Nail of the Week: Asian flowers on black background

click photo to enlarge

Sorry for neglecting my blog! I have been busy and feeling a little uninspired lately but now I am back. This week I did a simple asian inspired design with big pink and white flowers on a black background.

Steps for achieving this design:
1) I started off painting my nails black
2) I used dark violet and white acrylic paints to achieve the flower with a flat tip nail art brush. I dipped half the brush in the violet and half in the white then swirled the brush in a rounded motion to achieve a petal shape.
3) I used a liner brush to add some black detailing in the middle of the flower
4) I dabbed the center of the flower with clear topcoat and added a 1 mm size rhinestone to the very center.
5) I used a tiny tiny dotting tool and white paint for the leaf detail and the dots.
6) I dabbed just a tiny hint on pink glitter on the dots to add a little extra sparkle
7) I finished with two thick coats of topcoat to seal in the design and prevent the acrylic paint from washing off.

I tested out a new acrylic paint brand this week. I always use the cheapest brand from Joann's Craft Store, which is called Joann's Craft Essentials. The bottles are only $0.59 each and in general I have been pretty happy with the quality. However I do find them a bit runny for trying to do one stroke painting technique which I have been trying to practice lately. So this week I found that Joann's was having a sale on Americana paints for $0.99 a bottle and I decided to test them out. Americana paints are thicker and much more richly pigmented for sure, however I saw two big cons that I think might persuade me not to buy them. One is that they dry much much faster then the Joann's Craft Essentials and two is that they do not wash off the nail with water if you make a mistake nearly as easily as the Joann's Craft Essentials. This is a big con to me since this is the reason I use acrylic paints for nail art rather then nail polish to begin with. I have to be able to remove it easily if I make a mistake since yes I do make ALOT of mistakes. I don't think I will be using Americana again but I might try out other brands in the future. Thanks so much for reading have a great day!