Nail Art - Valentine's Day nails!

We had a CRAZY evening yesterday. My sister had expressed the desire for me to paint her nails a Valentine's day theme since February is around the corner. I decided to paint nails for Craftsday also because I wanted to enter this nail art challenge. I had a few ideas in mind, but everything changed because 5 minutes after my sister arrived at my house last night, the power went out.

I had to paint her nails by candle-light.

So honestly, that's my reasoning for why they didn't turn out as neat as I wanted them to... She was also in a rush to leave after I finished the final touches so I wasn't able to put on a protective coat. I'll do any touch-ups on Saturday, though, because we'll be helping her and her husband find a couch (and possibly go yardsale-ing).

I did an alternating pink(Essie's Pink Diamond #470) and red(Maybelline's Racing Rubies #190) for the base coats, but for the pink dots on the red nails, I used Naturistics Super Chrome(Rose Chrome) since it's a very opaque pink.

 Closeup of the nailpolish I used...

I didn't use a stencil for these. I originally did a border around the whole nail and THEN my sister said she wanted a heart.

So I made little hearts... I was sad that some of the dots touched :(

These look much better looking at them in reality rather than a picture.

Oh, I also used 3 coats of paint for the base coat. I don't like using express finishes for the base coat... I'm always too tempted to put too much nail polish on at once so that it doesn't dry out too quickly, but it usually causes air bubbles if I do that. So I had to do 3 thin layers, which is HARD TO ACCOMPLISH with a fast-drying nail polish!

I'm happy with the result, though. :)

Even if I didn't shape her nails beforehand... Or trim her cuticles... oh well. You live and learn, right?

I have the goal to save up $3000 so I can go to a special beauty school here in Salt Lake that specializes only in doing nails/nail art. How we're going to save up that money? I have no idea. But it'll be a dream come true when I can finally get certified to be a manicurist (is that what they're professionally called? No? Nail Salon Artist? I don't know.)

Level of difficulty: it depends on how well you can paint nails. It's a hobby of mine, so I'd put this at 1 or 2 out of 5. There was no special skill involved except that you have to be able to freehand a heart pretty well (or put a sticker on the nail while you dot around it. That would create the same effect). I just used a standard dotting tool. The effect would have been more neat and cool looking if I had used different sized dotting tools (my sister happens to have a set so she has around 6-8 different sizes of dots you can make). I was originally going for something like this, except as a border.