Family Game Night and Braid Mani

Last night was Family Game Night at our house, which mainly consists of my getting my booty whooped at Monopoly.  My husband bankrupted me pretty early, so I had plenty of time to work on my nails.

I've been seeing a ton of the super pretty fistail braid mani lately!  I looove it; it's so feminine and fun!  This is my first attempt at the braid mani, and I am happy to report that it is so easy that even I, the seriously nail art impaired, can master it with a little more practice.  I wish I could say the same for my Monopoly game.

You need three colors for a braid mani.  I used China Glaze Tree Hugger, which is a bright warm shimmery green, Orly's Spark from their Hot Stuff collection, which is a beautiful lemony yellow creme, and China Glaze For Audrey, a gorgeous creamy Tiffany blue.

Spark went on SUPER thick and left air bubbles.  I had problems with leveling too.  I will definitely be feeding her a few drops of polish thinner before I use her next time.  For Audrey was a little better, but not much.  She was pretty thick and air bubbly too, but still easier to work with than Spark.  She could benefit from some thinner as well.  Tree Hugger, on the other hand, has a really nice formula and went on super smooth.  I knew this, but I purposely chose thicker formulas so that my braid would be opaque without having to go over each stripe twice.  In retrospect, I should have chosen more contrasting colors, but I still like the way this turned out.  Especially the fallout I forgot to clean up on my ring finger.  That really sets it off nicely, I think.

 sunlight

 sunlight

 shade

shade

If you know how to braid, you know how to do this mani.  You just need a little patience, because each stripe needs to dry a little before you can apply the next one.  First I laid down a single coat of For Audrey, let that dry some, and began striping.  It took me a minute to get it worked out in my brain, but once I established the pattern, it painted itself.  Not literally, obviously, but that would be pretty cool.  You can see a really good braid tutorial here!

See?  Just overlapping diagonal stripes to create a braid.  I'm excited to try this in Halloweeny colors!  Once the whole braid is done, wait at least twenty minutes to apply your top coat so it doesn't all smudge up, because messing up all that work would really suck.

Speaking of sucking, this is how my Monopoly games invariably turn out:

Yes, that's Husband getting his win on.  To the right is my little man (still in the game, of course), and see the other side of the table?  The side with no money?  Yeah, that's where I sit.  Good times.  At least I win at nails!  Right?  Right???????

xoxo Kris