First Mate | Craftynail

I’m calling this manicure Morning Burst because it was inspired by my Clean & Clear facial wash that I use every morning. How corny is that lol? Sometimes we find inspiration in the strangest places. My orange and yellow pump bottle of Morning Burst has a cute dotted sunburst design on it and I wanted to simulate that. I changed up the color combo a bit as you can see- I wanted an excuse to use a bunch of my favorite polishes all at once!

I enjoy dotting designs because they seem less intimidating than free-hand painting. I’m always afraid that my free-hand work will come out like crap. Keep in mind that I live with a man that could arguably be one of the most talented painters in the US today… so I might have a slight inferiority complex or something. I stuck to dotting tools for this design and I think it came out cute! I will probably take it off before I head back to work tomorrow though. It is a little crazy- and there’s just so many colors in here that I doubt I will find a coordinating outfit lol! Here’s a list of the polishes I used …

GREEN ♥ China Glaze Westside Warrior

YELLOW ♥ Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty

PINK ♥ China Glaze Dance Baby

NAVY ♥ China Glaze First Mate

I’m so excited about this nail art technique called Ruffle Nails! Every nail fanatic needs to try this- it’s easy and has lots of wow factor. All you need to do is grab your favorite polish shades and a dotting tool (or bobby pins) to make some over-lapping rows of dots (it helps to use the largest tool you can find so the dots aren’t too small). If you’d like to see a step-by step tutorial here’s a great one by Chalkboard Nails. Now that I’ve discovered ruffles- I’ve got all these ideas swimming around in my head- neon ruffles, rainbow ruffles, black n white ruffles… I want to try them all!

My first attempt came out much so better than I expected! I casually worked on this design while sitting on the couch and I honestly didn’t try too hard. I figured I’d end up taking it off with polish remover and then give it a real go later. Well, I couldn’t believe how cute my test mani came out so I took some pics! I used some of my favorite green and purple polishes here… and I think the matte topcoat really pulled it together nicely. The variety of colors and the satin finish made my fingertips look like fimo clay! ↓

I went with a cool color combo of blue, pink and grey for my second design. ↓

One thing I like about the ruffle technique is that it’s so easy, you can even do a great job on your ‘other’ hand! I’m right-handed so my left hand nail art usually looks good, and my right-hand comes out how should I say… non-photogenic? LOL. Well, not with ruffles! Try it out for yourself and let me know your results!

♥ Mood struck polish as my base (teal)