Manicures are my one luxury I allow myself. I do them once every three weeks, just me, alone at the nail place. I turn my phone off. Relaxation is the name of the game. It’s a pleasure letting my favorite nail technician do his magic, as I enjoy the hour alone time. Each time I go, I pick a different color, because it’s important to  #expressyourself, right? HOWEVER, the moment I walk through the door back at my home, the inevitable happens. Little Miss, asks me, WITHIN SECONDS of seeing my nails, the question that tortures me: can we do my nails Mommy?

Painters Paint Markers from Elmers

When she turned 5, her birthday gift was a manicure. They painted her nails, as well as little designs on them. It was a whole thing. Personally, those nail art pens are too expensive, so Mommy normally doesn’t do many DIY projects like this at home. Also, I 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. You can use paint meant for crafts on NAILS? Say what now?

Walmart run for paint

Since I’m fairly new to using craft paint for manicures, I didn’t know where to buy such things. Good thing I’m a fan of Walmart. It’s the first place I looked. Elmers has Paint Markers available at my local Walmart. Whilst online, I learned Painters Paint Markers come in different 5-pack options, as well as individual ones. PERFECT.

The 5-packs only come in medium point, so I figured those would work for coloring in. Fine points are great for drawing on her nails. The different options for the 5-pack, in terms of color:

• Bright
• Craft
• Neon
• Pearlescent
• Calligraphy

My goal, because this was nail type stuff, was to buy Pearlescent. If it wasn’t available, the back-up color pack: Neon. On Walmart.com, it showed open stock Painters Paint Markers in:

• Black
• White
• Blue
• Red
• Orange
• Yellow
• Brown
• Green
• Pink
• Violet
• Turquoise
• Spa Blue
• Navy Blue
• Hunter Green
• Neon Pink
• Lime Green
• Gold Metallic
• Silver Metallic

For our nail art purposes, the black, fine point and perhaps one other fine point color, made sense.

Improvising at Walmart

The plan went WONKY when we shopping at Walmart. Pearlescent wasn’t there. It’s a  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.

We found the fine points (sold as “open stock”).  Single Painters Paint Markers were front and center on the shelf! Thankfully, the fine points sold for $1.97 each. Totally worth it. We got a black, and for an extra good time, we also got Silver Metallic.

After finding the Painters Paint Markers, it was off to purchase bottle of nail polish. The Pinterest tutorial recommended a coat of polish on nails so the paint wouldn’t stain the nails. Got the polish, paid, and headed home for some nail painting with my Little Miss.

The most important part of the process: polishing the nails prior to doing any Elmer’s Painters Paint Markers fun.

Dry nails, here comes the design work

As we waited for them to dry, I opened the Painters Paint Markers. The Boy helped “shake” them to get them mixed, then I had to “start” each one. Staring them means pressing the white tip 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). My mother drew a little heart on his pointer finger with the lack fine point (which really isn’t all that “fine”). She then colored it pink (his request) with the Neon Pink medium point Elmer’s marker.

The Boy’s Black Heart.

The Boy chose PINK to color his heart in.

My daughter? Well, we got busy doing:

• a NEON ORANGE french tip
• rainbow thumb
• a flower
• big silver swoosh

The Final Product

Closer view of the Left Hand.

Up close with the Right Hand.

I then allowed her to tackle a couple of my nails. 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.

Overall experience

The paint dried with a matte finish. If I felt ambitious, I would have put a clear top coat on to make them sparkle and not come off. However, I didn’t, and the crazy colors and stuff started to come off faster. It worked well for ME. Little Miss was happy I put a clear coat on top of hers, to preserve them.

However, it means I also 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 for Little Miss.

All-in-all, it was a great rainy day project. Both kids loved it. Even my mother had fun helping. Plus, we have some great looking nails for a few days!

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