Weekly DIY - Snowy Owl Nail Art

     Now, I'm going to try something a little different. I am going to start doing a weekly DIY tutorial thing. It will mostly be for nails, but I'm also going to show you how to make your own custom shirts(you can also do thing to really any piece of clothing or anything fabric.), and I MAY, do something drawing related.
     The reason why I'm going to mostly be doing nail art weekly DIY is because, it's what's the easiest, and it's not very limited.

     The reason why I'm doing a Snowy Owl, is because a friend of mine's favorite animal is the Snowy Owl. I thin they're a beautiful bird myself, and I've seen them wild several times in winter when me and my mom and sister would drive to Winnipeg to visit family and get groceries. So I just wanted to do a little thin in honor of him. R.I.P Terry <3

First off, choose your colours!

You will want two or so colours for your owl (depends on how creative you want to be with it, it's not limited to being a snowy owl, that's just what I chose.)

I don't have a very wide selection of nail polishes, so I'm going to go with, Blue, Yellow, Black and Silver. (I love using black and silver because I enjoy the contrast and I don't have white, yellow for the feet and beak, and I chose blue for the background just to add some colour to it.) And don't forget your top coat! (I don't have any top coat nail polish, so I have to use the closest thing to it that I have.)

(^This is a clear glitter and heart nail polish)

Now that you got the colours you want, the first step is to add your base colour. For me I chose blue.

Tip: If you want to protect your nails, you should use a base coat nail polish, I don't have one, so I couldn't use it.

Wait until the colour coat is fully dry, and the next thing you're going to do, is you're going to paint about, 1/3rd of your nail your owl colour (what ever colour you chose to be the base colour for your owl, I chose silver) But leave one nail without the silver, this will be the nail you will be putting the owl onto.

There, now that you have that part done, and drying, lets get started on the owl.

Now, you can do this free hand right onto the nail, but just to make it easier for you guys, and so you can do this easy for your opposite hand(whichever is least dominant and usually make more of a mess when doing your nails)

First thing's first, get something that's flat and plastic, whether it be that clear wrap stuff (I have no idea how to spell it, so I hope you understand what I'm talking about!), Ziplocs, tape even (if it's wide enough for you to work comfortably with), or really anything that's smooth, flat, and plastic. I am using a coloured page protector, because that's all I had.

The next step is to dip your nail polish brush into the nail polish, so it's got a nice amount of nail polish on  it, and dab it on the plastic. This will be the body of your owl.

Next, you quickly want to take something, a pen, sharpend pencil, tooth picks, ect.. (I had to use the nail file part of my nail clippers) to drag two points out of the nail polish. This will be the ears. (Yes, I know that snowy owls have a smooth round head, and no ears, but I wanted to put ears for the sake of this tutorial.)

Now you want to let that dry for a while. (I let mine dry for about an hour or so, I wasn't paying much attention to the time. Two hours is a good time, you can also lighty touch your finger to it to tell how wet it is still, and determine for yourself.)

Next I used my yellow to make a beak, and two feet for my owl.

Let that dry a little for a few minutes if you want(just to avoid some accidental smearing or anything like that).

Then you want to take the black (or what ever secondary colour you chose for your owl) and dip the brush into the nail polish and dab it onto the plastic, like you did for the owl.

And then you're going to want to make little "u's" on the silver part of your nails. This will make it look like the belly of the owl. You have to be quick with this though so that your blob of nail polish doesn't get too sticky/dry or it will start to make it all icky.

And after that you will be done with those nails.

Depending on how long you took to do that part of your nails you might have to make another blob of black(or what ever secondary colour you chose) to work on your owl.

I'm sorry, I forgot to take a picture of each part of this, but I'm sure you  can just see and understand how it's done with my explanations.

You're going to want to take the black(or what ever secondary colour you chose), and make a line on each side of the owl(from the neck to just before the feet), this will be the wings.

Next you can make little dots to make the eyes.

Once you're done that, you are going to make lines(vertical or horizontal) or dots -it's up to you- to make the feather marks.

And with that, you're done your owl! You just have to wait a while to let it dry fully so you can peal it off of the plastic.

If you want to play it safe so you don't ruin him trying to take him off, you should leave him overnight. Other wise you can fan the heck out of him for a few hours. (maybe you can stick him in the freezer, though he might crack, I'm not sure, I haven't tried it.)

It's only been about 45 minutes for me, and because I am horribly impatient, I decided to take a picture of what it SHOULD look like when he's done and on your nail.

I like having things off-centered, but obviously you can put him where ever on your nail. You can put him upside down, side ways, whatever tickles your pickle. Just don't forget to put a top coat on after you put him on! This will help keep this little guy from 'flying away' on you. 

AND THEN YOU'RE DONE!!

Lastly, I would just like to mention, that you can do this 'technique' (the one where you make the decal guy on the plastic) for really, just about anything. You're really only limited by your own creativity!

So I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy how yours turns out!

I am off! Ciao!