A few weeks ago I posted about giving myself a washi tape manicure, and I was surprised to hear from readers that when you google that phrase google has no idea what you're talking about! I'm happy to shed some light…
Nail trends have been fascinating to me this year- there have been amazing ideas from the runway and fashion bloggers making the rounds everywhere I go online. Sometime in the spring the ombre trend jumped off of our clothes and onto our hair and nails- and I stumbled into the parallel universe of girls who blog their nail art.
These are some less traditional, really gorgeous manicures I've been admiring recently:
Clockwise: Ombre Nails on Fashionologie, Geninne manicure on Geninne's Art Blog,
Dot Mani on Kiki9988, Tinsel Mani on Seablanket
One of the ways that you can have a beautiful manicure at home is by painting a base colour, and then using tape to block off areas of your nail and adding a second colour. You have to wait until your first coat is completely & totally dry or the tape will ruin your work, but if you just wait for a while you'll be set.
You can use normal scotch tape for this too, but I love using washi tape (Japanese masking tape used in paper crafts). Washi tape is available in many widths, including some that are small enough to use for wide stripes in manicures. I love using washi tape because I find that it's less sticky than the invisible tape I have, which makes for less nail disasters!
How To Do Your Own:
Grab: Two colours of nail polish, top coat, washi tape & scissors (if you're feeling ambitious & want to cut out shapes from the tape)
1. Paint your nails a base colour, and let the coat dry completely. If your nails are even the least bit wet adding tape will wreck them, so consider yourself warned! Add a piece of washi tape to your nail and press it down firmly, leaving the area that you'll be painting a second colour exposed.
2. Paint your nails the second colour, up to & over the edge of the washi tape.
3. Pull back the tape immediately, and let your manicure dry before adding a top coat.
Using this as a jumping off point you can easily create lots of different effects, from triangles to stripes and diagonals.
One tip that's been helpful for me to make sure you have mostly one colour at the tips of your nails so you can easily touch up any chips :)
LAST UPDATED ON: January 16th, 2012
CATEGORY: All Business & Blogging Posts
Hi Kayla,
This is my first time to your site. I found you from the Cricut Facebook news feed. I really like this idea for manicures. Where can I find washi tape at? Is it only online? I look forward to checking out what you have going on!
Thanks
Hi Betsy, thanks for finding my blog! :)
You can find washi tape online or in some stores- though I’ve only found it in big cities, not where I live. My favourite places to find it online are these shops:
http://happytape.bigcartel.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PrettyTape
http://www.cutetape.com/shop/japanese-washi-masking-tape.html
I am a huge fan of these sorts of manicures. I’ve tried a few myself and while I do enjoy them, I always seem to wish they lasted a bit longer. (My own fault, I really need to invest in a decent top coat.) Thanks for sharing some of your favorites!
These are fantastic looking! Never thought of using washi tape but I’ll have to give it a shot; thanks for the great ideas!
Okay, I am going to do this today and get it right! I am just so impatient, I always end up ruining the nail polish with the tape because I never let it dry enough. These are just too pretty though, I’ll never give up!
This is pretty cool! Im gonna really have to try this because I can never get a straight line at all
thanks :)
http://madnessanmusings.blogspot.com/2012/01/and-im-lovingpolka-dots-all-around.html
I loooooove these! I’ve been wanting to try doing more nail art and all these ideas are fantabulous!
I agree with Angie! These are so pretty! It would seem that the possibilities are endless! I can’t wait to try this out with some of my contrasting nail polishes.
Thanks for the wonderful ideas!
eeeee. two things i love…painting my nails and washi tape! you’re right, it would be way better to use than scotch tape as it wouldn’t peel off the existing polish as easily! thanks for the tips kyla! i love the ones you chose to show us too :) definitely going to be trying this tonight!
These are so pretty! I absolutely adore nail art and design, so I am constantly on the look out for fun tutorials and the like. I’ve tried this before and had great success! I think I need to try again and experiment more. I wish I had a larger collection of nail polish, hehe!