Since last week’s Manicure Monday was dark and fierce, I wanted to go light and girly with this week’s.  I’ve always been impressed with dreamcatchers.  The premise of a dreamcatcher is that you hang it by your bed to catch any evil spirits or nightmares while you’re sleeping.  Whether they work or not is a totally different blog post.  I simply love the look of it.  You can create a dreamcatcher out of so many different materials, colors, and fabrics.  I created my very own dream catcher out of … what else? Nail polish.

I began my manicure like I begin every manicure: clean nails and a coat of Nail Tek II.  I really do notice the difference when I put effort into maintaining my nails.  They feel stronger, grow longer (because they’re not breaking!), and look better.

I wanted to use a dreamy feeling polish for this manicure, so I went with Essie’s Bikini So Teeny, which is quite possibly my favorite polish right now.  It’s an opaque cornflower blue, with the faintest hint of a shimmer.  The shimmer really is just enough to brighten up the polish without looking glittery.  I actually hesitate to put any design on top of it because it’s so beautiful, but my Manicure Mondays would be pretty boring if I just did solid colors, right? Right.  After applying two coats, I let my polish dry completely.

Once base color is totally dry, you can begin the nail art! I used Sally Hansen’s Nail Art Pen in White and a regular fine point black Sharpie to create my design.  If you have a nail art pen in both colors, or a Sharpie in both colors, feel free to mix and match as you wish!

Taking my Sally Hansen’s Nail Art Pen, I drew a half moon shape across the top of my ring finger and thumb.  I filled in the half moon so it almost looks like half of a white donut (or maybe just a paper reinforcement, if you’re not hungry) is sitting at the top of your nail.

Once that dried (which doesn’t take long – that’s a pro of using a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen), I outlined the white shape using my Sharpie.

This is the starting point for your nail art, so feel free to get creative and deviate from my design! I then created four larger dots spaced out along the bottom black line.  From there, I added two smaller dots below each larger dot.  Between each line of dots, I added the smallest dots I possibly could, as shown above.

To finish off the look and bring color into the dreamcatcher, I added four blue dots of Essie’s Bikini So Teeny to the white part of the dreamcatcher.

To make your nail art last, seal it with a top coat! I like to use Seche Vite, which is, in my opinion, the queen of all quick dry top coats.  It’s also great at not smearing nail art that’s still wet.

What do you think? Would you recreate this Dreamcatcher manicure yourself? Share it with us on Twitter @Collaboreight!

Check out more great manicure tutorials:

• Manicure Monday: Neon Brights
• Manicure Monday: Haute Reverse French
• Manicure Monday: Faux Claws