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.