Thursday, January 19, 2012

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
a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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.

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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

 a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art
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.

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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.

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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...
a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art
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!

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

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!

a photo of Chinese New Year Nail Art

Advance Happy Year of the Dragon!
  **photo taken from source

Do you celebrate Chinese New Year?
How?

Keep smilin'
Stay happy!

21 comments :

  1. Looks awesome - love the colour.

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    1. Thank you glad you liked the color combi, I wasn't really trilled with the combi at the start

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  2. Ahhh! They're so cute! Happy New Year to you too :D

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    1. Happy New Year too maggie dear thanks for the compliment

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  3. Ang galing. Even though I'm not Chinese, I think I'd like to pull this off. The lanterns are so cute. :)


    Tanya
    http://tardydresser.tumblr.com

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    1. Yes, you don't have to be Chinese to celebrate Chinese New Year right? :D

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  4. Yes! We are celebrate Lunar New Year too but it's called SolNal here :)
    Really like the idea for the mani! So nice color combo!

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    1. Nice to know! so Happy SolNal then! hehehe :D thank you! I love your nail art! Sooo pretty

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  5. I'm impressed with your ability to write 'fu' on your right thumb nail with your left hand. I can't even do it on paper. Lol.

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    1. ohh girl, it was super difficult I tell yoU! It is hard to paint designs using left hand but it is WORST to write! I had a super hard time and if you look closely, the left and right "fu" looks different! It took me a longer time to write using left hand :( I was so scared to mess up! hahaha

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  6. this is so adorable and creative~! I remembered chinese tikoy while looking at this...lol

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  7. Ang cuuute! Happy New Year sis! :)

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  8. I was already celebrating after the traditional new year.... I wear read as always, even my bag is red.. I have a little dragon on my table.. so after tomorrow I will be busy as fruitful this year.

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    1. wow! You know what? This year, we didn't go for reds like we always do when we were younger :) Happy new Year! :)

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  9. That is one chic and timely idea! How cute!

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  10. very impressed with the writing! :D hope you had an awesome CNY celebration Nikki! *mwaks*

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I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to comment your questions, suggestions and just anything you may want to say! Keep smiling and stay happy!