NOTD & Tutorial: Earth Day Nails

Hello!

Today is Earth Day, and yesterday in my stamping group our challenge was Earth Day. So guess what type of manicure I have for you today? ;-)

Also, one of the top comments I've been getting in response to my giveaway is that people would like to see tutorials. I absolutely agree that tutorials are important...I just sort of suck at doing them. But, I'm going to try to start taking pictures of my nails at different stages, and/or at least break everything down step-by-step. One issue I have is that I tend to assume if I can do it, everyone knows how to do it, so I'm not sure what interests you in terms of tutorials. So if you see a manicure or a technique that you'd like to see a tutorial for, let me know! That way I can make sure I'm doing them for the right thing. And if I do them and am skipping important details, let me know that, too

Okay, so on to my Earth Day manicure! I wanted to make my middle nails represent the Earth as seen from space, with the outer nails representing the universe around it.

Step one: I started with a split of two base colors, both from my Julep Mystery Box (I can post the contents if you like?) On the middle fingers I used Julep Ally, and on the index and pinkie I used Sadie, one of Julep's 'Sea Salt' line of textured polishes:

Julep Ally and Sadie

Julep Ally and Sadie

I love both of these polishes. I'm really into the textured trend right now, so I was happy to have Sadie, and I've mentioned how difficult it has been for me to find a black with glitter in it that actually shows up nicely. This one does! Also, Ally reminds me of China Glaze Frostbite, so I can do a comparison of that if people are interested.

Step two: For the middle nails, I used the saran-wrap technique to put some green on top of the blue (I used China Glaze Tree Hugger--yes, I chose it because the name fit the theme, lol); I did this to make it look like the planet earth from space. For the index and pinkie, I put a layer of Seche Vite over the polish; I did this so that when I added my stars in the next step, they wouldn't look textured, but would look like forward stars in a clear sky. If I hadn't added topcoat, they would have taken on the textured look and wouldn't have looked like stars:

Step two: unfinished Earth and blank night sky

Step three: For the middle fingers, I wanted to add swirls of clouds, to represent global weather patterns (which are so very important for our survival!), so I stamped a swirl image from Drikk plate Drk-A, using China Glaze Sea Spray. I chose a soft blue instead of a white because I didn't want the contrast to be too stark--I wanted it to look like it was far away. The images on that plate are huge, so I stamped it on each finger by matching up the outer edge of the image with the outer edge of my nail. I did this from the opposite direction on the other nail; this gives a rough illusion of being two halves of the same image (it's a handy trick!).

For the 'sky' fingers (index and pinkie), I used Wet n Wild White Creme to add some dots with my dotting tool; I tried to vary the size and add some that might be having supernova moments or something ( >.< ). Then I covered all the nails with topcoat:

 

There you have it! Notice how stark the white from the stars would have looked if I had stamped it directly on top of my 'Earth'; also notice how they look glossy and flat rather than textured as they would have had I not put topcoat on the textured polish before adding them. :)

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you have a wonderful Earth Day, including time to sit and wonder at our beautiful planet for at least a few minutes!

Big hugs,
M.

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