The “Something New” theme gave us all the opportunity to explore a new technique or try out a colour or polish that we wouldn’t normally wear which I think is a fabulous opportunity to for kicking off the new year.  As I’m trying to work on my freehand skills, I went for a freehand leopard print manicure.  I already love wearing leopard print manicures however I don’t have a stamping plate image that I 100% love, so trying out a freehand pattern instead had been on my to do list for a long time.

As it was my first time (and I was going to be wearing it to work), I ended up doing two accent nails (ring and thumb) on each hand and I’m super happy with how it came out:

I used a base of China Glaze Papaya Punch and then freehanded the leopard print using two sizes of dotting tools, using China Glaze Wicked Style and Wet N Wild Black Creme.  The other nails are also China Glaze Wicked Style.  I ended up wearing this manicure for nearly a full week with hardly any wear which I was thrilled with as I was totally in love with it.  I couldn’t stop staring at my nails.  I even did my toes to match (which drew a lot of comments too as I NEVER have matching fingers and toes, even co-ordinating colours is a minor miracle for me.)

I literally did this manicure one spot at a time so I wouldn’t end up crowding my spots in too much and I used the two smallest dotting tools I have so I could get a really small spot size but this can easily be replicated at a larger size if you don’t have the patience to go this small.  I think it took me about half an hour to do four nails, mainly because my black polish was really thick and sticky so it was proving troublesome for dotting.  Next time I would probably lay down my middle colours on all nails first, then go back and add the edging to them all afterwards.

Check out what everyone else has done for their “Something New”, I love seeing everyone challenge themselves!