Easy Summer Flower Mani!

Ahhhh, summer! So many lazy days to fill by doing seasonal-themed manicures!! Flowers are my fave, and today's blog post will show how to do an easy, summery, Hawaiian-y flower design.

"Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian" by Those Darlins Feel free to listen to the mood music if it suits ya!

To start, you will need the following:

• Base coat
• Quick-dry top coat
• Bright colour polish (I used Essie Mod Square)
• White polish
• Dotting tools
• Nail jewels
• Nail glue
• Tweezers to position jewels
• Cotton & remover to clean your tools

Nestled in a lovely basil plant

This is a great set of nail jewels. One side is little compartments of clear/diamond-y jewels, and the other side is colourful ones. There are lots of different shapes and sizes to pick from.

This kit is available at Sally Beauty, in store or here.

Nestled in a smaller, but equally lovely basil plant

Another product I had to use today is this: nail polish thinner. If you have been throwing out old, goopy polishes, let me save you now! I put 4 drops of this into about a half-full, pretty thick bottle of Essie, and it came out practically new after a few good shakes.

Some people on the internet say you can do the same thing with nail polish remover, but I really trust very little that people say on the internet (aside from celebrity gossip, of course.)

I think I got this one at Winners, but you can find a couple of other options here at nailpolishcanada.com.

This is the thinned-out, almost like new, Essie Mod Square.

Okay! I think we're ready to go!

Step One: Paint those nails! Don't forget to use base coat along with quick-dry, high-shine top coat, or Santa won't come this year. Also your nails will look dull and the mani won't last very long.

Also, if your top coat's not quick-dry, it will take forever before you can move on Step Two. You will also no doubt have to find your keys or something and wreck it. This is known as Smudgie's Law in the nail polish world.

I bet you can do better than this, no?

Step Two: Using a larger-size dotter, make 5 round dots in a sort-of circle shape where you want the flower to be.

For this mani, I'm doing flowers on both ring fingers, as well as my right thumb.

Because we're going to add dots and jewels, the flowers don't have to be so perfect on this mani. Just do it the best you can. I'm really not a perfectionist. 

Looks mangled right now. I promise it gets better.

Step Three: As soon as you get the dots done, grab your pointiest dotter (or a round toothpick) and drag from the center of each dot into the center of the "flower". This will create the petal effect.

Getting better!

Step Four: Take various sizes of dotters to make larger to smaller dots coming out of the petals of the flower.

I like to aim for a sort-of spiral pattern, but it would probably also look nice if you went with smaller dots in a random pattern.

I prefer the glue with a brush, as I think it's easier to control
and less likely to dry out quickly.

Step Five: It's Jewel Time!

This is my favourite part. I just love nail jewels: picking them out, placing them on, gazing at them endlessly. Love. It.

Anyhoo, put a dab of glue in the centre of your flower, then stick a jewel on it. Make a veritable nest of glue, and you can use the tweezers to press the jewel in and make slight adjustments.

Is this not the definition of nice and shiny? 

Step Six: Top Coat Time!

The white polish will probably still be a bit tacky, so make sure you blob a ton of top coat it on and spread it over the nail with very little pressure. This is essential if you want to avoid streaking your design. If you want your flower to look like it's a speeding cartoon, then by all means apply lots of pressure in the top coat phase.

Once it dries, you can always do another top coat to smooth it out if it's blobby or uneven.

Peekaboo! Top coat on you!

Here are some pictures to compare before and after top coat is applied to the final design. It really does make the mani.

I had a teenager tell me once that she never used top or basecoats, because she didn't want to "waste" her money on polish that is not a colour. 

Teenagers! Crazy, no??

Do you have a favourite flower design? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!! xoxo