The Flower Nail

So I know how frustrating nails can be. I started attempting to do my own nails at age 10 on Christmas day, still wearing my new Christmas Eve jammies. I had found a bottle of sparkly red nail polish in my stocking, and after I opened all my other presents, I decided to try it out. My left hand went okay. It was gloppy and drippy, but that was because it was my first time. But when it got to painting my right hand, I slathered it all over the place with my unusable left hand. Of course  a shiny red droplet dripped right onto my pajamas. I still have a pink stain there on my pants.

My point is, nail polish is tricky. It took me forever to master painting with my left hand, and that was just the normal, boring, one color thing. I learned a few tricks that can make nails more interesting if you can't do anything fancy or swirly. Ella and I were doing the one below. I painted hers, but you can do it to yourself too. This one is the flower.

First step: File or cut your nails into a nice round edge. We used the filer this time, but you could use both. Try to file off any snagging edges on the sides, just to make it look neat. I only do this once in a while. If you don't have any need of it, don't bother.

Choose two colors that look good together. We chose the light green below and a purpley sparkle. Paint the more dominant one on all of your fingers. (If there's one thing I've learned about painting nails is if the color's light, then don't lay it on thick in one coat, just do two thin coats. It looks loads better.) Then, get a knitting needle or pin with a round head and dip it into the second color:

                                                 

Choose a finger to put the flower on and a corner on that finger to paint it. Make one dot in the middle, which will be the center of the flower. Put 5 all around the sides of the middle dot.

                                      

                                 This is what it will look like:                                     

So, the flower's really easy to master because all you do is make dots. 1 dot in the middle, and 5 around the edges. One thing you can do to make it look more flowerlike is to make the center dot a different color than the petal dots. You can do it either way. As you can see, we didn't do it on Ella's nails. Also, you don't have to do the flower in a corner. You can just do it in the very middle of your nail, or on the top right, top left, bottom right, or bottom left. You can do it o any finger, but I think it looks best on the ring finger or the thumb. Maybe the pointer too.

Vah lah! The flower nail!