stars & stripes

I stole borrowed some paper hole reinforcements from work the other day, so I knew I wanted to do a half-moon manicure. (For those of you who couldn't tell from the photo, a half-moon manicure is when the crescent-shaped base of your nails--where some people naturally have a white arch--is painted a different color from the rest of your nail.) But I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it, so I did something I've never done before: just started painting without a clear plan in mind.

The first full-coverage polish I grabbed was Sinful Colors Snow Me White. When doing a half-moon mani, it's smart to choose a polish that gives good coverage in just one (thick) coat. I didn't feel like waiting for a base color to dry, so I put on my reinforcement stickers and applied Snow Me White. After that was done, I decided pretty quickly I was going to make this nauseatingly American-themed, because why not? So using a small paintbrush I added stripes of OPI Dating a Royal (one of my favorite polishes ever, it's just so gorgeous) over the white, and stars of H&M Berry Love on my bare half-moons.

I'm really happy with how this turned out, and I think it looks cute with my newly rounded nails--I'm usually a square nail type of girl, but they were breaking too easily like that, so...here we are.

Some tips for doing a half-moon manicure:

• Cut your reinforcement stickers in half. They're much more flexible this way; otherwise you might not be able to get it thoroughly pressed down at the edges of your nail.
• Go one finger at a time. I actually used the same two halves of a sticker for all my fingers. Place the sticker, put on a thick layer of polish, and then IMMEDIATELY remove the sticker. If you wait too long, the polish will drag and smear when you take off the sticker.
• Use tweezers to apply and take off the stickers. As you get more nails wet, the more you risk smearing wet polish as you deal with the stickers. An easy solution to this problem is using tweezers--no risk of smudging or denting!