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Fresh nail art designs that anybody can do at home – part 2
It’s time to get our DIY nail bar on again. We had such a great response to our collaboration with Seika from Line Spa and Polish, we’re back with another round of fresh nail art, exclusively for you. This is nail art for everybody. (If you missed our first instalment, click through for all the inspiration and instruction here.) If you have mastered the designs from Part One, you are going to love these designs. This is nail art for everybody. Get your brushes ready, people!
Before we begin
It’s best to have everything you need close to hand before you start, just as if you would if you were giving yourself a regular mani. The best of our DIY non-toxic manicure tips are on our blog if you need a refresher. For all these designs we recommend starting with a protective base coat to give you a smooth surface to paint on and finishing with a top coat to seal the deal and keep all your fabulous nail art locked in. One final tip: We know this sounds obvious, but make sure each layer dries before you apply the next.
Hot tips for the at-home nail art superstar
For some of these designs, you may need to improvise to create delicate shapes or lines. You don’t need fancy tools for this nail art. Look around your house, especially in your makeup and stationery drawers to use what you have to hand. Toothpicks are a perfectly acceptable drawing tool for nail art on the fly. A sewing pin in an eraser on the end of a pencil is the perfect dotting tool, as are bobby pins, and paintbrushes are always welcome to create different brush strokes and effects. Embrace your inner MacGyver and use what you have to hand.
1. Vertical wiggly french
Blue and green should always be seen… especially if they look this chic.
- Apply base coat to every nail.
- Paint your thumb and ring fingernail with the pastel mint green crème, Utopia (currently on sale!)
- Paint your other fingernails with Bonsoir (deep navy crème with cerulean shimmer).
- Create the outline of the wave with Utopia on your middle fingernail and fill it in.
- Next, repeat this process using Bonsoir on your ring fingernail.
Could this be the ultimate look for cool girl nail art? We think so.
2. Apple french
Colours: Freedom, Florence, Merlot, Gaia
Some of our best loved colours come together to create this sweet but sophisticated French apple look.
- Apply base coat to every nail.
- Create the outline of the apple heart on your thumb and ring nails with Freedom (bright vermilion red crème), and then fill it in.
- Use a toothpick (or drawing tool of your choice) to create the apple stem with Florence (magenta plum crème).
- Paint your pinky fingernail in Merlot (deep red wine merlot crème)
- Give your remaining two fingernails two coats of Gaia (Fallow Brown Satin).
That’s it! All the (apple) heart eyes for this design.
3. Apricots
We’re sticking to the fruity theme with this fun apricot design that combines fresh orange with the ‘it’ colour of the Northern Hemisphere fall, olive.
- Apply base coat to every nail.
- Paint your middle and ring fingernail and your thumbnail with Olivia (deep olive crème).
- To create the apricots, start with your pinky. Drop three tiny beads of Yogi (mandarin orange crème) on to the pinky nail to create the apricot shape.
- Use Olivia to create the stem of the apricots.
- Repeat this process on your pointer fingernails.
It’s really that easy. This might look like a complicated design, but it’s completely nail art-novice approved.
Hot tip: when painting dots with your brush make sure to have a tiny amount of polish on the brush as it will pool on the nail. It’s easier to add more than take it off!
4. Leopard
Colours: Courage, Mimosa, Olivia, Embrace
Introducing the autumnal-hued counterpoint to the Pastel Leopard design that debuted in Part One.
- Apply base coat to every nail.
- Paint your pointer and pinky nails with two coats of Courage (warm terracotta crème).
- Next, use Olivia (deep olive crème) to paint three-four larger dots and several more smaller dots using A bobby pin or toothpick work both work well here.
- To finish, paint your remaining fingernails with two coats of Embrace (grapefruit granita crystal).
Because leopard-print is a neutral.
Hot tip: make sure the dots are dry before painting the top coat or it may ‘drag’ the colour. The dots are thicker than the coats of polish so they take a touch longer.
5. Brush strokes with dots
Colours: Dream, Wategos, Unite, Luscious, Florence
We have reached the apex mountain of our at-home nail art designs. This design uses all the techniques we have been practicing to create the so-hot-right-now painterly brush strokes look. It’s slightly more complex than the previous designs but is still more than doable at home. Play around with this design, each nail can be as unique as you like. The gif above is a good partner to our instructions below, so let that guide you as well. We’re ready!
- Apply base coat to every nail.
- Start with a smear-like stripe of Wategos (clear blue water crème) on every fingernail.
- Use the same technique to apply Dream (periwinkle crème) on the opposite side of your nail.
- Next up is Unite (crushed crystal). You only need a minimal amount of polish on the brush for this part. Swipe a painterly-like stripe down your fingernail, starting at the top of your nail and reducing the amount of polish to almost nothing by the time you get to the base.
- Create a spatter effect by placing some tiny drops of Florence (magenta plum crème) at the base of the nail.
- Finish up the design with some teeny tiny drops of Luscious.
It’s delicate, it’s painterly, it’s pretty damn beautiful. Well done, you!
Hot Tip: Make sure to use just a tiny amount of polish when you paint the brush stroke accents.
Line Spa & Polish and sustainable beauty
Line Spa and Polish is a beauty biz after our own sustainable, eco-loving hearts. They are a 100% vegan, sustainable nail service and stock only the highest quality products that adhere to their philosophy: ‘wellness and environment should not be compromised for beauty’. We are, of course, thrilled they use Sienna! Alongside a no cruelty, no toxins approach to the products Line Spa and Polish use, the salon has been 90% plastic-free since they opened, and are constantly innovating to further minimise their impact. Did we mention that their founder, Seiko, is a next-level nail tech?
Let us know if you try any of these designs! We’d love to hear how you go.
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