Easy Dotted Daisy Nail Art

This is a really simple way to create daisies with a dotting tool.

Step 1

Paint a base colour on top of your base coat. I went for a sky blue, but any light pastel green, blue or lilac would look great. 

Step 2

Dot on the yellow centres of the daisies. I used a fairly large sized dotting tool for this. I went for 2-3 daisies on each nail, but you could use a smaller centre dot and add more daisies onto one nail. 

Step 3

Use a smaller dotting tool and add the white petals, they should be equally spaced around the centre of the daisy. 

Step 4

Add some randomly spaced white dots to fill out the design a little and your done!

Sunset on the Beach Nail Art

Step 1

Get a sponge. As you'll see I've used a dish sponge, which works fine, but a make up sponge will give you a much more polished finish because of the smaller bubbles. Make sure you have a useable size so cut it down if necessary and dampen it to prevent the nail polish being sucked into the sponge. 

Step 2

Paint on the stripes of colour. I've used three: yellow, orange and then red. You can use between 2 and 4 colours, go for more colours the longer your nails are. Bare in mind the whole area of paint on your sponge needs to be just bigger than the size of your nail, so the stripes only need to be about as big as the nail polish brush. 

Step 3

Dab the sponge on to your nail. Try and make the gradient as smooth as possible, so you can move the sponge up and down by a few millimetres to blend the colours together, but not so far that it makes the whole thing the same colour. 

Step 4  

Allow the first coat to dry and repeat step 3. You will have to reapply the stripes of colour to your sponge. 

Step 4 (optional)

Draw on your palm tree on the ring finger. I did this free hand b drawing the trunk first about 5 lines evenly spaced emanating from the trunk then lots of lines perpendicular to those lines representing the leaves. 

Step 6

Allow to dry and add a top coat

Step 7

Clean up. Use a cotton pad soaked in nail polish remover to remove most of the polish around your nail. Then use a cotton but soaked in nail polish remover to take away all the remaining polish from around the nails. 

Teal and Yellow Vintage Print Nail Art

This vintage print is inspired by a picture of a fabric print. If you want to see the original picture follow the link: 

Vintage Fabric 

Step 1

Apply a base coat to protect your nails.

Step 2

Apply a base colour. I went for an off white, champagne colour, but a matte cream would work best, even white would do. 

Step 3

Apply the teal oval shapes. I found the easiest way to get the oval is to do two overlapping medium sized dots. Make sure there is plenty of room in between the ovals to fit the black dots. Do this to all fingers except the ring fingers. 

Step 4

Now add the the very small black dots between the teal ovals. 

Step 5

Finally carry out step 3 with yellow paint, then step 4 on the ring fingers. 

MUA Fur-Effect Nails Application and Review

Step 1

Apply a base colour coat of nail varnish as usual. Pick a colour to co-ordinate with the fur. I've gone for Nails Inc Baker Street.

Step 2

Take the sifter off your fur-effect pot. This is messy so I'd do it on a piece of paper to catch any excess, you can put this back into the pot. Tip about a quarter of the fur into the lid of the pot. 

Do the following steps on each nail in turn

Step 3

Apply a second coat of your base colour onto one nail. Make sure there is a piece of paper underneath to catch the excess fur. Quickly, while it is still very wet, shake fur from the lid of your pot over your nail. Pile it up all over the nail, don't worry about waste, we'll salvage any excess. 

Step 4 

Press on the piled up fur onto your nail. Turn your finger to the side and tap it to tap off the excess fur onto the paper. 

Step 5 

Fold the paper in half and tap the excess fur back into the lid.

Repeat this process on all nails. 

Don't use a top coat on this manicure because it will spoil the effect. 

Review

MUA Fur-effect nails is sold at £3 in Superdrug. I only used about an eighth to a sixth of the product, so it's good value. I really hate the sifter, it stops the product being tipped out so I took that off straight away (poked a dotting tool through one of the holes and prised it off) and got blue stuff all over the couch. Apart from that, its a really easy to use product with a great effect. I'll add in later the long term review. 

Watch out for a Breaking Bad nail art tutorial I will be doing soon when the new season is aired. 

Dr Who Nail Art for Manchester Comic Con

These are the nails that I wore to Manchester Comic Con. I chose to paint my nails in a nerdy fashion instead of wearing a costume. I find unless your willing to spend a lot of money on a costume it can look a bit silly, and it was unbelievably hot so I'm glad I didn't dress up. 

