Valentine’s Day is right around the corner- and if you’re anything like me, that means lots of cute themed nail designs to celebrate the season. These adorable minion themed nails are not only incredibly easy, but quite the conversation starter as well. If you’re looking for a simple Valentine’s Day design, check out these heart nails from last year. With a bit of creativity and patience, you too can achieve these cute nails!

Project estimate:

• Light pink polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Dark pink polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Silver polish, on hand or $1 and up
• White polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Black polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Topcoat, on hand or $1 and up
• Toothpick/brush for detail work, on hand
• Dotting tool (bobby pins work), on hand

Total:  Free and up!

1. Apply two coats of light pink polish. Let dry for 3-5 minutes.

2. Using a detail brush (or toothpick) and the dark pink polish, create rectangular shapes at the tip of the nail.

3. With the same dark pink, add diagonal lines extending from the corners to the edge of the nail.

4. Create a thin, black line near the base of your nail- try to make it as straight as possible, a brush works best.

5. To form the minion’s eyes, dip your dotting tool into a silver polish and create two even circles on the black line.

6. With white polish, form smaller circles within the silver circles- a bobby pin works well for this step.

7. To complete the eyes, add small black dots inside the white circles. For added character & personality, try to place the dots in different directions & different angles.

8. With a small brush or toothpick and the black polish, form a slightly curved line underneath the eyes to create the smile.

9. For a little extra fun- decorate the minion’s pants! I added polka dots, hearts, buttons, etc. to give it a little sass and it turned out super cute. Get creative with it and give your minions some personality.

10. Once you allow the design to dry for 5-10 minutes, finish it off with a topcoat to seal in your awesome work.

Megan blogs about makeup, nails, learning how to look great on a budget and keeping up with the latest styles at her site razberriez.com. She is the fingernail fashion contributor for Dollar Store Crafts.

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I love nail art.  But – and this is a really big but – I am generally not patient, coordinated, and artistic enough to pull off a nail art manicure on my own.  I recently saw a really cute video tutorial for watermelon nails and, while fairly basic compared to many other nail art tutorials I’ve seen, it still felt like it was a little beyond my skill level.  Taking that idea as inspiration, I decided to simplify the design down to more of a nail-art-for-dummies level.  I even managed to use my extremely clumsy left hand to paint this design on my own right hand – if it’s easy enough for me to have left-handed success, anyone can do it, I promise!

Project estimate:

• Nail polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Toothpick, on hand
• Top coat, on hand or $1 and up

Total:  $1 and up

Colors I used:

• Pink – Essie, Off the Shoulder
• Green – LA Girl Color Pop, Peacock
• Black – Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, Pat on the Black

Start by painting a base coat of color on your nails.  Paint your thumb and pinkie nails green, and paint the middle three nails pink.  Let your nails dry.

To add the seeds, make a drop of black nail polish on one of your pink nails.  Use the tip of a toothpick to “pull” one edge of the polish outward to a point, creating a seed-like shape.  Repeat on your other pink nails.  (I chose to leave an accent nail on one hand without a seed on it.)

After the seeds dry, apply a topcoat to seal them and make the design last longer.  I decided to give this matte topcoat a try and I love the effect it gives – try different topcoats for different finished looks!

I love how my nails turned out!

The post Summer Nail Art: Watermelon Manicure appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Project estimate:

• White nail polish, on hand or $1
• 4-6 bright nail polishes, on hand or $4 and up
• Toothpicks, on hand
• Topcoat, on hand or $1
• Remover/ cotton swabs ( for additional clean up), on hand

Total:  Free and up

Lets start!

1. Apply your white polish. This step is recommended, but not required. I prefer to apply 1-2 coats of white polish to all of my nails prior to starting the tie dye. With the white undercoat, your colors will pop even more! Let these dry for 5-10 minutes.

1. Gather your toothpicks and polishes. Open all the nail polishes for quick access and lay out your toothpicks. Now you can decide what order you would like to make your tie dye. I started with the darker color as the “eye” of the design, going from purple to yellow.

1. Begin the tie dye. Start by creating a thick stripe of your first color at the upper corner of your nail, you can also alternate where it starts on all your different nails. Continue to add stripes of your color on the rest of your nail, its okay if they flood together. The key is to make the stripes thick enough to swirl around.
2. Drag the polish. Gently drag the tip of the toothpick through the polish, going from top to bottom. Avoid dragging the white through, this will cause clumping. Finish this step on all of your nails.

1. Apply your favorite topcoat. This is a rare time when I will say that it is okay to apply the topcoat prior to your nails drying. I find if the polish is a little tacky, it helps smooth out the tie dye. This step will seal in your design, prevent chipping, and add an excellent shine!

