The Tools I Use

Hello again! I attempted to prepare an awesome ombré tutorial and I epically failed. I'm so used to just doing nails, taking a picture of them, and posting to facebook and instagram. :( I forgot to take important pictures and just decided that I will post a picture of them and then use them for something else. (Can you say rawr? ;)) Yes, I am so disappointed in myself. Ah, oh well. You learn with mistakes, huh? They turned out pretty though!

Okay, enough with my fail. I decided instead that it would be better to just review the tools that I use in all of my nail art. A more about ME section! ;) A lot of people do ask what I use so I thought this would be better just to get that question answered! So let's get started! The tools that I use for ALL of my nail art (as of July 21, 2012 and prior to) are things that I believe most of you have around your house. Nah, I'm not the toothpick kind of gal generally. I use more "sophisticated" tools! What do I use you ask? Dotting tools? Striping tape? Stamping?!? PSHHHHHH. I wish! I use a combination of a few things:

• A: These are "sophisticated" dotting tools. :) Yup. They're pencils. Just regular, plain old pencils. Okay, I lied. One is a mechanical pencil with .5 lead and the other is a wooden one. I'll show you how I use these later in the post.
• B: Scratch paper! This is just for dropping nail polish on that you will use. You do NOT need some cool plastic palette. Just use some random piece of garbage that you're going to throw away anyway!
• C: Oh, toothpicks. Also for dots or designs that need just a little more fine detail.
• D: A sponge. :) Used for gradients, galaxy nails, and any other designs that needs a little texture. You can use a makeup sponge but this is just one off of those cheapo sponge brushes that you use for crafting. (Yes, I did cut it off, tehehe!)
• E: Clean up! Cotton balls, nail polish remover, and Q-Tips. Hopefully self-explanatory but just in case you make a big mess (*cough cough* MARBLE NAILS, SPLATTER NAILS, etc. *cough cough*).
• And Z (unpictured): Aww, somehow I forgot my little scotch tape. :'( Sad! I use the scotch tape for lines of course and other tape manicures. Sometimes I need scissors to cut the tape into thinner stripes (since I do not have stripping tape) too, so add scissors to the list of forgotten and unpictured.

Ta daaah! My tools. :) Now... how to use them. A whole other story! Just a quick summary on how I use a mechanical pencil as a dotting tool.

You can make dot, dot, dots :)
Just plop a drop of nail polish
onto a piece of paper and take
the pencil and dip it in.

Oooops! Your pencil has a huge
chunk of dried nail polish. :( No worries!
WATCH THIS!

*break lead off*
Wow. That was fantastic.

 I like using mechanical pencils for my dotting tools because, like you can see, they clean up relatively well and they are easily found. Plus it's a pencil, you feel more comfortable using it than a tiny toothpick. ;) 

And finally, push for more
lead and you have a fresh,
clean dotting tool again. :)

Thank you for reading! I will try to have a REAL tutorial available later this week! Until then, your Polish Pal, Jenna :]