Simple Flower Nails

These are really simple flower nails. I made this design to camouflage shorter nails. The vertical line of flowers makes them seem taller. I kept the flowers small to make the pink nail seem bigger in comparison.  A bold color like this pink really shows off the shape of the nail, where a white tip or solid light color doesn’t emphasize the end of the nail.

1.  I started off with a normal base coat of clear nail polish.
2. Second, I did two coats of a bright pink polish, making sure to coat the free edges so I don’t miss any length. This will also prevent chips that would take away from the bold shape of these nails.
3. The next step requires a dotting tool, a metal sphere attached to a handle for easy use. They come in lots of sizes, and for this I used a small sized dot. When you dip the dotting tool into polish or acrylic paint, it picks up a perfect circle of color. If you push the tool farther in, it will pick up more, and be able to transfer a bigger dot. If you barely touch the tool to the surface, it will transfer a small dot. The same is true when you touch the tool to your nail. The closer you get to the nail, the more color will be transferred. After practice, you can get very uniform dots. I made flowers out of five dots, with one dot in the middle. Alternating between white and black petals let me stack the flowers right on top of each while keeping them clearly separate.  
4. I finished with two coats of topcoat for extra protection and shine. 

Blue Nails with Silver Banner

These blue nails with their silver banner were very rich and fancy. The deep blue reminds me of dark velvet and the swirls and flowers remind me of royalty. It may not be visible in the picture, but the silver swipes are filled with black swirls, and paralleled by small black dots. At the end of each line of dots there is a white dotted flower with a black center.

I started with a clear base coat to protect my natural nails.

Next I painted two coats of deep blue nail polish.

Once that was dry I applied silver nail polish in a swipe across the middle of the nail. I needed a second coat of silver to cover up the strong blue color.

I then switched over to acrylic paints and small paint brushes to do the black details.

It was important to me to thin out my black paint with water so I could get the thinnest, most precise lines possible. I tried to keep the swirls consistent sizes so it would look like old fancy fabric. After trying a few methods, I found the best way to paint a spiral was to branch off from the edge to begin, and then start again at an inner layer of the spiral. Otherwise I would get spirals that were more oval than round. Again, it was critical to thin down the paint enough to have strong defined spirals.

The flowers were also made with acrylic paint. A dotting tool is a small metal sphere attached to a handle similar to a brush handle. The sphere picks up paint in a perfect little dot so it can be transferred to the nail. I made five white dots and then one black dot in the center. 

Teal French Manicure

These nails are a unique French Manicure with teal waves. My natural nails were too long for a normal and balanced French manicure, so I added a teal swirl portion and put the design at an angle (just because).

1. I started with a base coat to protect my natural nails from staining.
2. Next I used a transparent pink that just barely shows on top of my nail bed. This gives my nail bed a healthy pink color without making them look artificial.
3. I made the white scallops with the normal brush of white nail polish. After that was dry I copied the curves with a smaller teal wave.
4. The swirls are painted with black acrylic paint that I watered down so I could get thinner, more precise lines. I followed the border of the white and teal to define the colors, and added swirls as interesting decoration. The dots on the outer end of the white “French” manicure do the same by breaking up the border between the white and natural color. 

These nails were a fun way for me to keep my natural nails long and still have a half painted style. A normal french manicure would have left an awkwardly large white tip. I like the unusual splash of teal color, and vague resemblance to ocean waves. 

Palm Tree Nails

Here’s another set of summery nails. This design features reaching palm trees over a calm summer background. I like gradients for summer designs, and they’re a great way to put a little more effort into nails, and get a lot back in reward.

I was inspired by this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpbP5uawf9E&feature=player_embedded

1.  I applied a normal base coat to protect my natural nails from staining. 
2. When the base coat dried, I applied one coat of white polish. This doesn't have to cover evenly because it will be covered up in the next step.
3. Start the gradient at the free edge of the nail with a light blue nail polish. Cut up a kitchen sponge or use a makeup sponge to dab color onto the surface of your nail. Blend the colors up through green into orange.
4. Next I used a small paint brush and brown acrylic paint to create the two curved trunks of the palm trees on each nail. I made sure that their bases were slightly wider than the tops. The palm leaves were a darker green paint than the background polish, and branched off in a stereotypical palm tree pattern from the trunks. 

