Nail Art Tutorial: Year 2012 Nail Art

Nail Art Day today!  I haven't been creating much as I got into the "nail art bumming" stage plus I left my nails "nail polish free" for a couple of days before I went for brights again to jump start the Chinese New Year!

I do plan to create a "Water Dragon" inspired nails but checking out water dragon photos, they would either look weird on my nails as they may look cute as a cartoon but they may end up looking like a donkey on my nails!  *hahaha*  I do not plan to add up Donkey as part of the 12 animals!

I planned to create something bright and Very Oriental instead....

Chinese Lantern 

with a Chinese Character "Fu" which means...

Luck or Blessing

Step 1:

Apply 2 coats of any bright colored polish of your choice.  Since everyone's been using red for CNY, I went for bright orange instead!  Thanks to dearest friend (#evurl girl) for this bright orange colored Color Combos polish which was very pigmented and dries up quickly!  

Keep in mind that I apply my choice of base coat on any polish application to protect my nails from yellowing.

Step 2:
With a bright colored RED polish from Paul & Joe, I created a spherical shape or you can just dot this with the nail polish brush.

It will come up like this?
You can do random dots making it not so "even"

 

Step 3:

With a thin brush or in my case, L.A. Art Deco Polish in Red, I draw strings for the lantern.

Optional: At the latter part, I've decided to use black for the strings to show up even better against the bright orange polish.

Adding a bit more lines at the bottom part to act as drapes

Step 4:
Since my 2 way nail art pen in yellow already dried up, I used a yellow acrylic and a brush and draw the outline of the lantern with bright yellow shade as shown on photo below.

Step 5:On my 2 thumbs, I created bigger lanterns.  Making sure the lanterns are completely dry, I used a black 2 way nail art pen and wrote a Chinese Character "FU" to bring in good luck and blessings.

Did you know that:  I originally wrote "Long" which means dragon but my nails are too small so the strokes got jumbled up a bit as my pen is a bit watery, I actually  had to remove everything and re-do one thumb nail :)

So instead, I wrote this...

Step 6:
Once the Chinese writing is completely dry, top the nail art with a glittery polish and top coat of choice.  This trick prolongs your nail art for at least a week or more!

Voila!  Chinese Lanterns on nails

For most Chinese, a lantern brings light and gives a cheerful environment.  

True or not it doesn't hurt as they look quite good as well!

Advance Happy Year of the Dragon!

  **photo taken from source

Do you celebrate Chinese New Year?
How?

Keep smilin'
Stay happy!