Thursday Tutorial: Fall Trees

Helllloooooooooooo!!!! I am FINALLY getting a chance to post these. I’ve been so flipping busy it’s not even funny! But onto the tutorial!

Supplies You’ll Need

You’ll need: A good clear coat- I used Sally Hansen’s No Lamp Gel topcoat and LynBDesigns B-Shiny topcoat. You’ll also need some polishes of your choice. I used Stached Lacquers Lovely Luna’s Livery and Orodruin; Bella Bosio’s Roses are Gold, Autumn Rubies, White Gold Engagement and Galactic Rush (it’s on sale right now for $12!!!); and a nude polish- I chose OPI’s Samoan Sand. You’ll also need some chevron nail decals and some little tree decals unless you can freehand your own (which I probably could but I couldn’t find my nail art brush.)I got these from Neverland Lacquers during a sale they were having. I also used That’s a Wrap by Cinema Swatch to aid in cleanup, cause I knew it would be messy as all get out. You’ll also need a pair of tweezers and a porous sponge.

First up, paint your nails in the nude shade and put down your cleanup aid. Let this dry completely before continuing on.

Using the porous sponge, dip it in a little of your deepest color and stipple it onto your accent nails. I used Bella Bosio’s Autumn Rubies.

I then stippled Roses are Gold, then White Gold Engagement on top of the Autumn Rubies and covered it with LynBDesgins’ B-Shiny topper just to help the polish dry faster.

Using your tweezers (and a lot of patience) remove your tree vinyls from their background and place them on the nail.

Using a small piece of sponge and your tweezers, get a SMALL amount of polish gathered up, then pat most of it off. You don’t want a major amount on your sponge.

Using the darkest polish first, stipple on the “leaves” of the trees.

Continue stippling on the rest of the colors until you build up the color to your liking.

You’ll wind up with an end result like this. I REALLY like how it turned out. You can do this on every nail if you’d like. I have no idea why my nail shape is so screwed up. I didn’t even notice it until now. And now it’s glaringly obvious.

On the rest of the nails you have your pretty fall stippling on, once your polish is fully dry, apply your chevron decals. If you use a decal that has a lot of adhesive (and very strong adhesive) make sure that you put them on the skin of your hand or palm and take a lot of the sticky out of them. If not, you risk royally screwing them up. Cover the nail with your darker polish and remove the decals slowly and with a steady hand. Cover with the topcoat of your choice.

And voila! A gorgeous fall inspired mani!