Christmas Tree Nail Art - Caviar Beads and Striping Tape

A little late on this post but it'll be archived for posterity anyways.  Right before the holidays I was wearing China Glaze Fifth Avenue and decided it needed some spicing up!

Because this wasn't a planned out mani, the color scheme is a little bit off. I'm not a super fan of the mauve and metallic mint but I don't hate it either.

I used scotch tape, striping tape and caviar beads for this design.  The scotch tape was used to make a triangle and the striping tape was zigzagged back and forth and then painted over with Pop Beauty Jade Metal.  Then I peeled both tapes off and applied the caviar beads (which bled terribly by the way with the top coat - these were from the dollar store).  I then applied the stars at the top and sealed with top coat. SUPER simple, took only a few minutes!

Pop Beauty Jade Metal & China Glaze Fifth Avenue

Ulta Eye Popping Poppy with Silver Gradient Design

I whipped out the striping tape to make this little design, which I originally wanted to do on all my nails but realized it was too time consuming.  Whenever I do venture to do any sort of designs or nail art, I start on my ring finger so if I find it too time consuming, it becomes an "accent" nail instead. Clever, I know, haha.

Eye Popping Poppy is super hard to describe.  I could've sworn I reviewed this polish before but I wasn't able to find it on the blog so I wasn't able to reference my previous description, oops.  It's a creme like jelly, it's not 100% either creme or jelly - there's a decent amount of sheerness.  It also lean coral/pink/orange depending on the lighting.  It's BRIGHT too, definitely has neon attributes!  Shown is 3 coats.

I used L.A. Colors Wire for the silver and mapped it out with striping tape, and them used a makeup sponge to dab it on to create the gradient effect. Super easy, just a bit tedious to cut up the thin tape.  Sealed with on coat of OTD and over NailTek II Foundation basecoat.

Born Pretty Striping Tape Mani and Review

I recently obtained my first striping tapes!  I wasn't sure how easy or difficult they may have been to work with, so I was excited to finally get to play around with some.

 

I tried a bunch of different designs to get a feel for using them, it was actually super easy and they stick really well without pulling up the polish underneath.  The base color for this manicure was the BK #11 polish I reviewed earlier. I did the designs the next day so the base polish was already set; sometimes I get nail strips/guides that still pick up the polish, ruining the mani - wasn't the case with the striping tape!

I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism and pulled the tape off before the polish dried, which worked for most of the designs, some nails I applied too much black polish on, and it smudged a little.  This was my first attempt though, so some errors were definitely anticipated.

You can use the striping tape to do a negative space type effect, like I did here or you can leave the tape on to use it as an actual design element, which I'm going to show eventually.  The striping tape, which was sent for review, is a set of 12 different colors available HERE. 

Image Source: Born Pretty

The set of 12 striping tapes is available for 8.99 USD; Also, you can use code CA10L91 for 10% off your order; if enough people use my code I'll be able to host a Born Pretty sponsored giveaway (=