Tutorial: Dia De Los Muertos manicure

Hello!!

I had some requests for a tutorial on my Dia De Los Muertos manicure, so here it is! It's pretty simple once you know how to do it, so that's a good thing.

Step 1) Over your base color, which can be any medium gray color, you want to stamp a row of
roses across the bottom (tips) of your nails in a lighter gray color that is opaque enough to show up:

Notice I did not do this perfectly and didn't care if they are blurry or smudged a bit--this is just a background row that you're putting in to create depth and contrast, you won't be able to see if it's perfect or not because it will be covered up. My rose is from Winstonia 104, but you can use any rose you like. :)


Step 2). Add another layer of roses in red over your layer of gray roses:

You do not want these to line up perfectly, in fact, you want to give the illusion that there are a ton of roses there. So, try to stamp generally in the same spot as the other roses, but don't worry about it when it doesn't match up, because that's the effect you're going for. :)

Step 3: Finally, add in your skull and your skeletons! (Mine are from BM413.) I wanted my skeletons to look like they were dancing and moving around like they would be in a Dia De Los Muertos parade. But I do admit that the nail I love the best is the index finger, where they sort of look like they're in a mosh pit, lol:

The point is, position them randomly anywhere you like. One important tip, however; for the skeletons on my ring and pinkie finger, I rolled the stamper downward, from cuticle to tip, rather than from side-to-side on the nail. That's how I keep an image straight vertically on the nail without warping. :)

And that's it! Throw a topcoat on--I bet this would be awesome with a matte topcoat--and you're done!

Of course I'm including a single-image tutorial for you in case you want to pin it somewhere for ease of use.

Thanks to the people who requested the tutorial--it really helps me when you tell me what you'd like to see tutorials for, so keep those requests coming!! :)

Hugs and loves,
M.