The Question that tortures me: Can we do my nails Mommy? You #ExpressYourself, I Want to!

Manicures are my one luxury I allow myself. I do them once every three weeks, just me, alone at the nail place. No kids. No husband. Phone’s turned off. I just relax, let my favorite nail technician do his magic, and enjoy the hour of time for me. I’m always on the go, with the kids, with my businesses. I like the time for myself. I pick a different color every time, because you have to #expressyourself, right? HOWEVER, the moment I walk through the door back at my home, the inevitable happens. My daughter, Little Miss, asks me, WITHIN SECONDS of seeing my nails done, the question that tortures me: Can we do my nails Mommy?

Let me say, I took her for her 5th birthday. They painted her nails, did little designs on them…it was a whole thing. Personally, those nail art pens are too expensive, so Mommy wasn’t doing any DIY projects like this at home. And, I just can’t see bringing her to the nail place as a regular thing. I was on one of my favorite sites, Pinterest. Have you heard of it? LOL. Of course you have! It’s the newest craze around the internet. Well, while I was on there, I saw a tutorial on how to use acrylic paint markers to do nails. The same paint that is used for a craft project, you can use on nails. WHO KNEW? Well, someone did, because she did a whole thing on it over at her blog, which I read, thanks to finding it on Pinterest. Lovely how that works, right?

So, I PINNED it, and went on the hunt for a good way to accomplish this nail design project. Well, low and behold, Elmers has Paint Markers. Amazingly enough, they were available at my local Walmart. I saw online that there were different 5-pack options, plus I could purchase individual ones, too. PERFECT. The packs only come in medium point, so I figured I’d get those for doing coloring in and then I’d get a fine point one for drawing. What I realized, well after the fact, is that my child has small hands, with small fingers…..do you see where I’m going with this? You got it, small finger nails. But hey, go with me on this. Make me happy!

The different options for the 5-pack, in terms of color, are Bright, Craft, Neon, Pearlescent, and Calligraphy. My goal, because this was nail type stuff, was Pearlescent. The back-up color pack was Neon. Then it showed on the website how they have open stock Painters Markers in colors like Black, White, Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Brown, Green, Pink, Violet, Turquoise, Spa Blue, Navy Blue, Hunter Green, Neon Pink, Lime Green, Gold Metallic, and Silver Metallic. For me, I figured we’d get black, fine point and perhaps one other fine point color, just to see the different points.

I visited the Elmer’s Facebook page, to see if others had tried this with their nails. No one had…..but I think they might, now that I brought it up! I may have to share our results over at Twitter, too! I bet there’s a lot of people who’d love this project to do on a rainy day, like we had here on Long Island!

Ready to take on Walmart!

The plan went WONKY when we got to Walmart. No Pearlescent….good thing I didn’t tell Little Miss what the options were online! My back up didn’t appear to be there, until I stepped closer to the shelves and peered behind some wooden letters….there they were, hiding.

Then we found the fine points, which were sold as “open stock.  These are fairly new at Walmart. They just started selling the single Painters Paint Markers, so they were front and center on the shelf! Always helpful when shopping with kids, to have what you’re looking for RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! I had checked on the Elmer’s website, and I knew the singles were available. We were totally interested in them. We needed fine point in black. You can’t get Fine Tips in the packs, so it was fantastic to find the fine points for $1.97 each. Totally worth it. We got a black, and for an extra good time, we also got Silver Metallic. I allowed Little Miss to do it!

We were in business. Headed to the make up area to get a bottle of nail polish, since the tutorial on Pinterest said to put a coat of polish on the nails so the paint wouldn’t stain the nails. Got the polish, paid, and headed home for some nail painting with my Little Miss. Or so I thought…….

The most important part of the process, is to polish the nails prior to doing any Elmer’s Painters Paint Markers fun. Remember, you don’t want to stain the nails. This helps make sure no staining happens! So, the nails were polished.

As we waited for them to dry, I opened the Painters Paint Markers, after shaking them with my son’s help. Each pen has to be “started.” Which means, you start with a white tip, and you have to press it down, until the paint starts to come down and saturate the point of the Painters Paint Marker.

By the time each of those was done, we were able to start up the nail designing party! What we weren’t counting on? The Boy’s desire to join in on the fun of it all. That’s right my friends, The Boy had TWO of his nails painted with polish (don’t judge me), and then my mother drew a little heart on his pointer finger with the lack fine point (which really isn’t all that “fine”), then colored it pink (his request) with the Neon Pink medium point Elmer’s marker.

The Boy chose PINK to color his heart in.

My daughter? Well, we got busy doing a NEON ORANGE french tip, along with a rainbow thumb, a flower, and a big silver swoosh……and she loved every darn thing I did!

The Final Product

Closer view of the Left Hand.

Up close with the Right Hand.

I then allowed her to tackle a couple of nails of mine. I have to go for my manicure soon, so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad having crazy stuff on my nails for a few days. I’ll just tell my clients why I look like I look, they’ll love it. Most of them are moms, too!

Little Miss painted with the Fine Point Silver marker.

The paint dried with a matte finish, and if I felt ambitious, I would have put a clear top coat on them, to make them sparkle and not come off. However, I didn’t, and the crazy colors and stuff will start to come off faster, so that’s good. I won’t have to do any soaking in nail polish remover to get that stuff off. YUCK. Thankfully we have non-chemical/organic nail polish remover. But still, getting her to soak it off….please.

All-in-all, it was a great rainy day project. Both kids loved it, my mother had fun helping, and we have some great looking nails for a few days! At least until she goes to school and shows them off to her Kindergarten class.

Elmer’s Painters Paint Markers = GOOD TIME NAIL PAINTING FUN!

I am a member of Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™. All opinions are my own, and that of my daughter, and in this case, my son, too!

November Sunflower

Staci found herself living on Long Island, with two kids, a husband, a dog, and only one income soon after the birth of her son. She soon started to learn how to find the best deals shopping online, and then discovered the world of earning free gift cards! She shares her passion, and expertise, for strategic shopping every day on November Sunflower.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: