Mod Dots

This week one of my friends, Jessica (check out her Etsy store!), posted this picture on my Facebook wall. I thought it was a really cute design and wanted to try it out myself.

It's really simple and quick! Here's what you'll need:

• clear polish
• gray polish
• black polish
• blue polish
• yellow polish
• toothpicks or a dotting tool
• paper plate or scrap paper

If you've been following along with the blog, you know what to do first. Paint on that clear base coat.

Next paint on one or two coats, depending on your polish, of your gray polish. Orly's "Faint of Heart" took two coats to get it where you couldn't see any streaks.

Orly's "Faint of Heart"

You'll be using your piece of paper or paper bowl as a palette. Put a dot or two of the black polish on your palette. Dip a toothpick into the polish and add a few dots, anywhere from four to seven, to the side of each nail. Make sure that they are all on the same side of your nails. Like this...

Finger Paints "Black Expressionism"

Place some blue polish on your palette. Using a new toothpick, do the same thing with your blue polish, only dab on fewer dots. Layer the blue dots on over the black dots.

Santee "Neon Sapphire"

Add some yellow polish to your palette. Use the smaller end of your toothpick to add a few yellow dots to each of your nails. The brighter the better. The yellow really pops against the darker colors.

Sally Hansen "Lightening"

 All that's left to do is paint on that clear top coat. I love how simple this design is and think it would look great with neon colors too. Have fun and try different color combos! Post your designs on the Facebook page!

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French with a Twist(er)

Earlier this week I was watching That 70's Show (love that show!) on NetFlix; in the episode I was watching Leo mentioned the game Twister. I thought this would be a fun twist on a french tip manicure, or it would look cute as a full nail design. The nice thing about it is that it's soooo easy!

For this design you are going to need:

• clear coat (for the base and top coats)
• white polish
• red polish
• blue polish
• yellow polish
• green polish
• toothpicks (one for each color if possible) or a dotting tool
• a palette (paper plate, piece of paper, etc.)

The polishes I used were:

• Finger Paints "Paper Mache"
• Santee "Neon Sapphire"
• Wet n' Wild "Sage in the City"
• CQ "Rouge"
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Lightening"

First things first - paint on that clear base coat. This will help protect your nails from staining.

Next, paint all of your nails white. Depending on your polish it may take more than one coat. I did two so that the polish was opaque (not see through).

The toothpicks I used are pointy on one end and blunt on the other. The blunt end makes a perfect dotting tool. If your toothpicks aren't make like this here is a secret. Dip the tip of the toothpick in a polish, then let it dry. Do this a couple of times until you get a bead of polish built up to the size you would like your dots to be.

I decided to do only a couple dots at a time of each color - that way the dots looked more random and layered. However, you could do all the blue dots at once, then the red, and so on. Also, I only did the tips of my nails. It was cute, but feel free to get creative!

Use your scrap paper or paper plate as a palette for your nail polish. I would only put a little bit on of each color at a time. That way it doesn't dry out and a bunch of polish goes to waste.  Like I said before, I alternated colors. The following pictures show how the look progressed. You can use any order of colors though.

That's it! It's simple, and it's quick! Paint on your top coat and you're good to go!

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