These nails look like they’re filled with lazy palm trees stretching out in the breeze. The background colors could easily be switched out with sunset colors such as pink and orange. Or they could be switched out for bright blue and yellow for a daytime scene. 

Monarch Butterfly Nails

Sorry for the bad picture quality

These nails are meant to give the illusion of fluttering butterfly wings. I saw some pink and blue butterfly nail designs on YouTube, so I decided to try my own in the realistic orange colors. These nails really ended up looking like wings and the combination of bold colors made these nails stand out.

1. I applied a base coat as always, to protect my natural nails from staining.
2. I painted the base half of my nail in light yellow and the other half in orange. I used a cut up kitchen sponge to blot and blend the two colors together seamlessly, bringing the orange up past the middle line. 
3. Then I used a very small paintbrush to apply black acrylic paint to the curve of the base of my nails. I added more curved black lines to imitate the lines on a butterfly’s wings. The black base connects the lines and acts as the dark edge of the wings.
4. I used a small dotting tool to apply the dots of white paint. This step really makes the design look realistic and bright.  I made sure to position the dots in a swipe up the side of the nail to imitate the curved shape of butterfly wings.  

The long length of my nails helped allow me to get a good shape for butterfly wings. If they had been shorter they would have looked more square and reach out less like a butterfly. All ten nails together looked like a swarm of little monarch butterflies. 

Bali Mango Nails

I was inspired to paint this nail art design by my favorite lotion. Bath and Body Work's Bali Mango smells like, wait for it... mangoes, and is my exact idea of what a carefree summer smells like. These flowers are a little abstract and only painted in a black outline. I chose to make a gradient of color over the whole nail so the design would be colorful even from far away.

1. Normal base coat and one coat of white polish. I find white nail polished hard to deal with, but even though it wasn't perfect I knew i was going to cover it up in the next step. 
2. To get ready to make a gradient, I taped the sides of my nails with scotch tape. This way I could work quickly enough to mix the nail polishes, and not worry about being too messy.
3. Using a kitchen sponge cut up into cubes, I dabbed patches of pink nail polish around the base of my nail. The gradient effect is created by using a small amount of two neighboring colors on their borders and blending them together until it looks like a smooth transition.
4. I painted large flowers with a just black outline and added some dots for decoration.  
5. Two coats of top coat to protect the acrylic paints and give a lively shine. 

The over sized flowers and bright colors of this design really remind me of summertime fruity smells. The gradient took extra time, but it was worth the effort to have soft, seamless transitions.

Windmill Nails

Here are some springtime nails painted with windmills over a backdrop of flowers. They are inspired by a Robin Moses nail art design of a clouded blue sky with orange flowers. I have similar flowers and added some windmills (obviously). I think the windmills bring these nails from a generic springtime scene to more of a fairy tale or dreamlike scene.

1. Base coat and pearly blue solid background.
2. Everything else was done with acrylic paints. First I diluted white paint with lots of water and painted very rough watery clouds. I went back over them in different sections to build up random portions to give the clouds more dimension. 
3. I painted the grass from the end of my nail up towards the middle in flicking strokes. I partially overlapped dark blades with lighter green to give the look of a real meadow of grass and steams. 
4. Next I painted the flowers. The darkest orange gave an outline to the petals and a base for the lighter colors. I used progressively lighter shades of orange towards the centers, and finished them off with dots of bright yellow in the centers. The flowers on the ring fingers were much smaller to leave room for the windmills and show a more realistic scale.
5. I made a rough shape of a tower in brown and expanded the sides until I was happy with it. The roof is a darker brown and the sails are much lighter and have a black outline to define their iconic shape. I added windows and doors to make the windmill more realistic and recognizable.
6. Clear top coat of nail polish to protect the acrylic paints. 

One thing I disliked about this design was that they didn’t have a big appeal from far away. There is so much “going on” that they look like a blur. I like how they were clearly a scene or a painting from up close, but my favorite nail art designs look great from any distance.