Cinco De Mayo Nails

I was thinking about nail looks, and since it's Golden Week here I was thinking about Children's Day (a Japanese holiday) nails. But since I already did that before I thought I'd give another holiday a try: Cinco de Mayo! 

So first, I thought I'd use colors from the Mexican flag - green, white, and red. I was initially going to blend them together (gradation) but... I didn't lol.

So I'm using gel instead of polish today, so I used a couple of brushes. You can use one or two (one for light gel colors and one for darker ones) but since I was going back and forth with the colors I just decided to use one brush per color except for the gold and yellow.

So this week I am resting my nails, so I am using fake nails. Unfortunately, I wasn't very careful and so I got some of the gel on the tape under the nails which stayed on the sides of the nails after I peeled the nails off...

So I started with one coat of the green on the left...

followed by the red on the right...

then the white in the middle to help straighten the lines too. You can cure the gel after each color to help the colors not blend in together, but that might take a while. 

After paining all three colors, I cured it for 30 seconds then put on one more coat.

 

Next, taking a super thin brush, I used black to make these prints and then cured it for 30 seconds once more. All nails except for the thumb and ring finger's ended there.

Both the sombrero and the maracas had this metallic gold color.

So I started by making a somewhat triangular shape, then something like a sideways 8 or infinity sign underneath and color it in. Then I cured it for 30 seconds.

Lastly, I outlined the hat with black, shaded it a bit and added a line of yellow on the bottom on the triangular shape we first drew. Cure.

Same with the maracas on the ring finger's nail. I started with two round balls and draw a line with a smaller ball at the bottom. 

Again, I outlined it and used yellow for some details on the maracas and cured the nails. 

After adding on the top coat I cured them, this time for 2 minutes.

And finito! That's it! It took a bit of time with the black, but I like it =) I wish I didn't have to wait to do my own personal nails... Happy-soon-to-be-Cinco-de-Mayo!!!!