Disney Queen of Hearts French Manicure

Hi everyone! I have some more nail art today, and it’s back to Disney nails for me! My latest manicure is this cute French manicure inspired by the temperamental Queen of Hearts from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. This design was prompted by yesterday’s celebration of my friend Kimi’s birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIMI!!! <3), at which my friends and I dressed up in “Disney chic” villains attire! Dressing in “Disney chic” (or anything “chic”, really) means that you assemble a bunch of normal, non-costume clothes in a way that emulates the way a particular Disney character looks or dresses. Over a month ago, my friends and I found this awesome compilation of Disney chic outfits based off of Disney villains, and we were pretty wowed. Dressing in Disney chic ended up being a part of Kimi’s birthday party, so Disney chic dress up finally happened! I swear I’m an adult, haha 😉

Out of the ten villain outfits they had on the website, I chose the one for the Queen of Hearts. This was partly because hers was one of my favorite outfits in the compilation, and partly because I happened to already have clothing that would work for the look. Of course, I had to think of a nail design to go with my outfit! I decided that this was one of the few occasions in my life when I would like my outfit do the talking rather than my nails, so I wanted something that wasn’t too garish. Quite a change of pace for me! After thinking about it, I decided to do a simple, clean French manicure with subtle hints at the Queen of Hearts. My final design consists of colorful double French tips on all nails, plus little card suit accents and a little golden crown on my thumb. It’s so adorable! This made me super excited to do the full dress up once I got my nails done 🙂

See the crown?

Given that my nails weren’t the main focus of my Queen of Hearts outfit, I wanted something toned-down and not extravagant. I tried looking online for Queen of Hearts nail art ideas, but the ones I found were too overpowering for the occasion. Eventually, it occurred to me to do a French manicure with little symbols as accents – an idea which I first executed a long time ago before the blog started. The original French tips + symbols manicure was for Valentine’s Day and thus had little hearts (you can see it in the gallery); because I used hearts in the manicure, I was reminded of it while brainstorming and decided to reuse the idea. I did make a few changes, though. Obviously, each symbol is different because there are four card suits. Plus I added the crown on my thumb to make it look more like the Queen of Hearts specifically, rather than just playing cards or casinos/gambling. And I chose to add the red and black lines above the French tip (double French tip!) make the design more interesting.

Clip art from http://www.disneyclips.com/

The polishes I used were:

• L’Oreal Wishful Pinking (sheer French manicure pink) – base polish
• Covergirl Snow Storm (opaque white creme) – French tips
• Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Red Eye (blue-toned bright red creme) – hearts, diamonds, and double French tips
• American Apparel Hassid (opaque black creme) – spades, clubs, and double French tips
• Julep Mahima (gold chrome) – crowns and double French tips

I began by painting my nails with three coats of L’Oreal Wishful Pinking, which is the best sheer French manicure pink EVER!!! Seriously, I’ve used this polish so much that only 20% of it is left. I then freehanded the French tips in Covergirl Snow Storm. I had to go over them twice to get the coverage I wanted. Here’s what my nails looked like with a French manicure:

Once the French manicure was complete, I added on the extra lines right above the tips using a thin striper brush and the red, black, and gold polishes. I wanted my four main fingers to have the card suits so that they could be grouped together, leaving my thumb with the crown. I decided that my index and ring fingers would get the red lines, and my middle and pinky fingers would get the black lines. My thumb got a gold line because the crown has to be shiny and gold!

Finally I used small brushes to make the accent symbols on each nail. I added topcoat to finish everything off, and I was done! Unfortunately, I did get some smudging of the red and black polishes for some reason. Smudging always makes me really neurotic and upset. Oh well – it’s not that bad, I suppose. Overall, it’s quite adorable, and definitely subtle. But, despite being subtle, it looks like the Queen of Hearts! French manicures are definitely a change of pace for me. Usually, I’m not fond of the normal kind of French manicures with the white tips, but this funkier twist definitely sold me on doing one for myself.

You can see the crown in this picture!

Yay more Disney nails!

I hope you’ve liked my post! Thanks for reading 🙂

– Emi