Nail art supply post!

Okay, so I've been wanting for a while not to do a post on my nail supplies and my nail/hand care routine products and tools. I haven't gotten around to it yet. And then I was waiting for some stuff that I need for my cuticle oil to be complete before I do the care portion of it. And then I realized.. this is going to be one REALLY long post if I do all of it in one post anyways. So, I've decided I'd split it into two posts. One for nail art supplies, and another for nail/hand care. It might be a while before I get to the second, I'm working on getting ONE more thing for my cuticle oil thats absolutely needed. Maybe two. But it'll probably be a couple weeks until the second post is up. 

 Now, let's get into this.

Nail art brush set from Amazon. Pretty sure this was only about $3 or less for 15 brushes. It was a good starter set.

Other various brushes from Amazon, Hobby Lobby, etc.

Dotting tools from Amazon. These were also under $3

Just to show you all the different brushes that I actually have and can use. But now I'm going to show you close ups of the brushes that I use the most and what they are, what I use them for, etc. 

We're gonna start with the dotting tools. These are actually the items I use the most because I find them easier than using brushes. Either dotting tools, or toothpicks are used more than brushes. One is one that came with the 15 brush set, and the other colorful ones were in a set of 5 dotting tools. As you see, the set of five has one end that's all different sizes, and then the other end is about the same on all the dotters, so for the five piece set, you get about 6 different sized dotting tools. I'm not kidding when I say I use them for nearly everything else. I use then for dots, I use them for hearts, I use them for drawing pretty much anything. These get a lot of use from me and they've had no problems keeping up so I'd say they're pretty good quality for the price! 

 These brushes are probably the second most used that I have. I got the three dark hair ones from Amazon in a set for about $2 and they're really awesome brushes! The other was one I had around the house and decided to claim it for nail art once I started doing it so it was the very first brush I had to use, haha. The second from the right I use most, I use it for when I do characters, use it to get the shape of what I'm doing outlined and all of that, and to fill in larger shapes that need filling in. The one next to it to the left, I use that one for even larger spaces that need to be filled in when I don't reach for a dotting tool to do it first. The largest one all the way to the left I haven't used much yet as it's quite large, but if I ever need a larger brush for things, I'll probably grab it. These were an awesome deal! 

 These three are from the 15 brush set I got. They are all wide flat brushes, the one all the way to the right is angled as well and the only one I've actually used. These are awesome for doing one stroke nail art, which I haven't done a lot of, but one of these days I'm going to practice more and try more of it. It could be fun.

 These are some more of my most used brushes. The stripper brushes! All of these have been cut to be made thinner so that I could get smaller lines from them. But they all came in the 15 brush set as well. THe longest, thinnest one on the bottom is the one I use the most and it's AWESOME. It took me a lot of practice to get striping with a striper down, but now that I have, it's probably the easiest thing ever to do. Just play with your brushes and figure out what works best for you while doing your stripes!

 fan brushes! These came in the set too, and for the longest time I had no idea what I was suppose to do with these are what they were even suppose to be for. But now everyone does fan brush manis, and they look AWESOME and are a lot of fun and easy to do. So these have gotten a little more use. That can also be used to do gradients instead of make up sponges, just look up fan brush gradients on youtube, and you can find plenty of tutorials. Just to give you a couple ideas if you're stuck on what to do with these!

This one is kind of a MUST HAVE. It's just a foundation brush from ELF cosmetics that I got for $1 and I use it with acetone for cleaning up around the cuticles and fingers when the polish gets out of line because obviously we all make mistakes in applying our polish from time to time. This brush is kinda big and could be hard for some to use for this purpose, it took me a little practice with it to get it right. But if you'd like something smaller, a concealer or eyeliner brush would work as well. I'd suggest getting a few different options for this and figuring out what works best for you. 

 Toothpicks are a MUST have.I use them for SO MUCH. dottings, drawing, watermarbles, EVERYTHING. That cup is just a washed out pudding cup that I've been using for water marbling. That's a piece of make up sponge there by the toothpicks, make up sponges are another much have. You can get a pretty good size bag of them for cheap. I get mine at family dollar. And la colors polish remover pads! These are amazzzing, they smell SO GOOD. I literally open them all the time just to smell them. I mostly use them to clean my brushes though as I can just open the little tub up, wipe my brush, and close it back up. It takes a while before you have to throw out the pad on top and start using a new one too, so it's pretty awesome. They're good for removing polish too, but it's non-acetone and I prefer pure acetone for removing polish because it's quicker.

 This is the set I started with for my acrylic paints. It was a 16 color set for about $5 at walmart, apple barrel brand. They had neons, metallics, glitters, and the one I got, which was primary colors. It was good to start with and see if I liked using the paints for my nail art. The others in this picture are colors I've mixed myself.

 These are just empty paint containers from hobby lobby, they're awesome if you like using acrylic paints because you can mix up a color you like, keep it in the little tub, close it up, and save it for later if you have some left over. No wasted paint! Yayyy.I think these were about $2 but they also had larger single containers with i think 12 in a pack that were about $3. but these are perfect for what I use them for. They were in two long strips of 8 tubs, but I cut them in half for easier storage so I have 4 shorter strips with 4 tubs.

 This, I haven't used at all yet. Last time I was at my cousins, she gave me a ton of glitter and some salon express stamping plates because she had no use for them and she knew I liked nails and thought I could use them. I could use them, I just haven't found anything to do with them yet.

 Acrylic paints! I looove using this stuff. While you can do all the same designs with nail polish, Acrylic paints are MUCH easier to work with, don't dry as quickly on the brush, things like that, and it's so much cheaper than nail polish.

Annd the last thing is, something to put drops of polish/paint onto while you dot, mix, etc. I know a lot of people just use a piece of paper, some use tin foil, or a lot of other things. You can buy little plastic palettes at craft stores, usually where you find the paint, that are meant for mixing paint and stuff like that. I just use this old blank cd. It's one I had actually used to try to burn something onto it, and it failed so then the disc was no good.. So I put it to use! You can tell I use it a lot and probably need to clean it off, I just haven't. But no big deal anyways! 

And that's that! I hope you all enjoyed reading through my ramble-y post about my nail art tools, and maybe got ideas for things you need/should use more and stuff like that as well!