Stained Glass Nails Tutorial

Hello everyone! Today I've got a pretty funky tutorial for you guys. I've seen this mosaic/stained glass window look all over Instagram so I thought I'd try it out for myself. It also qualifies as a negative space mani, as my bare nail is quite sluttily exposed (yes that's a word). I used sheer polishes for this design to get an authentic glass look, but if you don't own them then any brightly coloured polish would also look great.
What I Used:

- OPI Lay Down That Base
- OPI Black Onyx
- OPI Sheer Tints Don't Violet Me Down
- OPI Sheer Tints I Can Teal You Like Me
- Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
- Nail Art Brush #00 from Winstonia
- Striping Brush #2 from bornprettystore
- Acetone and clean-up brush

1. Apply a clear base coat to protect your nails and provide a smooth base for your polish and allow to dry

2. Using a thin striping brush dipped black polish, carefully outline your nails with a thin border of black. Try to slowly move your finger while keeping the brush steady, rather than the other way around, as this will give you better control and a smoother line

3. Once you've outlined your nails, draw a number of intersecting diagonal lines over your nail to create different sized triangles. Do a different pattern on each nail to keep it interesting

4. Using a small nail art brush, colour in three or four of these triangles with two different coloured polishes. The benefit of using sheer polishes is that it doesn't matter if you accidentally paint on the black lines because it won't show up. If you do this with regular polish, you might have to go over the black lines a second time to tidy up

5. Once dry, clean around your nails with a Q-Tip or brush dipped in polish remover/acetone and finish with a fast drying top coat to seal in your design. To avoid smudging your lines, wait at least ten minutes before applying your top coat, and apply a decent amount of it so it glides over the polish rather than pulling on it

And there you have it! This design didn't photograph too well, it's much more glossy in person, but I'm considering adding a matte top coat to see how that looks. Try it yourself and let me know how it goes!

Lisa xx