** This post was written by Fiona. She no longer blogs for Swatch And Learn. However, Mary still continues to blog and will be happy to reply to your comment. **

I was just thinking how far I’ve come since Swatch And Learn was first launched. I’ve tried more things, toed my comfort-zone line… and bought a hella lot of makeup products that I’ve justified by saying, “It’s for the blog.” While Swatch And Learn has taken part in the death of my wallet and sometimes caused me to stay up late to finish a post, I am glad to be a part of it. And I’m really grateful for all the support everyone has shown. We hosted a 1-year blog anniversary giveaway to show our appreciation, but I really want to say: Thanks! Thanks for your support – through comments (which we love to read and answer) and through returning to read our praises/rants of products. 🙂

I’m no expert or guru by any means. I just love playing with colors, something I think we all gather because of. That’s why I’m not embarrassed to show my Blue & Gold Crooked Diamond Nails to you. Well, OK. I’m a little embarrassed. I didn’t actually intend for them to be crooked. Sad face. It’s a good thing I wasn’t aiming for hearts, or they’d be crooked hearts! *awkward laugh*

Anyway, this is a fairly easy design to do in terms of technicality. If you have more patience than I do to place the tape at the right angles on the nails, yours will definitely turn out better (i.e. straight)!

<End sappy moment>

Blue & Gold Diamond Nail Art Swatches & Pictures

How to Create Blue & Gold Diamond Nail Art Tutorial

Step 1: Get your supplies ready!

Here’s what I used/you need:

• Blue: LA Girl Punk
• Gold: CoverGirl Bronze Beauty
• Base & top coats of your choice
• Tape & scissors

Step 2: Paint your nails with the base coat, then your blue.

I was already wearing LA Girl Punk from a previous manicure. But if you’re doing it from scratch, make sure you let it dry before moving onto the next step.

Step 3: Tape the corners.

The best part about this nail art is that there’s no need to shape or size your tape. You just need a straight edge. I cut the tape in halves for two corners to save resources. Positioning the tape is the hardest part since you have to find the center points on every edge of your nail to tape the line.

Step 4: Apply the gold.

CoverGirl Bronze Beauty is usually a 2 to 3 coater for me, but I went with a thick coat, so 1 application sufficed.

Step 5: Apply a top coat to add shine & protection.

Tips on Creating Blue & Gold Diamond Nail Art

• Eyeball the center point of the edges of your nails. If you really want it to be perfect, you could dot the skin on the edges.
• Make sure the tape is completely down.

This is a simple design… that I somehow managed to fudge! The good news is that I’m getting better with my edges – there’s less color bleeding! So happy. 😀

Have you tried tape manis? Would you rather just Konad stamp on a design on your nails instead?