Quilted Mani Monday

Hello and welcome to the very last Mani Monday of 2015! The holidays are almost over (thank god) and I am sooo ready to get back to my regular schedule. Today's manicure is actually a last minute change from what I had planned, a few bottles of nail polish got lost in the Christmas chaos and of course they were the ones I needed for my planned manicure. So today's is a manicure that I was going to do in the Spring sometime, so it is NOT a holiday themed one at all. I've always really loved how quilted things look so this is my attempt at a quilted manicure.

To do this manicure you will need:

• Base color. I used a robin's egg blue Ulta brand polish called Mint Condition.
• Black polish. I'm using a black by Sinful Colors called Black on Black.
• A dotting tool or thin brush.
• Clear top coat. Again, I haven't replaced my ELF top coat but I just ran out of polish remover so I'll be going to Ulta this weekend for sure.
• Nail polish remover and cotton swabs/q-tips to clean up the edges.

Step one as always is to apply your base color. I like 3 coats typically, it seems to give me a cleaner and smoother base to work with. Let this dry completely before you move onto the nest step.

Next, use your black polish to paint short and thin dashes doing at an angle across your nail.

Do a second row a little bit above the first, then a third row if you have room. Let them dry a bit before moving onto the next step.

Now do the same dashes going in the other direction, creating a dashed grid on your nails. It looks best if none of the lines touch but it'll happen so don't stress it. You mainly just want to keep everything evenly.

 Do as many rows as you have room for, I found most of my nails only had room for two rows in each direction.

Repeat on all nails, top with your clear coat, then clean up your edges. This isn't a hard manicure technique wise, but keeping everything thin and even can be very difficult. And keeping it even across all five nails takes a ton of skill, so please don't stress out if you don't get it the first or even tenth time. If they look good to you then they are good enough.