Let's Design Some Nail Art!

Avia challenges Carissa to make Tea Party themed nails

For this week’s creative challenge, Avia asked me to create nail designs for a tea party theme while keeping color theory in mind. If you know me, I’ve wanted to get into nail art for the longest time, but this was the push I needed to finally do it.

The Challenge: Design a Nail Set to a Tea Party Theme

• Avia challenged me to design to a specific theme, in this case, we are creating tea-party-themed nails.

• Avia also noted that I didn’t need to go out and physically create these nails, and drawing them would be okay. So you could just draw out your nail design, I decided I would finally take the step and buy supplies since this is a hobby I am interested in pursuing.

Step One: Mood Boarding

Before starting any design I always make it a habit to mood board before I start. Mood boarding helps me research the theme I am designing and helps me figure out what type of aesthetic I want to go for. You could mood board on Pinterest or compile all your inspiration and reference images on an artboard.

Here is a snippet of my Pinterest mood board for this challenge:

Step Two: Sketch Out Your Idea

This could be the final step if you don’t have nail supplies, but don’t worry, the design concept is the most important part of the challenge.

When you sketch out your set, think about colors and which colors would go well with each other. Also think about variety in composition and how you could make each nail have something similar to the others to make it a working set.

Here is the sketch I created for my idea:

Step Three: Execute Nail Art (Optional)

Since not everyone has access to nail supplies, execution for this challenge is optional. I decided to invest in some nail supplies for this challenge since I plan to continue designing nail art.

This step has a large learning curve, especially for beginners like me so I found it useful to follow these tips:

• Do one nail at a time. Since you are not holding a clients hand nor pressed for time, take your time and try and do one nail at a time. This also allows you to take breaks and come back to it later. Nail art is not something everyone will be fast at in the beginning.

• Trial and error it. Your first go at a nail might not always end up the way you want it to or if a technique you want to try is not working for you, don’t be afraid to start over.

• Use Tiktok, Reddit, and Youtube. If there are techniques you want to try (in my case it was using chrome powder and 3D builder gel) there are tons of tutorials available online and a big nail art community that’s willing to share their tips and tricks.

Carissa’s Results:

I was inspired by the porcelain plates of English tea parties with the white and gold contrasting each other as well as floral and strawberry motifs. I wanted each nail to have some white and gold in it to tie the set together. I also used complementary colors (red and green) to be used on two out of five nails to give the set a bit of pop. The pearls were an added touch because I do feel like women would be wearing their pearls to afternoon tea!

Concluding Thoughts:

I was really happy and excited when I received this challenge. It reminded me there are a lot of things people want to do but just don’t take the step to do it. So if you’ve also wanted to dabble in nails, I think you should take this sign to go for it! It goes for other things too, just do it.