Independence day nails!

So as you may have already seen I recently posted a quick post of what nails I did for Independence day, but now I'm ready to go more in depth with my look and tell you how you can achieve a similar one!

First off, I love holidays. I love...themes. and partying. and holidays provide a lot of that! Unfortunately this year I had a very uneventful holiday. But that didn't stop me from rocking some awesome nail art!

I had seen lots of inspiration on other blogs and on pinterest all week. But I couldn't decide what I wanted to do myself! I finally decided that there was no way I could choose one of the manicures, so instead I decided to take elements of several different ones and make it my own!

I apologize in advance that some of these are smart-phone quality photos. But I still think they get the point across!

4th of July nails!

Instructions after the jump-->

So, here are the polishes I used to achieve this look.

red, white, blue, and sparkles!

 From L to R we have- Salon Perfect- Fire & Ice, Wet n Wild Shine french white creme, China Glaze- frost bite, Maybelline Color Show Sapphire Siren, Sinful Colors Nail Art- what a night, seche vite fast dry top coat, China glaze ruby pumps, and slightly out of the picture is Sinful Colors ruby ruby

first step- base coats

 I applied french white creme  to my thumb, ring, and pinky nails. I have the sapphire siren on my pointer finger, and frostbite on my middle finger. I know, it's messy. Now you can see my true process, mess and all.

salon perfect dotting tool

For my thumb I was inspired by this post by Vampy Varnish. I had just gotten a new dotting tool from Salon Perfect and was eager to try it out.  I dotted with ruby ruby and frostbite.

red and blue dots

Not too bad for my first attempt! Of course, a dotting tool is a ridiculously easy tool to use, and I highly encourage you to try one! Or you can make one at home by using a bobby pin, or a paper clip, or even a needle. I have seen lots of DIY dotting tools, but the one I bought was so cheap, I just got it. 

BM14 stamping plate

For the stars I used a konad stamping kit. This kit belongs to a friend and I don't actually know if all the plates are Konad brand, but the scraper and stamper are! This plate is labeled BM14. As you can see, this is just a string of stars. There were no all-over star patterns. So I had to (carefully-it was a challenge!) stamp it numerous times to get the effect that I was going for- the flag, duh! 

striping tape 

Last but not least, I used striping tape for the first time! The first time I tried it, the white base hadn't yet dried, and had lifted up when I pulled the tape up. So the second time I made sure it was completely dry before doing it. I laid down the stripes and painted ruby pumps over it. Again, I was clearly messy. I did this for both my ring and pinky fingers.

For my pointer finger I wanted to try and do a firework design. I thought, this should be easy. Fireworks are pretty abstract. You just paint some lines shooting in opposite directions. Easy enough, right? I was wrong. I used the other side of the Salon Perfect dotting tool which has a very small nail art brush on it. Even with that, it didn't exactly turn out as planned. All in all I wasn't pleased, but I was satisfied enough with it that I left it alone. I used the sapphire siren to imitate the dark nights sky, then painted fireworks over it with what a night nail art polish and another glitter that I honestly don't remember because it turned out so horribly that I jumped ship immediately. 

grand finale!

So here's a pic pre-cleanup to once again show all the nails together!

I hope you liked this manicure, and I hope it inspired you in some way. Did you all (people in the US at least!) have a good independence day? I hope you got to see fireworks! Did you do any july-4th-themed-nails?

Follow your bliss,

Ember Darling