This week I’ve finally gotten around to doing a camouflage pattern, and what better week to do it than just before Veterans Day weekend 🇺🇸!?

I had to start with searching Youtube videos for how to even make the pattern.  It seems like half the videos said to use a small nail art brush, and the other half said to use dotting tools.  I’ve never used either, but the dotting tool looks a lot easier to use, so I went with that technique.  Here’s one of the first videos that I found helpful, from Demelza’s World:

So I went and bought myself the Bundle Monster double sided nail art brush & dotting tool set.  I think it’s perfect because if I ever work up the courage to try brushed nail art, then I just have to flip over my tool.  I’d say the only negative to this set is that there’s no size markings on them.  It’s great that there’s all sorts of sizes, but it’s hard for me to tell the difference between some of them.

I also found this post from Polish & Cookies, that I took some inspiration from.  I especially like the camouflage star, so I was hoping to accomplish that by using the nail art brush, and doing it in black instead of white.  You’ll see how that turned out…

What I used:

• Base Coat:  Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu!
• 1st Color:  KL Polish – Snickerdoodle
• 2nd Color:  KL Polish – Chloe
• 3rd Color:  OPI – That’s What Friends are Thor
• 4th Color:  Sally Hansen Hard as Nails – Black Out
• Top Coat:  Glisten & Glow – HK Girl
• nail polish remover
• Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
• Bundle Monster dotting tool
• small plastic cup

I started with the basic:  base coat, and one coat of Snickerdoodle.  I let that dry completely and then started the random placement of the green patches.  I used a tiny plastic cup to hold the blobs of nail polish that I needed, and make it easy for the dotting tool to pick up the polish.  I struggled with figuring out how much of the nail I should cover, and making sure the shapes didn’t all look exactly alike.  But other than that, using the dotting tool was a dream, and I had no trouble placing the polish.  I’m going to have to find more nail art that I can use it for.

One coat of KL Polish – Snickerdoodle

Placement of the random green patches

Once I got the brown and black patches on I knew this was going to be a success.  It was easier to decide on where to place the colors, since there was something already there to work with.  And luckily, all of the polishes were opaque enough to not need more than one coat.  This was actually my first time using That’s What Friends are Thor, so i was worried that it wouldn’t be a very good polish.  But it did not disappoint.

Adding the brown makes it look much better

Finished the camouflage!

And then came the disaster…  As I said earlier, I was inspired by the star on Polish & Cookies page.  I wanted to make my own, thinking that it wouldn’t be too hard to just add a hand painted star on top of my beautiful pattern.  So I flipped over my dotting tool (it had a small flat brush on the other side) and slowly started making the outline of a star.  But, what I didn’t realize was that making an outline of a star is definitely ten times harder than making an actual star!

I did the best I could, but it was just a sloppy mess.  And since I had used black on the pattern underneath, some of it was just blending in with the star outline.  I now know why the original image uses white.  But in the end, I just gave up on doing any sort of star, or extra design, and took it all off to start again.  It was a complete redo on my ring finger, from base coat to top coat.  I’m just glad it was only one nail.

The star was not a success

Starting over again…

If it weren’t for the mishap with the star, it would have only taken me a little over two hours to get this done.  And most of that time was just waiting for all the colors to dry.  But unfortunately things did not work out like I planned.  Since I was tired, and distracted by the start of writing this post, it took me almost another hour to finish up my nails.  Which three hours seems to be the usual for me, so I guess it’s not too bad.  Well now that they’re all fixed, I’m extremely happy with these nails.  I’ve been thinking about doing this design for a long time, and I’m glad that I did because now I’m sure I can just blend right into the trees 😂.

Left hand – full camouflage

Right hand – full camouflage

Let me know if you’ve ever done camouflage nails, and how they turned out.  Also, I’d love some recommendations for more ways to use my new dotting tools!

Update:

I did really great this week!  I didn’t pick at them at all.  I only had one mini-emergency on Monday night where my ring finger chipped and lifted up, but didn’t come off all the way.  So, I squeezed some base coat underneath where it lifted and pushed it back down.  And with a little bit of top coat it looked good as new!  After that, nothing exciting happened, just some normal wear around the edges.

Monday night chip

They lasted all week!