Materials I used (sorry I forgot to photograph the supplies):
Base coat - INM Ridge FreeBlue polish - Sinful Colors 'Endless Blue'
White polish - Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White'
Red Art Club Striper
Star shaped vinyls from nailvinyls.com
Silver Glitter Art Club Duo
Topcoat - Beauty Plus Salon
I began with a blue base on my thumb and pointer, and white on the remainder of my fingers. Sticking with a traditional flag layout. I did apply a quick drying topcoat over the blue, but not the white.
Using a red nail art striper, I freehand painted three wavy stripes over the white. In attempt to make it look more like a flying flag. If you are uncomfortable with freehand, use tape. If you want wavy lines with tape, try cutting scotch tape with a pair of curved cuticle scissors to create this affect.
Once the blue was set, I used star shaped nail vinyls along with white polish to create my stars. Of course, if you do not have star vinyls you can freehand stars too. When doing a light color over a dark or bright color make sure your light color is very opaque to avoid having to do too many layers. The white I use, Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White' is incredibly opaque in one coat, it easily covers darker colors.
As always, perform a bit of clean up and apply your favorite top coat. As you can see, I had some dragging occur on my pinky when I applied my topcoat. This occurred because I didn't float the topcoat like you should. When applying a topcoat, it is best to start with a fair amount of topcoat on the brush, and apply it somewhat thickly. The term floating is used because you are essentially floating the applicator brush over the nail. If you do it correctly the brush will never actually touch your nail or artwork because the topcoat will keep it afloat. I hope that make sense, if it doesn't please inquire about it more.
I repeated this on both hands, even though I had a bit of trouble creating the stripes with my non-dominant hand. If you are creating stripes and you find you have made a mistake you can correct it or touch it up by using a striper brush and your base polish to fix it. I had to do this in a couple of spots. Also, please excuse the pink cuticles, red stains my fingers terribly. If I had been smart I would have used a latex mask to help prevent this from happening, which I will be for my future manicures.
I hope you enjoyed this simple quick patriotic manicure, and found the tips and tutorial useful. Get your BBQ's and sparklers out for this weekend's festivities. Stay tuned for a couple more patriotic inspired manis, I have a super quick and simple manicure and a recreation of a Fourth of July manicure I created last year, coming up. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.
Your Fellow Plebe,
