Taking a step back

The first attempt at being all fancy turned out kind of mediocre, so I backed off and started simplifying. For pretty much all of January, I wore only the UV topcoat that came with the French manicure kit.

There is something strange happening with the polish on my middle finger.

This let me practice painting, which went from clumsy to, well, not-quite-as-clumsy. It also strengthened and protected my already ridiculously strong, tough nails, and gave me something to admire until I felt comfortable trying something new again.

Meanwhile, I found YouTube nail art tutorials.

NAIL ART TUTORIALS!

And so many of these tutorials were just breathtaking. Simple to create, but so pretty.

I started slow, in large part because I had a grand total of five colors (including black and white) available to me, and the only tools I had were the brushes that came with the bottles and a tiny art brush that doubles for eyeliner. For the following images, the polishes used were: Sally Hansen French White, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Aqua, and Wet 'n Wild Lavender Pearlescent (which is actually a dark pink, so the name makes no sense at all).

Also, I was obsessed with French tips. Color was irrelevant, so long as there were distinguishable tips. I've found that solid nails give the illusion that the nail is shorter than it is.

In order of experiment, three designs:

Credit for this design idea here.

Cleanest French tip done to date. One nail only? Art nouveau.

Cleaning up edges is optional.

This takes us up through the end of February. March begins going deeper into polish fascination with more (and better... ahem) designs.