DIY Leopard print nails tutorial

So, before I start the tutorial I must say that I have only recently been able to paint my nails, due to the fact that I have bitten them all my life resulting in little stumpy nails that you can't do anything with. About 4 months ago I decided to kick the habit and have had zillions of bright colours on my nails ever since. I was sticking to basic, plain colours until I saw Gem Fatale's WAH inspired leopard print nail tutorial, which you can see here and is a video so it may be easier for you to follow, but don't go away yet!

First things first, you need your tools. You need a base coat, a contrasting colour for the spots, liquid eyeliner and a clear varnish for a top coat. I have used OPI in Tangerine Scene for the base, Barry M Cyan Blue for the spots, Blink + Go waterproof liquid eyeliner and Elegant Touch clear varnish.

You need to apply your base coat, I've opted for bright orange for the base coat but I had mint green on yesterday with pink spots and that looked good too, so you can basically choose whichever colours you like. You'll probably need to do a couple of coats to make sure it has good coverage.

Once your base coat has dried, load up your contrasting varnish colour, with enough to make sure you get nice even blobs but not enough that you get lumpy leopard spots... You can make them as big or as little as you like but it always looks best if you have a mixture of the two.

After the spots have dried, whip out your liquid eyeliner (I'm using a waterproof one to make sure it stays where I put it but you can use any kind or colour of liner as long as you do a top coat) and put little lines/daubs around the spots. Three lines looks good but it's up to you really! Don't worry if they're not the neatest, leopard spots are always different anyway!

Make sure the eyeliner has dried properly and apply your clear top coat to seal everything in, if you're not using waterproof liquid eyeliner, make sure you apply the clear varnish quickly and carefully so not to smudge everything.

And then you should have leopard-y nails! I'm sure yours will be better than mine, if you do have a go at it, make sure to tweet or email me a picture and I'll link you up.

Good luck!