Alexandra's back with Fruit Salad!

Today I've got another amazing tutorial from the lovely Alexandra. Last time she brought us pretty flowers on a Paradoxal background. This one we have for today is adorable summer Fruit Salad! She even made a video to go along with the tutorial, how cool is that? Also, this is a special kind of nail art called 3d Nail Art. Basically that means it's not under a lot of topcoat, that it's going to be raised on your nail a little bit. Which means this probably mean this mani won't last you 7 days, but how cute would it be for a weekend?! Read on!

Here's the video that goes with the tutorial, it's just under a minute and definitely worth the watch. Alexandra I NEED to know what the mani you have on in the video is! It's really nice!


Fruit Salad
Level: Intermediate
Materials: Adhesive tape, clay slices (4 different fruits), nail glue (AKA crazy glue), paper and pen.

Step 1: Color the tips of your nails in white (french style) or any bright color that goes with the fruits you chose. The advantage of this form of nail art, is that you don't have to make perfect lines, because the fruits will cover most of it. There are french tip guides available in certain stores, if you want to make sure to have all the tips be the same size.

Step 2: Apply top coat, and let the nail polish dry. This step is important because when you apply the fruit slices sometimes the glue is slippery and they move around, until they are secured by the tape.

Step 3: (Optional) calculate the width of the nail you are working on. Using a piece of paper measure it and draw lines at both ends with a pen. When working on your own nails place paper over the nail, press and make marks with your thumb and middle fingernails at the sides, then write lines on the dents made on the paper. After practicing with one hand this step becomes optional because one already has a sense of the width.

Step 4: Place a piece of the tape with the sticky side up, on top of the paper with the markings, holding it be the edges. Make sure to cut a piece that is big enough to be wrapped around the nail (or around th finger, when working on your own nails) so that the ends stick together to hold the fruits in place.

Step 5: Place the fruit slices on the sticky side of the tape one by one, with approximetely one third of each slice above the next.

Step 6: Apply Nail glue on all the clay slices.

Step 7: Grab the strip with the fruits and place on top of the nail, covering part of the base color and part of the tips. When using artificial nails, place the nail on the tape instead, as shown in the video.

Step 8: Join both ends of the tape to hold the fruit slices in place and check that they look straight while the glue is still wet, rearrange when needed.

Step 9: After approximately 10 minutes, or when you feel the glue has dried, carefully remove the tape. No top coat needed.

Tips:
-You can also apply the slices one by one, but this takes more time, because, depending on how thin the clay is, they tend to wrinkle outwards with the wet glue, so one has to press, wait for the glue to dry, making sure the fruit is stable and then proceed to do the others.
-To make mirror images on both hands, note the order of the fruits. For example if on the left hand you started with apple, lemon, kiwi and strawberry from left to right, when doing the right hand start from right to left.

Colors used for this tutorial: Video was made on french falsies, but any white polish would do the trick.

Here's the finished product!







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Thanks again for another amazing tutorial and cute nail art, Alexandra! I though the video was a great addition for this one, it helped me understand exactly what to do after initially reading through the steps. What do you guys think? I love it for summer!