Advent Calendar Nail Challenge, Day 7: Ornaments

Hi everyone! Up until this point of the challenge I've been able to get away with a solid colour or very simple manis (i.e. glitter gradients, or layered glitter polish). It's not ideal, but I really am a newbie when it comes to nail art. In fact I just bought my first nail art brush set and dotting tools set for this challenge. But with the theme of ornaments for today, I knew it was no longer possible to put off trying my hand at some freehand nail art.

Holiday ornaments nail art

This is my first attempt at using nail art brushes, so please be gentle! Here's the list of polishes I used for this design:

Avon Vintage Blue
Joe Fresh Starry
Gosh Galaxy
Essie Penny Talk
China Glaze Man Hunt
Quo Old Hollywood
Illamasqua Viridian
Essence Black is Back
Girly Bits January Morning

Whew, that's a lot! I started by painting my base colour, Vintage Blue. Then I sponged on a light layer of Starry, to give the blue a subtle silver holo shimmer. Then I painted in the ornaments using Galaxy, Penny Talk, Man Hunt, Old Hollywood, and Viridian. I don't necessarily think these were the best colours, these were just the colours I had on hand that seemed appropriate for a holiday design. I then followed with Black is Back, drawing in the strings as well as the outline around each ornament. I used the same small detail brush for all the ornaments, as well as the black outline. I finished off with a light layer of January Morning, which added a very subtle shimmer to the whole design without obscuring the ornaments.

Holiday ornaments nail art

I think the biggest challenge I had was the black strings and outlines. It seemed like I either had too much or too little polish on my brush. It was also hard to get very fine detail, despite the fact that I was using my smallest brush. I wonder if a special striping polish might work better. I might also try to find some tutorials on freehand nail art, but if you know of any, please feel free to share.