The post Nail Art Tutorial: Tie Dye Finger Nails appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

When I wander the aisles of Dollar Tree, I usually look through every department, even the ones that don’t seem very crafty.  One of my favorite unexpected places in the store to find crafty tidbits is the beauty supplies – it’s pretty amazing what you can do with some nail polish or a little eye shadow.  That’s also where I found some little manicure sets that I thought would make cute gifts.  Here is how to make your own pretty manicure set!

Project estimate:

• Manicure set, $1
• Small tin, on hand or $1
• Paper, on hand
• Embellishments (optional), on hand or $1
• Mod Podge, on hand
• Magnets, on hand or $1 and up
• Glue, on hand

Total:  $1 and up

Make sure your tin is big enough to hold all of the parts of the manicure set.  An empty candy tin (like an Altoids tin) will work well; I also found a gift card holder tin in the gift wrapping section of Dollar Tree that was a nice size for this project.

Carefully glue a small magnet onto each piece of the manicure set.  I used Amazing Goop to glue my magnets in place.  Be careful when you are gluing to make sure your magnet placement doesn’t interfere with any moving parts on the manicure set pieces.  The magnets will hold all of the items in place inside the tin to keep them from rattling around.

Decorate the outside of the tin however you want.  I used paper, stickers, ribbon, and lace to embellish the top of my tin, sealing it all in place with a couple of coats of Mod Podge.  Let the Mod Podge dry and the set is ready to go!

The post Tutorial: Manicure Gift Set appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

You don’t need to be an artist to paint cute nail art!  With artistic nails becoming more and more popular, we’re always on the lookout for ways to make our fingers look fancy without requiring lot of time and extreme talent.  Our beauty contributor, Megan from Razberriez, is here today to show us a simple technique for making your own nail stencils, allowing you to easily add personality to your manicure.

Project estimate:

• Basecoat*, on hand or $1 and up
• Two nail polishes*, on hand or $2 and up
• Topcoat*, on hand or $1
• Wax paper or a plastic baggie, on hand
• Painters tape, on hand
• Mini Scrapbooking Punch (small enough to fit the nail), on hand or $1 and up

Total:  Free and up

*Polishes used here:  Essie Grow Stronger basecoat, Color Club “blue-ming”, OPI Black Onyx, Sally Hansen Mega Shine topcoat

To create your nail stencil, start by cutting up your plastic baggie/wax paper into even squares. Then, take your low-tack painters tape and lay it on top of the squares so that they stick together. This will prevent the mini punch from sticking to the tape.

Take your mini punch and stamp out the design you would like on the tape. To make it easier when you go to put it on your nail, use scissors to cut them into smaller pieces. You can find these mini scrapbooking punches at various craft stores, I found mine for $1 each. They usually have a fun variety of designs you can choose from, so pick your favorites!

Now that you have made your nail stencils, apply your favorite base coat to all of your nails to help prevent chipping and staining. It will also help this cute manicure stay on that much longer.

Once that has dried, paint your nails with the polish of your choice. These have to dry until they are 100% dry so that the painters tape won’t ruin the nail polish underneath when you peel it off. I recommend waiting an hour or two.

After you’ve ensured that all of your nails are dry, you can then decide which nail you would like to apply the design to. I chose my thumb because it was the largest nail. Gently peel the plastic backing off of your stencil and then carefully press it onto your nail.

Using a contrasting nail polish (I chose black), paint over the stencil with thin coats so it doesn’t bleed through. Let this dry for 1-2 minutes before peeling it off.

Peel off your nail stencil and viola! Now you have an adorable design on your nail. The stencils can be reused, but I only would reuse them if I was using the same color again. Otherwise, I would just make a bunch and cut them out at the same time.

Apply your favorite top coat and you are done! These nails are sure to impress any crowd. Have fun experimenting with designs and different shaped punches to further customize your manicure!

The post Tutorial: DIY Nail Stencil appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, our resident nail polish guru, Megan from Razberriez, checks in with a lucky four leaf clover nail design.  No matter what you wear, you will be totally unpinchable when you’re rocking these festive fingernails!   – Rhonda

Project estimate:

• Green nail polish, on hand or $1
• White nail polish, on hand or $1
• Base coat and top coat, on hand or $1 each
• Toothpick, on hand

Total:  Free and up

How to Paint Lucky Four Leaf Clover Nails

Before you begin: *Apply your base coat. This will give the nail polish something to stick to, allowing the design to last longer and preventing chipping.*

