It’s almost time for kids and teachers to go back to school (at least in NYC- I know some people are already back), so I wanted to do some fun nail art to celebrate mark the change of season. School supply shopping was always one of my favorite activities, and trying to convince my parents to get me the biggest box of crayons was high on the list. I’ll settle for mostly primary colors for this mani, though. 😉
First off, the color selection:

My mini rainbow, left to right: Sephora by OPI- What’s a Tire Jack?, Nicka K- NY139, Sephora Nail Lacquer 5 Day Shine- Banana split, Essie- Pretty Edgy, Formula X for Sephora- Omni, Formula X for Sephora- Haphazard.
I started off by painting each of my nails a different color. I went in backwards rainbow order. Don’t ask why- I think I had a sixth sense about something…
The toughest part about this mani was having to do the squiggly line detail. Trying to paint over black polish with a lighter color would be near impossible, and I hate having to clean nail polish off my nail art brushes. My approach was to take black acrylic paint and draw around the squiggle so that the original base color showed through.
Step 1- Use a striping brush to paint the outline of the area where the squiggle will appear.

Painting the outlines of the black section of the crayon wrapper will allow you to space your squiggles out more consistently in the next step.
For the next two steps, please refer to the photo below Step 3.
Step 2 (on green nail): Using a detail brush, paint in hills along one line. If you like more of a uniform look, put the highest peak of the hill in the center of your nail and then finish off the sides with an upward curve.
Step 3 (on yellow nail): repeat the process of painting hills along the other line to coincide with the opposing curve.
For an easier mani, you can simply topcoat the result and say that you painted the bottom half of the crayon, but I like to go the distance. 😉
In order to make the wrapper look different from the actual crayon, I used matte top coat over the bottom half of my nails.

Mattifying the squiggle section of the nail mimics the paper wrapper and gives the look more texture. I used a matte top coat from Sephora by OPI.
To draw the tip, I used a striping brush and black polish to first notch the beginning of the tapered section of the point.
From there I painted in an angled section with the striper so that the tip of the crayon would be tapered.
Add some topcoat to the top half of the nail, and you’re done! It’s a very cute look and makes people nostalgic for their youth. Now where did I put that coloring book? 😉
If you were wondering about that sixth sense that I mentioned before… It’s because the purple color ended up being a lot darker than I thought it would be, so the black detail did not show up very well at all. 😦 I’m glad I didn’t have to photograph my thumb to get a good picture! If you decide to recreate this, definitely choose lighter colors over darker ones.
Happy polishing!