Seasonal nail art ideas are easy to find, but what about those months without a holiday? What do you do then to “dress up” your nails? I polish my nails every week, so I need a lot of ideas. Well, I say, let’s add some sparkle to these cold, drab, wintery months with some glittery polish and a cool design. You will need light blue and medium, or dark blue, metallic nail polish. Also, you need white striping polish, light blue Sparkle Effects glitter, a soft nail brush and clear topcoat. Remove any old polish with a moisturizing polish remover. Tip: wash the remover off your cuticles with soap and water. This will help keep your cuticles from drying out. Now let’s paint.

Step 1: Apply a clear base coat and then a coat of light blue metallic polish. If the polish is really transparent, you might need an extra coat.

Step 2: Paint a medium or dark metallic swatch diagonally across the nail. Again, add a second coat if needed, however, you will be covering up most of it with glitter later.

Step 3: Stripe a thin white diagonal line about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down on the dark blue polish, depending on how long your nails are and the look you want. Let your polish dry for about 5 to 10 minutes. Since you are going to add glitter, it is important that the polish be dry to the touch, so that the glitter only sticks where you want it to and not to the entire nail.

Step 4: In this step, you will be applying glitter, so you will need to paint and glitter one nail at a time to keep the polish from drying before you add the glitter. Also, since glitter can make “everything” sparkle use a piece of paper to dust the glitter on. Tip: fold the paper in half before glittering. Then when you are finished, just pour the glitter back into the bottle using the crease of the paper as a funnel. Apply the clear topcoat from the white diagonal line to the tip of the nail only and immediately dust with glitter. Tap your nail on the paper to remove any excess glitter. Continue with each nail until you have finished all ten nails. Let them dry for about 10 minutes, then, holding your nails over the paper, take the nail brush and gently brush away any remainder of the glitter.

Step 5: Stripe one more white diagonal line in the opposite direction, but paint only up to the first white stripe. Apply at least two coats of clear topcoat. The glittered areas will feel a little coarse, so if you want a smoother feel, gently buff between topcoats. I hope you have fun adding a little “bling” to your winter nails and I will be blogging again soon.

Keep those nails covered,