simple nail art

Simple Nail Art

Nail art can sometimes seem complicated when you just see the finished manicure, but once you read through these step by step nail art tutorials you will realize just how easy it is to do it yourself. I've included tutorials for all skill levels and organized them as beginner, intermediate and advanced but don't let that scare you away! Try out some the advanced tutorials...you might just surprise yourself.

Nail art is a fun, simple way to be creative and dangerously addictive!  So what are you waiting for? Get painting!

alf moon nails tutorial

Half moon nails are a vintage, retro look that's so easy to do!Your fun fact of the day? Women started doing half moon manicures because it was considered indecent the have the entire nail painted. Regardless, thanks to celebrities like Dita Von Teese and designers like Ruffian, half moons are very much back in style.

tips & tricks

• I used some french manicure guide sticker binder reinforces (aka hole punch enforcers). You might remember those from your school days. They're easy to find and cheap! If you're using those, just cut them in half and stick them on!
• Some other tutorials I've seen online say to wait until your polish is completely dry before removing the stickers, but I've always had good results with removing while wet.
• The "original" vintage look is with your natural half moon of your nail on the bottom, it's beautiful.
• Always make sure your polish is completely dry before pressing on the stickers or you'll smudge your base color.
• Try to choose a polish that will go on opaque in one coat, because you can only really do one so the polish is still wet when you peel the sticker off.

The finished product.

Nail art foil tutorial

EVERYONE LOVE COLORS And for that I loved the idea of transfer foils, but trying to cover the nail entirely with foil is really difficult. It's near impossible to get it perfectly smooth, and top coat creates wrinkles. So instead of trying to make one color work...we use all the foils!

In this tutorial I used Essie in No Place Like Chrome, nail art foils in Purple, Gold, Caribbean Tides and Silver Spectrum. For top coat, try to avoid a fast dry (such as Seche Vite) as it can cause wrinkles and shrinkage in the foil.

                        tips & tricks

Let the adhesive dry for at least 15 seconds before you press on the foil. If you rush it the foil won't transfer and the adhesive can smudge your nails.

Don't use a quick dry top coat, it will cause shrinkage in the foil.

You can press the foil down with your finger, or smooth it across the nail with a Q-tip.

Make sure you apply the foil with the colored side facing up!

If your foil doesn't transfer completely and you've got some cracks or empty areas, just apply more adhesive, wait and put more foil on.

Don't skip the metallic base coat. It helps "fill in the blanks" of any places you haven't applied foil.

Glitter nail Art

This glitter gradient tutorial is not very subtle or understated in the least!. It's pretty much sparkles, then more sparkles topped off with a load of rhinestones! This is a perfect idea for New Years Eve nails or a special event where you want to sparkle...literally. The rhinestones used in this tutorial are from a bunch of different places (my collection is out of control!) but you can find most on ebay, born pretty store or, as always, on the right side bar of the tutorial.

Tips & tricks

• If you hate taking off glitter sandwich polish, here's a how to from the glitter queen herself: Deborah Lippman. Soak a cotton ball in remover/acetone, put it around your nail and wrap your finger in tin foil. Wait 15 minutes, and slide the whole thing off. It's amazing how well it works.
• Try different types of glitter in the layers for more depth.
• I find the larger the glitter chunks, the more effective it is for this look.
• This is a really good way to sort of "franken" glitter polishes that are really expensive. I'm looking at you, Deborah Lippman.
• Flakies look awesome in "sandwiches" as well. Nubar 2010 is so gorgeous with pretty much any polish.
• Some sheer polishes are also called "Jelly" polishes, that might help your googling!

Remove glitter polish without losing your mind and wasting a million cotton pads. Bonus points that it sort of makes you feel like a robot!