Happy Manicure Monday!  What I love most about style is how often you can change it up.  A girly girl rocking a motorcycle jacket is unexpected and fun.  Combinations of lace and leather, pearls and studs, or even flowers and skulls show versatility and creativity when it comes to style.  I have days when I want channel Scary Spice circa 1996 – I did say channel, not dress like – but I also have days when I’d much rather look like a ballerina.  For this Manicure Monday, my inspiration was leaning towards the ballerina.

This mani is a basic girly manicure, with a subtle glitter accent.  Simple with a twist.  Classic with a … sparkle.  For this manicure, you’ll need a base coat and top coat, a color polish, a glitter polish, tape, and scissors.  You’ll want to begin creating the glitter stripes before you start your mani to give them time to dry.  Take your tape, and paint 2-3 thin coats of your glitter polish (I used Wet n Wild’s Sparked) or enough so that your glitter is opaque.  It’s important to make sure the glitter polish dries, though, or you’ll end up with a mess on your hands … literally.

You can now start your mani!  I used my beloved Seche Natural as my base coat.  It smoothes my nails out without being a bulky base coat.  It really creates the best base for a manicure.  For my base color, I used OPI’s Strawberry Margherita.  I applied two thin coats of polish to each nail, as I would with a regular manicure.  Wait a couple extra minutes before proceeding, because you want your base color to dry a bit so you don’t mess it up when you apply the DIY nail strips.

Take the tape that you painted with your glitter polish and begin cutting it into thin strips (or thick, depending on what look you’re going for!).  Carefully place the strips evenly spaced out down the nail.  To seal the deal, apply one coat of top coat!  And you know I always use Seche Vite to prevent my manicure from getting messed up.

I’m sure you all love to change things up to make them your own as much as I do, so there’s a few things you can do with this mani to make it yours.  You can change the width of the glitter strips.  You can add more, take some away.  You can totally change the colors up!  Black glitter strips on a black mani would take this manicure from ballerina pretty to rocker chic.  You don’t even need the glitter to match the base polish.  You can add the strips to every nail, or change the direction of the stripes.  It’s totally up to you!  How would you rock this glitter manicure?