DIY: Swirly Nails!

I saw a picture of swirly nails on Pinterest.com and totally loved them!  They seemed like such a fun idea, so I looked up how to recreate them.  Since the 4th of July is coming up soon I was thinking I would practice with red, white, and blue nail polish!  After doing research, I realized that to get really good at this it takes some practice.  Also, any design can happen so you never know what you are going to get (downside if you want them a certain way).  Below is the picture I saw on Pinterest.com that inspired this blog post.  I can tell you that this was not this girl's first time trying to get swirly nails because they look perfect!:

First, gather all of your supplies.  You will need a cup of room temperature water, your polishes, a toothpick, tape or Vaseline, a top coat polish, Q-tips, and polish remover.  I recommend doing this on a magazine or newspaper as well. 

Next, paint your nails a base coat.  I would use the lightest color, which is why I picked white.  White also makes your colors pop more.  (You can still use this base coat in your water color design.)  While I was doing my nails, I decided to just go ahead and do my toes too.  I think swirly nails would be super hard to do with your toes, so I just painted mine white (like my fingernails) and put red and blue dots using a small paintbrush on them for 4th of July. 

Next, either smear Vaseline around your nails or tape them like I did.  I heard the Vaseline makes the water oily and is harder to remove, so I chose to tape my fingers to help with clean up.  Just tape along your nails all over...like you were going to commit a crime and didn't want to leave fingerprints behind!  I didn't think the tape would work that well, but it really did.  Plus, it was super easy to clean up!

Then, drop your colors into your room temperature water.  They will spread out into larger circles like in the picture below.  I dropped a blue dot and waited for it to spread, then a red dot, then a white dot, etc.  Obviously, you can do this however you wish. 

After you have all your colors in the water, use a toothpick (or I had kabob skewers) to make a design such as the one below.  Like I mentioned previously, you cannot really control how the design will look on your nails and in the water, so just move the colors around. 

Then stick your finger into the water with the top of your nail down.  During my first finger (my thumb) I messed up because I forgot a specific step.  Leave your finger in the water for a few seconds.  While you are doing this, take your toothpick and scrap out all of the extra color around your nail.  This is actually really easy because the polish will suck up to the toothpick just like a magnet.  If you do not do this, all of the color will come out of the water when you lift your finger and you will have a big old gooey mess like I did pictured below.  You can see on the left that the design would have worked, except that I forgot to scrape the excess paint out of the water before lift off.

Here is a picture of my next nail that turned out a lot better, but once again you cannot really decide on an exact design and make it happen.  It is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get!

I went ahead and completed all of my fingers.  This is the finished project.  Not bad for my first time if I do say so myself!  Remember: this will take some practice, but I don't think it was to difficult at all. 

To finish the nails, use a Q-tip to clean around the edges.  Next, put on a clear top coat to help protect the colors.  Let this dry and then do the other hand!  I have pictured some successful 4th of July swirly nails I found online.  I cannot wait to try this again soon!

Comment below and let me know what you think of this trend.  Would you try it?  What colors would you use?  If you try it out, send me a picture of your finished nails!