CREATIVE PLAY! NTNA Top24 pre-challenge

For the self portrait nail, I used 2 coats of CND's Creative Play polish, 'Nocturne It Up', as my base.  

I couldn't wait to jump in and use all Wildflower's acrylic paints and magenta detail art brush to begin creating ME!  

I did NOT want all my nail tips to be in a perfect arrangement because my idea of playing creatively is outside of the box! I used 2 more coats of 'Nocturne It Up' as my base for the nail on the right, along 2 coats of an angled swipe of CND's Creative Play polish, 'Cue the Violets'. I left a divided line between the colors because my plan is for the lines to flow into other nail tips, sort of forming boxes, representing the theme of 'Playing outside the box'. The somewhat bare nail to the left has 2 coats of an angled swipe of CND's Creative Play polish, 'Glittabulous'.  

Now is the time to start using CND's Shellac polish, 'Art Basil' and 'Digi-teal' to create and ombrè affect above the 'Glittabulous' angled swipe on the nail to the left. My hair needed to flow onto the nail next to my portrait, still with Wildflower acrylic paints, to allow my creativity to flow through onto the other nails!  

Here comes the lines and dots that are part of my "roots" from discovering my artistic abilities in high school, let's not forget where our creative sides began! I love the vibrant tones in the Wildflower acrylic paints!  

Dreams, ideas, and magic all need some metallic to them, and Wildflower's acrylic paints have the coolest metallic tones! I used a sponge to apply the awesome metallic tones as a base for my creative shapes to burst on to.  

Now let those creative juices flow from your mind, right down to your fingertips, and starting putting some of your favorite shapes and techniques on your canvases! The middle nail designs and the right nail designs, are all with acrylic paints. The ombrè nail has a mix of Shellac, acrylic paints, and Creative Play polish. I even sponged more metallic acrylic paint in silver on that one with CND's Creative Play 'Dazzleberry' sponged over it!  

More glitter please! Again, creating some angled "boxes", the nail on the left has lightly outlined boxes with white acrylic paint, filled the 2 purple ones with 2 coats each of 'Cue the Violets' Creative Play, then one coat of "Positively Plumsy' Creative Play over the top purple "box". The pink glitter one is 2 coats of 'Dazzleberry' Creative Play. The white is 2 coats of CND's Shellac in 'Cream Puff', cured between both coats. The nail on the right has the same outlined idea of boxes, filled with 2 coats each of 'Cue the Violets', 'Glittabulous', and 'Nocturne It Up'. Then 2 coats of Shellac's 'Cream Puff', cured between coats, to then begin the watercolor technique with Shellac. To achieve this, I put a small amount of Shellac color on my nifty thumb palette, thinned out with 99% alcohol, and applied to cured 'Cream Puff' areas with a smaller gel style flat brush on both nails. Continue watercolor technique with Shellac colors of choice until covered, and cure.  

Let's get all these to start flowing now! But first, more glitter! I added a thin coat of CND's Creative Play, 'Got A Light?' over the watercolored areas! Now to bring my hair through to the next nails, using acrylic paints again!  

The finishing touches! Added some more lines, dots, and the Creative Play logo with Shellac 'Black Pool', some neon dots, lines, and more metallic sponging with acrylic paints, and threw in some more Creative Play glitters! Top coat all the nails with CND's Xpress5 gel top coat and cure! After all, you can't go wrong, this is creative nail art at it's wildest extreme, JUST GO PLAY!!!!! XO!