Girly Camo Splatter Mani -- Week 22 of the Year of Polish Challenge

The splatter mani is an elusive beast.  At one end you have a giant hot mess and the other you have oblong polka dots.  The perfect splatter mani finds a balance between the two and it takes practice.

I wouldn't say my Girly Camo Splatter mani is perfect but its the best I've done so far:) 

I started with Orly Bonder Base Coat on each nail.  I then painted my nails with two coats of Olympia.  Then using coffee stir straws that I've cut in half I dipped one end of the stir straw into Military Green and blew through the straw, repeating on each finger.  I then followed with Boom Boom, Nude It!, and Loving Lavender.  After a tiny bit of drying time I applied a top coat and the Girly Camo Splatter Mani is done!

Polish Haul and Nails Two Ways: Splatter Mint Nails and Mint Cirlces and Dots Nails

I really, really, really need to stop buying polish but these were such good deals that I couldn't pass them up.  Not to mention, oh my, pastels!  Also, I've been generating all sorts of ideas using studs so the Kiss Nail Art Metallic stickers were an especially cool find!

I couldn't wait to try I Need A Refresh-Mint so I painted my base coated nails with two coats of this mint-y polish.

Next, I decided to try Splatter Nails one more time with a smaller straw and had better results this time!  I call these Splatter Mint Nails.

On the other hand, I wanted to try something different so using the same small straw I created circles, half circles, and arches in four different pastel polishes.  Next I took my smallest dotting tool and applied random dots in the same color to each nail.

The Splatter Mint Nails look so cool and my Mint Circles and Dots Nails are extra cool!

Splatter Manicure, First Try Fail

For these splatter nails, I am a little disappointed in them if only because I wanted more splatter and less blobs of polish.  I think I will have to hunt down some smaller straws to do my next set of splatter nails.

I first painted Black Creme over every base-coated nail.  I then used a pen casing as my splatterer and splattered Mellow Yellow, Mint Apple, and Helena on each nail.  A lot of tutorials will say to used tape or Vaseline to prevent large messes but I didn't find it overly messy.  I just used a swab and an orange stick to clean up any stray polish.  I will say that you do need to do this on a covered surface, either with a paper towel or a piece of scratch paper.   Last I added some glitter via a coat of Snow Globe and a coat of Sally Girl's iridescent glitter.   I followed with a fast drying top coat and these nails were done. 

Surprisingly, these nails did not take long to dry even with all the layers and I had no smudges this morning.   Still, I will be working on perfecting my splatter manicures and welcome any suggestions!