Ulta's "High Roller," 2 coats of "Too Fab."

All the colors worked quite nicely together, except Aqua Zen. I was originally going to use it for the center nail, but it was too dark to contrast with the black to make the design pop. It works well as an ombre color on the sponge painted nails because blending it with a light pink and a white is much less dramatic.

More pictures of the nail art:

(I made the bracelet too. The band is copper I sawed cutouts from and the stone in the middle is a piece of buffalo jasper).

Materials used: Ciate fast drying top coat, Sally Hansen "White On" Orly matte top coat, Julep base coat, tweezers for rhinestone placement, wedge sponge for ombre nails, Essie "Mint Candy Apple"
OPI "Black Onyx" little plastic card sleeve for painting/mixing, Ulta "High Roller" OPI "Got a Date To-Knight" Orly "Too Fab" Layla "Aqua Zen."

Dotted Bow Nails

It's been a long, long while since I have picked up a dotting tool, and I thought tonight would be a great time to play around with polka dots and some new colors I picked up lately. Since dotting (for me) is a pain in the butt on my opposite hand, I used my friend Emma's fingers to try out this look. The design is loosely based on Youtuber Elleandish's bow nails, and the color scheme is just based on a few of my new polishes I thought would look good together.

For this look, I used:

-Julep in "Bergen"
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "White On" and "Disco Ball"
-Tweezers for placing gems
-Revlon in "Enchanted"
-OPI in "Black Onyx"
-A pink card protector (Dragon Shield brand) for a palette for dotting the colors
-Red Carpet Manicure brand dotting tool
-Some gold rhinestones
-Ciate fast drying topcoat

On the pinky and pointer: Two coats of White On, dots with small end of dotting tool in Enchanted.
On the ring finger: Two coats of Bergen and two coats of Disco Ball
On the thumb: two coats of Enchanted, small end of dotting tool dipped in Black Onyx
On the middle finger: two coats of enchanted, Large black dot in center of nail, small black dots in a bow shape around the central dot, gold rhinestone on top of the original large black dot.
Top coat on all of the nails once it dried.

More pictures of the finished manicure:

I really like the new polishes I used. Disco ball was a little disappointing because I thought it would be more full coverage based on how it looked in the bottle, but layered over the silver polish it actually looked really cool. This is a really good look for any nail length as you can add as many or as few dots to the nails as you think looks good.