See How I “Nailed” This Week’s #GiveItAWeek Challenge

You guys all know I LOVE making and creating. But this week’s nail art challenge really put my crafting hands, er, fingers, to the test. As someone who’s always been intimidated by painting my own nails (anyone else out there always seem to paint over a cuticle?), I turned to a nail-painting pro for inspo. Olive & June‘s founder, Sarah Gibson Tuttle, was just the gal. She and her team challenged me to try a new design each day and below is how it all went down. P.S. If you want the FULL recap, watch my #GiveItAWeek stories on Instagram. They’re all highlighted on my profile: @brit.

I started the week off with two small successes: painting dots (totally nailed it) and rescuing a paint job gone bad for Good Morning America with Olive & June stickers (they are cute and totally genius!). The rest of the week included v. valiant attempts at making hearts, scalloping French tips, color blocking, and doing some gradient designing. Thanks to some handy day-to-day tools like bobby pins, toothpicks, and makeup sponges, my endeavors were fruitful, but not totally smudge-free. ;)

That being said, after seven days of decorating, I saw progress! Most noticeable was how much better I got at basic nail painting skills. Having to swap a new base coat every day meant I got a lot of cycles in to practice staying in between the lines… er, cuticles. By the end of the week, I could paint both hands in five minutes flat, without a mess to clean up on my fingers.

And I’d also say that my nail art skills got a lot better too. Definitely not perfect, but certainly at least a 6.5/10 ;) I do think that if I put my mind to it and practiced each design tactic a few more times, I could be a pro in no time. But, given I DO have a day job (hi, Brit + Co), I’m thinking that it’s probably best to leave the advanced designs to the professionals, like Olive & June.

All in all, I got to extend my artistic skillset AND I became way more interested in nail art, in general, this week. I can’t wait to explore new patterns and designs in the future.

If you’re looking to up your own nail game, we’ve got some easy nail-art ideas here and even an online class here. Good luck!

Have you been following along with my #GiveItAWeek challenges? Share your feedback with me @brit!