Hello sweeties!
Today I'll be very busy preparing for my boy's b-day party tomorrow. I'll be cooking and crafting and whatnot, it'll be so fun! But I didn't want to miss the appointment with the talented ladies of the 26 Great Nail Art Ideas Challenge. This week's prompt is "Mixed tape mani" and this is what I came up with. Keep reading to find out how I created this manicure and what materials I used :)




Creating this manicure is not difficult but it requires some patience. It is not terribly time consuming, but it could be messy if you don't have the special material. It took me around 15 minutes, working on already dry polished nails.

 Basically you need:
- Any grey colored nail polish
- White nail polish
- black nail polish
- striping tape or vinyl stencils (magic scotch tape will work too, but it will take longer as you have to custom cut your thin stripes)
- small sponge (could be a disposable makeup sponge, or you can cut out a piece of any sponge you have)
- tweezers
- acetone or nail polish remover and q-tips or a small brush (to clean up the nail polish around your cuticles when you are finished).

Special material:
- liquid latex or liquid cuticle protection (it exist also a latex free verson for allergic people). This is of course not obligatory, but it will help protect your cuticles and making the whole process less messy.


This is typically what I call a "manicure revamped". In fact, I first painted my nails in grey using OPI I can never hut up, from the recently launched collection Fiji by OPI. I wore this manicure a couple of days, but you know grey is not my cup of tea. As the polish was still in great condition I didn't wanted to remove it so I decided to revamp it! Do some nail art on top. I did as follow:
1- I protected my cuticles using Born Pretty liquid latex for nail art.
2- I placed some bits of nail stencils and striping tape on the nails.
3- I took a sponge and painted a black stripe and a white striped and sponged over the nail with the vinyls on, trying to make a gradint between the white and the black. I used OPI My Gondola or Yours, OPI Alpine Snow,
4- Immediately after that (do this before the polish dries!) I carefully removed the bits of tape and vinyl using tweezers.
The liquid latex sort of sticked to the vinyls, so it came off when I tried to remove the vinyls and that made it a little tricky, but it didn't cause any damage to the design on my nails.


What do you think of the final result? It is a little graphic, I quite like it :) and I will definitely trying other colours. Well, I hope you've like this manicure, and don't hesitate to visit my challenge pals listed bellow to see more striping tape desings. Now I leave you, I have a chocolate cake to bake :P

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,
Nati