Materials
White, light blue, a darker blue, beige or sand, yellow polish and any other color you'd like to accessorize with
A variety of nail art stripers
Reinforcement stickers (curved french tip strips will do too)
Striping tape
When I originally planned the design for this manicure. I was just going to do the beach ball tips (you'll see them later in this post) but then I remembered there is an ugly bruise on my mid finger. So, instead of doing just beach ball tips I decided to add a little beach scene on two of my fingers. I decided to do the scene over my mid and ring finger. This tutorial will be broken into two parts 1) the beach scene, 2) beach ball tips.
Beach Scene
On my mid finger I started with a base color of light blue. The blue I used was Color Club's"In De-Nile" from their Safari Garden collection (I swatched this back in April, you can check it out here: http://ilovemanicures.blogspot.com/2014/04/color-clubs-safari-collection-swatches.html). I like this color because it goes on rich and creamy with only one coat.
I then sponged on a medium dark blue for my water line. This blue is from Nabi and is simply named "blue". I used a very small piece of sponge I had to hold with tweezers, to do the sponging. I did so, so that I would have more control. I did not sponge the blue all the way to the tip of my nail because I didn't want to have to apply too many coats of my tan nail polish.
I then did the same sponging method for the sand color, filling all the way to the tip. The tan polish I used was OPI's "You're so Vain‐illa" from their new Coca‐Cola collection. (If you missed the swatches of this collection that I previously posted, check them out here: http://ilovemanicures.blogspot.com/2014/06/opis-coca-cola-collection-swatches-and.html).
After the background was set, I painted a beach umbrella and some birds in the distance using a small detail brush. I used black polish to first outline the umbrella and then filled it in with Sinful Colors "Dream On" from their Chill Out collection (I also recently swatched this collection, you can check it out here:http://ilovemanicures.blogspot.com/2014/07/sinful-colors-chill-out-collection.html).
For my ring finger I started with two coats of Sinful Colors "Let's Meet" which is also from the Chill Out collection. This sparkly yellow is a perfect sunshine shade. Once it was dry used a reinforcement dot and striping tape to create an outline of the sun.
With my reinforcement tape sun in place I painted a coat of my light blue over top and then removed the tapes while the paint was still wet.
I then repeated the same sponging as I did on my mid finger. A line of medium blue and then a line of tan.
I then painted a small shovel and pail sitting in the sand.
Beach Ball Tips
For all my other fingers I did beach ball tips. Because I am not good a drawing clean lines without some assistance I used reinforcement stickers as a guide. With the stickers in place I used a white nail art striper and traced them to create a curved line.
Then I used white nail polish (I used OPI's "Alpine Snow", my go to white)and filled in the nail from the line to the tip of my finger.
If your line gets smudged or is not as crisp as you'd like, use a brush dipped in acetone to clean up the edge of the line.
Then using a variety of nail art stripers draw stripes on you beach balls. To make the ball look rounded make the stripe narrower at the top and wider at the base. It is almost a curved triangle shape. I did three stripes on all of my beach balls because I felt it looked best. I also made the balls slightly different sizes and gave them slightly different angles. (Yes, I did this intentionally.)
I also decided to do only beach ball tips on my right hand (my left hand still needs some practice wielding a detail brush plus I really like the beach ball design). Of course, my right hand, as always, didn't turn out as good as my left but it didn't come out too bad either. Only a few major oopsies.
I really like this beach nail art design and wish I had come up with this design before I had gone over the weekend. At least I'll know what to wear on my nails the next time I go. I hope you all enjoyed this fun beach ball nail art design, I know I had a blast with it. I'd love to see your recreations of this design, post them on Instagram with @polish_plebe in the comments or post them on my Facebook page. While your there don't forget to follow me, you can also follow me through Google+, Bloglovin, and Pinterest. See you next time.
Your Fellow Plebe,
