Mermaid Nail Art Born Pretty Store Review - Monthly Challenge

Today I have another nail art design to show you from #clairestelle8sept monthly challenge!

This month I'm taking part in a nail art challenge where every couple of days there is a different theme. To make it even crazier, I decided to do bestie twin nails for every theme!

The theme for the 12th of September was Mermaid and I collaborated with Bethany from @bnailedtoperfection. We decided on doing the mermaid design on the middle and ring fingers and using shell studs on the pinky and index finger. And our general theme was blue.

I loved how both of ours turned out!

I didn't create a tutorial on these, however I have something very similar on my channel already here!

Check out all my other designs for this challenge here!

I started off by painting my outer 2 fingers black and my middle 2 fingers white.

I applied a fast drying topcoat to my middle and ring finger and waited for a good 10 min before doing anything else.

I applied some liquid latex around my nails (Charming Tale Practical Magic) and once that was dry I placed the mermaid scale stencil onto my nails.

I first sponged black polish over the stencil. The black base will really make the shimmery polishes pop.

I used a cheap Primark cosmetics sponge and applied Charming Tale The Huntsman and Frightfully Spectacular Orinoco Flow in random positions on the sponge.

I then dabbed it onto my nail, like any other gradient.

I applied 2 "coats".

When the nail polish was still wet, I gently pulled the stencil off, the liquid latex barrier will peel off at the same time.

For the studs I used this set up studs from Born Pretty Store (#20312). This comes in a case and has all sorts of different studs including stars, hearts, seashells, pointed studs, square studs and much more! Most things come in both silver and gold!

I love that it comes in a little box instead of little plastic bags. It's incredibly easy to keep organised this way!

I used the silver seashell studs. They're super cute and worked perfectly with the mermaid scale design.

I applied a dot of topcoat onto the base of my index finger and pinky. I can carefully picked up a seashell stud with a pair of tweezers and applied it onto my nail.

That's it! I really like how this design turned out! I love the subtle mixed gradient of the mermaid nails and the studs really help bring the look together.

xx Elaine

Coral Nail Art - Monthly Challenge

This month I'm taking part in another monthly nail art challenge. I did it last month as well but kept it all to IG and YouTube. Involving my blog can get a little tricky sometimes as I don't really have much to write about!

I want my blog to be about nail art as well as swatches so I'm thinking of including some super short little posts about what nail art I've done. If I have a video tutorial I'll link it in the post, if not I'll just post a whole bunch of photos!

Not only am I doing a monthly challenge, but to make it even more challenging, I'm actually doing Bestie Twin Nails for every theme! This means that I collaborate with other great nail artists on instagram and we create the same/similar designs.

The first theme was Coral and I collaborated with Veri @verenaamp. Instead of creating corals like the Great Barrier Reef, we decided to use the colour coral instead. We both used Essie Sunday Sunday.

This design is something we've both wanted to do for ages but for some reason neither of us got round to actually doing it... The reason I love doing monthly challenges and working together with other talented nail artists is that it really pushes for to work even harder.

This design was pretty challenging. I always thought it would be super easy for some reason, but the little swirls by my cuticle were a little tricker than I thought they would be.

I used a detail brush from Born Pretty Store and acrylic paint to draw the little swirl floral design. I then used Essie Sunday Funday and painted the tips of my nails like normal. I used a dotting tool to get as close to the acrylic paint design as I could.

To make it look a little more neat I reapplied the acrylic paint. I added some polkadots and that's it!

I unfortunately don't have a tutorial for this design.

xx Elaine

Owl Nails - Born Pretty Store Nail Art Liner Brush #18519

This month I am taking part in a monthly nail art challenge! I am intending to post all of the nail art on my blog, but it's been a little crazy lately so I haven't had the time! If you want to see the rest of the nail art from this month check out my Instagram or YouTube as everything is posted there already!

Anyway, for the 22nd of August the challenge was birds. The only birds I can draw are the V shaped ones flying.... so I decided to go for owl nails. An owl is a bird right?! Pretty much the same thing..... ;) 

This design is inspired by (copied from) @fun.nails.love on Instagram.

For this design I used a super small detail brush from Born Pretty Store. 

They sent me a few items for review as this was one of them. The brush is called the Nail Art Liner Brush. Click here to find the brush! The product number is 18519. You can use my code ELAIQ10 for 10% off your order!

It has a transparant crystal handle, making it look very fancy. It has the thinest brush I've ever seen. I have been really into detailed nail art since I started doing my nails but I never had the right products to make it look good. This brush is amazing. I used it with acrylic paint as well as nail polish. 

The following pictures are all screenshots from my YouTube tutorial, check out the video here!

I started off with a white base and I used acrylic paint to draw the outline of the owl. I used acrylic paint instead of nail polish because nail polish is very thick and dries very quickly. This makes it difficult to paint. Acrylic paint is much thinner and a little goes much longer. It's also easy to wipe off if you've made a mistake. 

Next I used a dotting tool and coloured the owl in. I used a dotting tool because it's a larger surface area so fills in the space quicker than a brush, but at the same time it's small enough to be precise. 

Next I added some random dot's around the owl in blue and green. 

I used a smaller dotting tool for this for smaller dots. 

Next I went into more detail of the owl. I added the white of the eyes with a dotting tool and added the pupils using the detail brush from Born Pretty Store. I also added a little beak and legs using the same brush. 

I added wings using the small dotting tool. 

Once everything is dry, apply a topcoat. 

Acrylic paint does take a little longer to dry than nail polish so be careful when you apply it to not drag the design. 

That's it! 

I really love this brush, it created such fine lines. It depends on how much product you add to the brush and how much pressure you apply when drawing for the thickness of the lines. The outline of the hour is a little thicker, whereas the legs and feet are very fine lines. 

Cleaning the brush was very easy too. For the acrylic paint you can just wash it in some water and for the nail polish I used nail polish remover without damaging the brush. 

Check out Born Pretty store for all their nail art items, they have LOADS! You can find the brush here! And don't forget to use my 10% off code ELAIQ10! 

xx Elaine