31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #15 - Delicate Print

This marks the halfway point of the challenge! I am pretty proud of myself for making it this far and only missing one day. I do think its going to get more challenging with the upcoming "inspired by" themes though. Here's a reminder of the schedule (since I need one too):

The Day #15 theme is "Delicate Print". This was kind of tricky for me to come up with something, and I almost went with stamping, but decided to do something a little trickier instead. I was inspired by multiple recent posts I saw with henna-inspired nail art. For those of you unfamiliar with henna body art, you can learn more about it on wikipedia or just do a google image search to see the intricate designs that people make with the henna dye. I chose to follow a pattern I found by searching for henna nail art:

source

Here are the materials I used for this mani:

Base Coat: Orly Bonder

Polishes: Butter London - Bumster

               Pixi - Classy Cocoa

Tools: Medium Dotting Tool

           Striping Brush

           Small Square Brush

Top Coat: Seche Vite

I did two coats of the Butter London, which is kind of a yellow-y nude color. I don't think I am a huge fan of it on its own, but it worked well as a base. Next, I used the striping brush to make the horizontal stripes at the top and the curved stripes on the bottom. My nails are shorter than the example, so I had to cut off the very bottom of her design. Then, I used the dotting tool to make the dots along the top and the bottom curved stripes. Finally, I used the small square brush to make the little accents in the middle of the design.

I think next time, I will use a less yellow base color. I am pretty proud of my brush skills though! Also, I really need to work on getting a good lighting set up since the daylight just doesn't seem to want to come in through the windows in the morning lately. Suggestions are welcome!