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy comic com too much. I'm not a big fan of cartoons or Anamai, I essentially went because Nathan (the other half) wanted to go and I heard Warwick Davis and Robot Wars were going to be there. In the end the queue for Warwick Davis was so long and hot that I thought if I stayed there long enough to get to him I'd probably faint (I tend to faint standing up in the heat for too long). I was so hot and bored that we left before Robot Wars started, it looked small and rubbish anyway, not like the cool show I remember. I think I expected it to be like what I have seen of the San Diego Comic Con, with characters from my favourite shows giving talks. It wasn't like that at all. The costumes were interesting to look at, and there were some cool memorabilia like Olivander Wands, Canvas pictures of the avengers and Game of Thrones T-shirts. I won't be going to Manchester's Comic Con again. However, if I happen to be in San Diego when Comic Con is on, I'll give that a go, I might even dress up. 

Glossy and Matte Black Nails

You will need 

• Base coat
• Black nail varnish 
• Sellotape
• Scissors
• Matte black nail varnish or matte top coat

Step 1

Use a base coat to protect your nails. I use OPI Nail Envy Matte, which can also double as a matte top coat. 

Step 2

Paint two coats of glossy black nail varnish on all your nails. 

Step 3

You can either leave it to dry COMPLETELY without a top coat, or add a fast drying top coat which should speed up the drying time but still leave it for a while to let it dry hard. 

Step 4

Cut up your Sellotape to make two equal rectangular strips. Place one on the bottom half of the nail, the edge ending in the middle and one on the top half of the nail, the edge ending in the middle but protecting the other side of the nail.  Do this to all your nails, make sure the bottoms are all protecting the same side and the tops are all protecting the same side. 

Step 5

Paint the unprotected nail with matte nail varnish. 

Step 6

Allow the matte nail varnish to touch dry, then remove the Sellotape while its not hard dry to prevent chips coming off. 

You're done!

This is a great way to jazz up a plain black nail you've had on for a couple of days before a night out. 

Rainbow Dots

Dotted nails are one of the easiest, fastest and yet eye catching nail art designs there are. This is just one of the ways to do a dotted nail. I think it looks bright and summery,  perfect for this weather. 

There are just two easy steps a dotted nail: apply a base colour (you don't even need that if you don't want), then add your dots. 

The above photo shows two sizes of dotting tool. You can get a set of 5 cheaply from amazon or ebay. The largest the ball at the end, the larger the size of the dot. You could substitute a small dotting tool for a tooth pick for certain designs. 

Pop a blob of polish on a spare piece of paper. Touch your tool to the polish as far in as it can go. Then dot on to your nail. 

Tip: Keep your tool evenly covered with polish and make sure  the pressure you use to dot onto your nail is even. This keeps the dots the same size. 

Have fun with the different colour combinations and different sized dots you can use. Keep posted for some more dotted designs. 

Tip: Search "dotted nail art" for inspiration. 

Bunny Rabbit Nail Art

Step 1 

Apply a base coat to your nails. 

This provides a good base for your nail varnish to stick to and protects your nails from staining. I go for OPI Nail Envy, I believe it helps my nails grow stronger and longer. 

Step 2 

Apply two coats of a base colour. In this case I have gone with a lilac colour. Any colour except white can be used at this stage. 

Step 3

Add a large rounded white tip to your nails. I use the nail varnish brush at this stage: make a brush stoke in the middle about a quarter up your nail, then join that stroke to the corners of your nail with a rounded stroke. This stage often needs two coats. Don't worry if it's not perfect, bunnies are fluffy anyway!

Step 4

Add two ears to each rounded tip. I use a dotting tool for this (tooth picks, or bobby pins can be used but if your interested in nails I'd invest in some dotting tools since they're about £2 from Amazon... ). I place a blob of white nail varnish on some paper, dab my dotting tool in it and dot two fairly straight lines, slightly fatter on top just off centre on the rabbit's head. 

Step 5

Add the eyes. I use a dotting tool again with a black or very dark colour. I dotted below each ear. 

Step 6 

Add the nose. I use a dotting tool with some pick. I dotted just below and between the eyes. 

Step 7

Add the pinks of the ears. I use the same pink that I used on the nose. Use a very small dotting tool to place the pink inside the white of the ears, making a small line, again, fatter on top than bottom.

Step 8

Seal in your design with a top coat. I chose Albert Bridge Top Coat by Nails Inc.