First, I’d just love to say congratulations to both you and me because we hit (and exceeded) 100 followers today! I can’t thank you all enough for following, it means SO much to me to be able to share my art with you. Provided that we stay above 100, the prize for my giveaway is now three bottles of polish instead of one. Please read the original giveaway post and the giveaway update for details. Whohoo!!

Now on to more fun! I received a great idea on the giveaway about a suggestion for nail art- nail art that can be done by anyone. Since I do a lot of work with brushes, I figured I’d do some designs that can be done with nothing more than a tooth pick and a steady hand. I used the same toothpick for different sized dots here- it all just depends on how much polish you pick up. I know several of you do have your own set of brushes and are more than capable of detailed designs, but this one is for all of you who would like something simple and fast.

Sorry about the flash- it made a few of the designs a little harder to see. For this manicure, I used one coat of OPI’s Natural Nail Base Coat, and Claire’s Neon Mini’s for the fingers. Green and Yellow took four coats (sorry for the smudge of yellow on my skin, didn’t see that until after I watermarked) and all of the rest took three coats. I used Sally Hansen’s Lavender Cloud for the white. I didn’t use a top coat because neons dry semi matte and I like that texture, but feel free to top off with the top coat of your choice for a nice, glossy finish. Make sure your top coat is thick enough so it doesn’t smear your art- that’s why I use Seche Vite.

The Colors:

I love these colors. I saw them in the store and was a little hesitant to buy them because the entire set (of 6, the one left out is bubblegum pink) was something like $12- but I got it for free with a coupon so I couldn’t say no. I’m so glad I picked these up!!! Neons, as mentioned, tend to dry semi-matte, which they did here as well, and they dent a bit easily because I didn’t use a fast dry top coat to seal them and harden them. However, after maybe, 30 minutes, they were hard enough not to dent. Just take time to let them dry.

The Designs:

I only used dots for the designs because straight lines usually require a thin brush, but don’t be limited by what I did. I used a toothpick and nothing else. For big dots, dab into a lot of polish, for small, use less. For graduating size dots, grab a lot, and keep dotting without re-dipping the toothpick. Here are a few ideas of what you could do:

-Paint your nail one color. When it dries, go back and paint the other half (from cuticle to tip) a different color. Then do the design on top.
- Do dots along the tip for a thin French manicure (check out Black Pearl or holographic pearl manicures)
- Do dots all over the place for a crazy polka-dotted design. use one color (like my pinky) two, or ten! Try it out and see what you like! (See Color explosion)
-Do dots on a grid with a few different colors here and there. Connect them! Or, you could play that game where you have to draw lines between the dots to fill in boxes and try to win while you paint (you obviously need someone to play with for that one)
- Do dots around the perimeter of the nail (outlining the color) then, do a different color of dots within that one etc, it’ll look like concentric circles of different colors.
-Layer your dots! Do big dots in one color, let them dry, and do tiny dots on top (Look at my peacock manicure for an example)
- Feel free to do a design on one finger, two, or all five! Do different designs, the same one on each finger, or alternate. If I want just a hint of nail design, I’ll usually do my ring fingers. Also, I did five different designs so you can see what options you have, but don’t feel obligated to do this much on one hand :-)

There are endless designs to be done with dots! The best part is that you don’t have to go out and buy anything to make neat nail art! You can do other nail art too without dots at home, just grab a paint brush from that set of watercolors you haven’t touched in forever, and trim it down lengthwise to make it have half the amount of (or fewer) bristles (do this only if you don’t need the brush anymore for anything else).

If you’d like more ideas, feel free to email me! Also, you can do a skittles manicure with nothing on top! (That’s what the different colored fingers are)

Hope you enjoy making some art! Reminder to enter my giveaway and to have a good time with it!
Happy Painting!