Snowflake, I mean, Polka Dot Nail Art

You might be a little confused by the title of my post and I don’t blame you. Today, I’m going to share with you my recent DIY nail art experience where I did snowflake, stripes, polka dots on my nails!

A while ago I looked up easy nail art ideas for winter. A whole slew of “easy” snowflake pictures came up. It seemed straightforward enough. I looked at all different tutorials and kinds of snowflakes people seemed to effortlessly draw on their nails. I chose a design that seemed very simple but pretty and also one that I thought would fit on my nails since I have small nail beds. I don’t have a white Sally Hansen nail art pen (yet, I have since ordered one from Target and I’m waiting for it to arrive) but I have white nail polish and a nail brush. What could go wrong? Apparently, a lot.

I had all my supplies ready. Essie’s “Midnight Cami”, OPI’s “Alpine Snow”, and a top coat. I painted my nails two coats of “Midnight Cami” first.

It’s a deep blue, which I realize in this picture looks sorta black, but in person it’s a deep blue and in the light has a beautiful sapphire blue shine to it. I waited for that to dry and then came the task of drawing on the snowflakes. I decided to go with the thumb for more space. What.A.Disaster. I think it’s a combination of this particular white polish, my nail brush not being stiff enough (the hairs separate and get streaky), and my lacking in skills. The lines of the snowflake were way too thick and ended up just pooling together and creating this huge clump of a “snowflake”. It was really awful. So I tried it again. Wiped it off, redid the blue, tried the snowflake again. Just as awful. Then, I tried to do a half snowflake. I saw some cute snowflake designs where they come from the side of your nail so you just see half a snowflake. Still hideous.

Took the polish off my thumbs again and redid the blue. Decided to give up on the snowflake and do stripes instead. I cut small strips of tape, put strips on my thumbs and ring fingers and used the white nail polish over the nail to create a blue and white striped look. Think almost ribbon or candy cane-esque type stripes. This came out awful too!!! This time I really think it’s the white polish. It’s just too gloppy/thick and didn’t apply evenly, was way too thick and once the tape was removed it just looked sloppy. I was really tired at this point of trying to make something work and I was going to just leave it for a few days. It wasn’t pretty but it wasn’t that ugly.

A few hours later, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I removed the nail polish from my thumbs and ring fingers yet again (my poor nails) and decided to just do simple white polka dots using a tooth pick.

So that’s how I went from snowflake to stripe to polka dot. Let’s pretend the polka dots are snow flakes falling! It reminds me of that time in the TV show, Friends, when Phoebe chickens out of getting a tattoo and so all she has is a tiny dot of ink on her skin and she says it’s Earth and it’s how her mother sees her from heaven! Anyway, definitely a DIY nail art fail, but at least now I have cute polka dots on my nails.