Egyptian Hieroglyphics!

This weekend I couldn't decide what I wanted to put on my nails. I wanted to do another black and gold look after seeing this amazing mani from Paulina's Passions. I asked my fiance and he came up with a great idea!- Egyptian themed nails. I decided to go with some Hieroglyphs. 

I first painted my nails with China Glaze Passion from the Romantique collection, and added a coat of Seche Vite and waited for it to dry before applying striping tape horizontally across my nails. I then put 2 coats of OPI Black Onyx over the top and removed the striping tape to reveal the gold below. 

It looked quite nice just like this so I took a picture :) I wish I reversed the polish bottles- you cant see where my nails end and the OPI black onyx bottle begins!

Next I used a short striping brush to paint the hieroglyphs in China Glaze Passion. Originally I was going to have it actually mean something, but I soon realized that there was a limited number of characters that I would be able to recreate in the small space between the gold stripes. So it's probably complete jibberish! 

 

The left hand nails were ok, but I had a lot of trouble painting the right hand nails with my non dominant hand. They are a little clunkier, but I think I nailed the bird on the ring finger! (below)

  

 I did a closeup of this thumb because I was proud of the little Egyptian person. I think he looks like he is doing some sort of kung fu though. 

 

And that's it! It was pretty fun painting these, but took forever! When I finished I literally looked up from my hands and exclaimed "oh my gosh! It's night time".

Here's the hieroglyphs I used for inspiration :) I have actually seen this in real life at the Louvre! 

reference: http://ritournelleblog.com/2010/12/23/ancient-egyptian-treasures-at-the-louvre/

Someone asked about what brushes I used for this mani, so I figured it would be easiest to take a picture (below).  I mostly used the shorter brush, but used the longer one for a few things that had to be extra fine (as you can see it's thinner, but as its long, it's harder to control). These are just the cheapo 'striping brushes' from ebay that are available from many sellers. They do alright, but as you can see the bristles are a bit fanned, and the paint on the handle isn't acetone resistant. I've actually ordered some new La Corneille brushes on recommendation from Lindsay from WondrouslyPolished.com - so I'll write a little review when they arrive and I have tried them out!

Thanks for visiting my blog <3