Quick and Easy Painted Bunnies

Hello everyone,

It's been awhile. Sometimes I just need to step back. Take a break, breathe, have some "think" time. I've been extremely busy teaching this semester, and doing lots of my own writing as well. For a few weeks, I kept thinking, "I just can't do this blog thing anymore, it's just too much." Now, I think, for the moment, I want to continue. But my posts will be a little less frequent for the time being. Sanity throughout the semester is important. 

This project was a wild goose chase. I had this great idea that I would paint plastic bunnies shiny and gold and use them for crafts this spring. So I go looking for plastic bunnies and couldn't find them anywhere. I checked Target, Hobby Lobby, Michael's, etc, and couldn't find small plastic ones, only plus bunnies. Finally, I found some at Wal-mart, who knew, right? Then I went to paint them with my favorite gold paint, Liquid Leaf, but the bottle had self-sealed and I couldn't open it. I was about to give up on the bunnies when my sister suggested nail polish. Genius! So, the DIY was still on. Enjoy the pics! These cute little bunnies have so many possible projects waiting on them! I decorated a candle (see pic above), but there are so many more DIYs just waiting to happen!

1. Prep: I used white polish to paint over the bright pink and black details.

2. Painting the bunnies took about 2 coats each. I painted them neon yellow, pink, gold, and mint. (My current favorite colors!)

 3. Let them dry between coats!

Adventures in Nail Art Part II: Accent Nails

 Here's a fun and quick way to jazz up your wardrobe: accessorize your nails! This is so much fun to do to match your nails to your outfit or to experiment with nail art in small (one nail!) doses. Enjoy the step-by-step tutorial.

 Here are the colors I used, in case you are wondering: steel gray, metallic gold, and gold glitter of course (my favorite color!).

This is the second part of a series of tutorials in simple nail art. To learn how to make polka dots, see this post! 

Adventures in Nail Art Part I: Easy Peasy Polka Dots

So, I'm jumping on the nail art bandwagon, want to join me? Here's a quick tutorial to get you started. Polka dots are easy and fun, especially if you're new to swiping more than just a coat of red polish onto your nails as you head out the door.

 First, you need to dig into your sewing supplies and pull out some pins. The brush of your regular nail polish is much to big to make consistently nice polka dots. The pointy end of the pin won't pick up enough polish to create polka dots, so you need to use the head of the pin. Flathead pins are best for small dots, and ball head pins can be used for large dots. 

  I recommend that you place a small spot of nail polish onto a piece of aluminum foil to transfer the dots to your nails. Trying to dip a pin into the bottle of polish is very messy, so let's keep things nice and neat. I used gold, blue-gray, and hot pink just for some contrast. Below is an example of large dots:

 Small, teeny, epic-cute dots: (I love things in miniature!)

 Once you've mastered how to print dots onto your nails, it's really easy to get creative! There are so many fun patterns you could make with dots- rainbows, stripes, holiday colors, dots to match your outfit...the possibilities are definitely endless! 

This post is the first part of a series of nail DIY's so keep an eye out for some more adventures in nail painting!