Art Deco Manicure Tutorial

Day 22, Wednesday: Rant about something. Get up on your soapbox and tell us how you really feel. (a pet peeve, a current event, a controversial topic, something your husband or roommate or neighbor or boss does that really ticks you off)

I'm not feeling much into the ranting mood, so I'm going to post about something else, but you can check out previous rants here, and here.

Well, The Great Gatsby just came out, and there are so many art deco inspired things going around because of it. I saw a couple of cool art deco style manicures so I decided to try one out myself. And I decided to take pictures and do my very first nail tutorial!

1. Cut six very thin pieces of tape
2. Place 1 piece of tape across the top of your nail
3. Place 1 piece of tape straight down the middle of your nail, make sure it's touching the top piece.

4. Place 1 piece just below the top piece, and make sure it is not touching the middle piece.
5. Place 1 piece straight down from the piece you just placed, creating a 90 degree angle. Make sure it is not touching the middle piece.
6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 on the other side of the nail.

7. Paint over the pieces of tape with 1-2 quick coats of the polish
8. Wait about 30 seconds to 1 minute from painting, depending on how long it takes your polish to dry. You want it to just be setting and still wet.
9. Start peeling the tape off your nail.
10. Peel all of the tape off, and once the nail polish is more set, pat it down so the edges where the tape was, so the edges don't stick up.

And there's the finished art deco nail!

I tried another nail where I put two strips of tape at the top, but upside down it looked like R2D2...so I just went with the 1 strip of tape at the top on the other hand.

Do you see R2D2, or is it just me?
Tips:
-Make sure the pieces of tape stick out far enough that they will be easy to grab a hold of, and pull off.
-Make sure the corner pieces are aligned right, or you won't have clear edges.
-Don't wait too long to pull off the tape, but don't pull it too quickly or the nail polish will run. The polish I used dries really fast, so I probably pulled it off 30 seconds after putting on the coat.

Show me your art deco manicures!

Linking up with Rolled Up Pretty

DIY Headband Holder Tutorial

Hal turned in his application for the Accounting Masters program yesterday. Send good vibes his way!

When we got home from Cambodia I rediscovered all of my girly things that I forgot existed while I lived in the land of constant sweating and pony tails. I didn't want to leave all of my headbands in the box I had stored them in while we were gone. I started doing some searching, and I found this post. Sounds easy enough, so I decided to make my own version, it's a bit differnt than that tutorial.

All you need is a large oatmeal container, and some pretty duct tape.

This is my oatmeal container. If you can find one that's just a few oz. bigger, and therefore just a tiny bit bigger around that might work even better, but this size worked pretty great.

I bought this damask duct tape at target for $1.00. I was super excited, even easier than buying scrapbook paper and modge podge. I just did strips around until they overlapped, and then cut them. Then I flipped the tape upside down and tried to line up the pattern.

And the best part is, you can use the empty inside for all of your hair clips and your soft headbands!

Total cost for the project:
$1.00 for the tape

Linking up with Rolled Up Pretty