Many of you have asked me which pen I use for my gel pen designs, I use this one, and here's a picture of the nib if you would like to try find a similar one:

To start of with, paint your nails your chosen colour (or colours if you're indecisive like me). The colours I used for this were:

Essie - Bikini So Teeny

OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape

Barry M - Strawberry

Barry M - Turquoise 

Rimmel - Lemon Drop

Next, draw teardrop shapes using the gel pen on all of your nails, spacing them out as best you can (I probably could have done with spacing them out a bit better!)

Once that's done, outline the tear drops with a lacey pattern. Remember not to push down too hard, just lightly 'brush' the pen over the nail and try to avoid splodging it. 

Then, draw mini tear drops inside the bigger ones

You can leave it like that if you want, but I like to add dots inside the tear drops and also in any available gaps. 

Once that is dry, try to wait as long as possible, add a top coat to seal in your design (otherwise it will wash off!), I used Seche Vite, and you're done!

I hope you like this design, it's definitely one you can try if you're starting off with nail art, I know it may look complicated but I promise it isnt, and it's something that you dont need fancy tools for, and a pen isn't as hard as a brush to control.

I've decided to enter this tutorial into Money Supermarket's 'Money Smart Nail Art' competition, because it seems to fit quite well into the theme of using 'household items'. 

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Alice