Week 13 - Ruffian Mani

I know, I'm a week behind now, but since I have vacation I'll be able to catch up on the One year challenge this week! Today I have a really cool design that's well known in the nail-world, but I've never made before. A ruffian mani! This is sort of the opposite of a french tip, with the U shape at the bottom at the nail instead of the tip. I wanted to make this in colors that went well with the fact that it's Easter now! I chose OPI - What's with the cattitude, HM - Spoiled beauty and then some dots with Isadora - Mellom yellow.

There are a bunch of ways to make this design, so I made a little step by step on how I did mine. You can use stickers like a french tip sticker or round stickers:

As you know I'm not a big fan of tape manis, or using stickers as a template, so I decided to do it freehand. Here's a little tutorial on how I did it:
I painted the lower part of my nails with two coats of What's with the cattitude, you can do the whole nail if you feel like it...

With a thin paint brush I drew a half circle, starting at the middle of the nail were the ruffian will be thickest

Then I filled in with Spoiled beauty using the nail polish brush. Be very careful when your getting close to the edge of the circle not to cross it with the polish brush. Use the thin brush to fill in if your having problems

Then I added the dots using the smallest end of a dotting tool, starting at the middle of the ruffian, clean up around the edges and top coat! Finished!

The down side to doing the ruffian free-hand is that you don't get that super sharp edge the sticker gives. But you can decide the thickness, shape and how much you want the ruffian to curve for yourself so I prefer it this way!

# What do you think of my ruffian?
# Are you doing anything fun for Easter?