Monday, August 27, 2012

Leopard Print - Nail Art Tutorial

Bank Holiday weekends are the perfect excuse to take sometime out and treat yourself to some "you" time, I took this weekend as an opportunity to indulge in one of my favourite past times, nail art! 
After purchasing a black nail art pen recently I wanted to try leopard print nail art and after a few friends asking me how I did it and asking me to also do their nails I decided to do a tutorial.

This design I've found works best with lighter colours and being a pastel lover myself I choose a pastel blue nail varnish, but you can choose which ever colour you wish, here are the products I used:


Jessica Nail Varnish 729 Barely Blueberry
Barry M Nail Varnish 321 Gold Nail Effects
Saffron London Black Nail Art Varnish
NYC 138 Classy Glassy Nail Varnish

Step 1: 
Firstly I applied false nails, as I'm not blessed with nice natural nails, if you are skip this step as the nail art will work just as well on natural nails, though the design will last longer on false nails as they chip less. The ones I use can be purchased here from Boots. 


Voila nice neat nails, I find the leopard print design works better on shorter nails.


Step 2:

I then painted 2 coats of my chosen nail colour on all my nails


Step 3:

Once the base colour had dried, I then used the gold nail varnish to put random gold dots on each nail, don't worry about the size do a few large and a few small randomly on each nail. I tend to do between 3 - 5 depending on the size of the nail. Spread them out, and make sure there not too centred — have some dots that start at the cuticle, some that start way off to the edge of the nail, and some that go off the tip to make sure it doesn't look too "done."


Step 4:

Once the gold has dried, I then used the black nail art brush (or you can use a nail-art pen, ) to turn the dots into leopard spots. I outlined each blob with the dark polish. This part was fairly easy because the wobblier the outline, the better! One trick is to break up the outline into two sections, leaving some of each spot outline-free. One section is a short, like a little "c", the other is longer, like a big "C." When you've outlined all your spots, look at the overall effect. I then looked at areas that seem too empty, and added a little dot or two — either between the larger blobs, or going off the tip. 


Step 5: 

Wait for the black outlines to dry (this is really important otherwise it will smudge) and then paint a top coat on each nail to seal the design.
This was the overall effect!


Here's a few other colour ways I've tried:



Follow me on Instagram for my latest nail art creations ( username Ella_nora) and let me know if you want me to do tutorials on any of them.



6 comments:

  1. I'm impress with your nails! very pretty!

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  2. super love this tutorial sis! I wanna try this at home tonight :D

    if you have time please visit my blog at http://legazpifabmoda.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! :) Glad you liked it I'm thinking of doing more tutorials so its great to get feedback! x

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  3. This is a really great, straight forward tutorial! Your blog is lovely xx

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