Pastel Brushstrokes

Happy Easter everyone! I haven't done much as far as Eastery nails this year, so I wanted to go all out on Easter. I wanted a pastel look and I had several ideas (water marble, gradient, dots) but I ended up going with a brushstroke mani. For any of you out there that are afraid of nail art, this couldn't be simpler.

Here are the colors that I used:

L-R: OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, Revlon Buttercup, Orly Ancient Jade, 

Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Illamasqua Jo'mina

Here is a step-by-step:

1) Paint on your base color. Use the lightest color you are working with (in my case it was the yellow) and let it dry.

2) Get a small brush to make swipes of color on your nails. I have seen some people use the actual polish brush, but this didn't work as well for me. To make the "brushstroked" look, you want as little polish on your brush as possible or otherwise it will just make blobs of color. I opted to use a frayed, bristly brush so that the brushstrokes would really be apparent (it was an old ELF concealer brush that was partially melted off from dipping it in acetone for clean-up...nothing fancy! Haha!).

3) Get a flat surface (I used a paper plate) and blob some polish on it sort of like a painter's palette. It doesn't take much! Work with one color at a time because you want the polish to still be thin and wet when you swipe in on your nail. If you put all of your colors out on your plate at one time, the ones you use last will dry out and get thick before you get to them.

4) Dip your brush LIGHTLY into the first color and make a few random swipes on each nail. Repeat this with all of the other colors that you have chosen, cleaning your brush with acetone between each color and drying it a bit with a paper towel. Be sure to clean the brush or otherwise your colors will look very muddy. Also be sure to leave some of your base color peeking through!

5) Clean up your cuticles and seal with topcoat!

This sounds more labor intensive than it is. I think it took me 5 minutes to do once my base color was dry. You can do this with any color scheme you want and you can also try it with different finishes (and mix finishes) for a very interesting look.

I hope all of you have a blessed Easter! Thanks for looking!