Nail Art Tutorial: Nautical Nails

Alrighty! It’s been a long time since my last nail art tutorial… I’m sorry! I’ve been having doubts about my nail art abilities.

They’re subpar, and I know it. But it’s fun, and I like to do it. So bite me LOL.

Anyways! Here’s the tutorial for some awesome summery nail art!

HEre’s the supplies you’ll need: You’ll need a few polishes. I’m using a white and black from FingerPaints. I’m also using three shades from OPI; one that I frankened and called My Boyfriend Scales Blue Walls, Samoan Sand and Moscow Red. You could use any kind of beachy colors. You mainly need a brown or tan for the sand and a blue for the water. I also used a couple other polishes not shown, an Ella + Milla polish and Co-Bolt Blue from Sally Hansen. You’ll also need a few makeup sponges, a dotting tool and blue painters tape to make stripes out of.

Make horizontal cuts with an Xacto knife on your roll of painters tape. You’ll need enough for two accent nails for both hands.

Paint your nails with a base of white. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a little patchy in spots, or if it’s incredibly nasty all over your fingers. That’s what cleanup is for. Make sure you let this dry completely before you go on to the next steps.

Starting off with the tan, build up a little patch of “sand” on one of your nails.

Taking your blue painters tape strips, lay out the strips the way you want them. Preferably not like this. Because it’s all crooked. And weird looking.

Take your red (or blue) polish and paint over the white and tape. Let it dry just a bit, then pull it off. If you have any messups, cover them up with a little white.

Do the same with the blue.

Add a couple more layers of tan.

Then add your light blue, then a little bit of dark blue

Then take a coral pink polish and doodle on a little starfish and a little shell or something.

Add a few little waves with some tacky white polish and your dotting tool.

Then on your thumb, or whatever other nail you have that you can’t figure out what to do with, sponge on a little blue and dark blue and then use your dotting tool to draw on a little sail boat. Then add some waves with white and blue.

And then on your red striped fingernail, draw on a little anchor.

Topcoat with your favorite topcoat and go!

 

Also attempt to do a crappy looking chevron pattern on your pinkie nail.