Patriotic Piggies

I don't paint my fingernails. I can spend an hour giving myself a manicure, painstakingly painting each nail to perfection, and in a matter of hours they are chipped. So not worth the time! My toes are another matter however. Polish stays on and I can be very bold in my colors and design since it's on my feet. Here's a very easy way to get into the Patriotic spirit, and you don't even have to be a manicurist to pull it off.

I have not painted my toes in a few weeks, as I was trying to keep them free for healing. Aaron and I did a huge hiking trip (3 National parks, 5 days, over 40 miles logged - including a hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back in one day). Needless to say my poor feet were beat, pealing and bruised.

Aaron got tired of looking at my bruises and told me it was time to paint them up and hide them. Funny man! With the 4th coming up quickly, I decided to go with a patriotic design. You only need a few supplies to pull this one off on your own and it looks super cute and impressive!

1. Top/Base Coat Polish
2. Blue fingernail polish
3. Red fingernail polish
4. White nail art polish
5. Orange Stick
6. Dotting Pen
7. Star stickers, appliques or gems (I used gems, this is optional and I will tell you how to design without these if needed)

STEP 1:

Paint all toes with base coat

STEP 2:

Paint your big toes with the blue polish and all the rest with your red. Do two coats of this for a nice even color.

STEP 3:

While your blue polish is still wet, stick your star gems onto your big toe: this will allow them to adhere to the polish so they won't come off. They also make a gem glue polish, but you can skip that step if you work fast while your blue is still wet. If you are doing stickers you should wait until it dries. My gems were hollow in the center, so I used my dotting pen to fill them in with my white nail art polish. If you don't have a dotting pen, a toothpick will probably work just fine - or if you have a steady hand just use the thin brush of the nail art polish.

Now, if you don't have stickers or gems, don't despair, you'll still look amazing. Just use your dotting pen to place white dots onto your blue toes. From far away that's what the stars look like anyway - white dots.

STEP 4:

Using your white nail art polish, paint vertical stripes onto all of your red toes. Make sure the white stripes are not too thick, you want that red to show through. I made sure there was more red than white.

STEP 5:

Paint all toes with the top coat. I did a second coat of the top coat on my big toes to make sure the stars were nice and secure and wouldn't fall off at any time.

Now you are ready to show up for that Independence Day BBQ in your cute flip-flops showcasing your amazing toes!