me lucky charms: a wee st.patty's day mani.

i think i looked at 648 st.patty's day mani's before i decided to just try my own. i wanted something cute & colourful, 
with a st.patty's day nod and matte finish, and after some fiddle fartin' around, this is what i came up with. 

aye sha shy sha shy! 

(i don't know why i say this whenever i think of anything irish, but i do.)

how we do: st.patty's day mani

you will need:

clear base coat

matte (or clear) top coat 

green nail polish

colours for your rainbow~whatever combo you like

white nail art pen

q-tips for clean up

start by choosing which colours you want to use for your rainbow. i was happy with only a few colours, and chose red, orange, yellow and teal blue. i made sure i liked how they looked with the green i was using on all my other nails, and choose the order i would paint them in.

step 1. start with fresh, clean nails that you have filed and shaped to your liking. paint a clear coat onto all of them.

step 2. paint 2 coats of green polish onto every nail except your ring finger-this will to be your rainbow nail.

step 3. create your rainbow by painting stripes of your chosen colours. i couldn't do this step & photograph it at the same time--i apologize, but i know you can do it! if taping off the lines and painting them is easier for you than freehand, go for it. i tried, but found it faster and easier to do them without the tape. i also like how it didn't turn out perfectly, which is hard for even me to believe. i made the last stripe of my rainbow, the teal blue colour, a little wider than the others so the clouds wouldn't cover the entire stripe. paint a coat of matte top coat (or clear top coat if you want them shiny) over all your nails. i have fallen in love with the "sephora by opi" matte coat. it dries quickly, and lasts 5 days without chips or scratches. beauty effin' product ($12 at sephora).

step 4. once your matte coat (or top coat) is dry, you can get all cloudy up in here. i used a white "sally hansen nail art pen" ($7 at shopper's drug mart) to create an outline of the clouds on the tip of my nail.

step 5. once the outline is dry, you can fill it in and repeat this step to ensure full coverage.

*note: the reason i applied my top coat before the clouds and not after was purely a trial and error discovery. the first time i attempted this, i made the clouds and then applied my matte top coat.  i don't know if it's the nail art pen, or the matte coat, but the combo of the two resulted in the clouds cracking and splitting apart. not nice. not happy. you mani, & you learn.

i hope you love them as much as i do.

and if you don't get lucky this st.patty's day, your nails sure as shit did!