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.