Summer Blog Party: Craftyminx's Ombre Manicure

Dana from craftyminx.com has a fun and colorful style all her own. I love her vintage re-makes and colorful granny square creations. Today she is going to share the perfect Summer manicure (or pedicure)!

Hello! I'm Dana Beach from craftyminx.com, where I blog about my many crafting adventures.  I am so excited to be a part of Amy's Blog Party!! Since we're celebrating summer, I want to share a super simple and fashionable ombre manicure technique with you. It would also be perfect for a really fun pedicure to show off at the beach.

I've seen many ombre manicures where you use 5 different varying shades of nail polish to achieve the fading effect across the hand, but today I'm going to show you how to save some money and mix the colors yourself.

Here's what you need to get started:

- Nail Polish - A base/top coat, White, and a bright color (I used a bright poppy red-orange for this tutorial)
- An old nail polish brush (cleaned off with nail polish remover) or a paint brush
- toothpicks
- Cotton balls and cotton swabs for cleaning up messes
- Nail Polish Remover
- A small paper plate or paint mixing palette
- paper towels and a newspaper or something to protect your table

Picking the right nail polish color is important! You want to make sure its a deep enough shade that you'll be able to get multiple shades out of it once you mix it with white. Some other great summery options can be seen below. Orange and coral are huge this summer so you shouldn't have any problem finding tons of different polishes in those colors.

The steps:


1) Prepare the first color - I like to start with the lightest shade on my pinky finger because the color with the most white takes longer to dry. Drop six drops of white and one drop of your color on your mixing plate.

2) Mix thoroughly with a toothpick.

3) Paint both pinky finger nails on each hand. Hint: If the colors look a little streaky don't worry! Just use a thick top coat and it will hide any imperfections.

4) Clean your brush with nail polish remover and wipe it clean on a paper towel.

5) Prepare your Ring Finger Color - Drop six drops of white and two drops of your color on the mixing plate. Repeat Steps 2-4 on your ring finger.

6) Prepare your Middle Finger Color - Drop six drops of color and four drops of white on the mixing plate. Repeat Steps 2-4 on your middle finger.

7) Prepare your Index Finger Color - Drop six drops of color and one drop of white on the mixing plate. Repeat Steps 2-4 on your index finger.

8) For the thumb, just use the nail polish color straight from the bottle.

9) Clean off any messes on your cuticles with cotton swabs dipped in nail polish remover and let everything dry for a couple of minutes.

10) Finish everything off with a top coat.

And there you have it an easy DIY ombre manicure perfect for a summer party! Thanks for inviting me over, Amy! Next time, I'll bring the champagne. ;)

You can find Dana at craftyminx.com