1. Apply 2 coats of your base color- I chose a kelly green color, it really helps the white clover pop. You could use anything from white, to gold, to green, to black, as long as you choose a coordinating color for the clover. Make sure to let it dry for 5-10 minutes before moving on to the next steps.
2. Begin creating the clover. Decide where you want your clover to be on your nail and how big you want it. Once you have decided, place a small dot on your nail where the center of your clover will be. This will act as a reference point.
3. Add the leaves! For this, you can use the tip of a pen, the actual polish brush, the end of a paint brush, a bobby pin, whatever you prefer. Start by making one leaf at the bottom of the dot. Next, create the other leaves on the right, left, and top of the reference point. Just remember, the leaves don’t have to be perfectly round, they look better with a little shape to them.
4. Create the stem. You can use a toothpick for this step, take the same color you used for the clover and starting from the center point, drag the toothpick out past one of the dots and curl the end up a little.
5. Let it dry. You really want to wait a good 10 minutes before applying your top coat to prevent smudging.
6. Apply your favorite top coat. Seal in your nail design with a fast dry top coat to add shine, prevent chipping, and smooth out any uneven areas.

Megan blogs about makeup, nails, learning how to look great on a budget and keeping up with the latest styles at her site razberriez.com. She is the fingernail fashion contributor for Dollar Store Crafts.

The post Tutorial: Lucky Four Leaf Clover Nail Polish appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Water Marbled Nails

by Megan, www.razberriez.com

The Water Marbling technique is a fun nail art project that makes it look like you spent big bucks at the salon, but can actually be achieved at home using inexpensive nail polishes. When you first try this technique I recommend experimenting with different color combinations to find the look that works for you. I have done this to give you an example of how a change of color can really affect the look – each nail pictured here has a different color combination so you can see what I mean.

What you will need to create Marbled Nails:

• Base Coat (CND Stickey)
• White nail polish ( Sally Hansen’s White on)
• 2 colors of your choice ( Listed throughout post )
• Top Coat (Orly Sec n’ Dry)
• Cup full of room  temperature water.
• Orange wood stick / toothpick
• Tape
• Remover and cotton swabs

How to create Marbled Nails:

1. Apply your base coat and white polish – Start things off by applying one thin coat of your favorite base coat. I used CND Stickey, as it really grabs the polish and prevents staining. After that has dried, take your white polish and apply 2 coats. By doing this, the colors you choose to do the design with, will appear more vibrant.
2. Prep your nails. Tape off the perimeter of your nails so that the polish wont seep onto your skin. I recommend taping off one nail, doing the design, and then proceeding to do the rest off your nails. It will make the process a lot easier.
3. Choose your colors – I did a different color combination on each nail, so you could see how you can create lots of looks.
   Pink nail – Sally Hansen’s White on and Jordana’s Berry Parfait.
   Blue nail – Pure Ice’s Calypso and Sally Hansen’s Gentle Blossom.
   Purple nail – OPI’s Overexposed in South Beach and white.
   Green nail – China Glaze’s Starboard and OPI Gargantuan Green Grape
4. Start dropping! Fill up a plastic cup with room temperature water and get out your orange wood stick/ toothpick. Open 2 nail polishes. Start with one color and drop a drop of polish into the cup. If you did it right, this will spread out really thin and look sheer. Quickly take your next polish and drop that into the center of the color you just dropped. Repeat until it looks like rings.
5. Work quickly. In order for the next step to work, the nail polish has to be wet. It may take a while to learn how quickly you will have to work.
6. Swirl and dip! Once you have the right amount of polish in the cup, take a clean toothpick and swirl it in the polish to create a design.  Take your taped off finger and finding a spot you like in the water, quickly lay your finger on it, and then dip it in the water so that your whole nail is submerged. The rest of the nail polish around it should be dry, so for best results, while your nail is still in the water, carefully clean the water by swirling the toothpick in it. The toothpick will collect all of the extra polish. Pull out your nail.
7. Clean up and remove tape. Peel off all of the tape on your finger and using a cotton swab and remover, clean up the edges.
8. Top Coat! After allowing your nail to dry for about 4 minutes, apply your favorite top coat and repeat on the rest of your nails.

The Water Marble technique did take a little practice to get the timing right the first few times, but the compliments you will receive on your nails make it totally worth it!

The post Tutorial: Marbled Nail Polish appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

We recently had a guest post from Megan at Razberriez demonstrating how to paint easy, adorable flowers on your fingernails.  We’re very happy to have Megan here with us again today, this time talking about another simple nail design:  zebra stripes!  Stay tuned as well for more nail designs yet to come!

How to Create Zebra Striped Nails

by Megan at www.razberriez.com

Thinking of going to the salon and getting a fancy zebra stripe design done on your nails? Save your cash, use your own polish and follow a few simple steps to make your own nail design statement. It really is very simple and looks great on your nails. You can find many different colors of nail polish at the dollar store, and some brands at the drug store that sell for around $1 a bottle.

What you will need (with what I used in parentheses):

• Base Coat (CND Stickey)
• Nail Polish (OPI Flower to Flower)
• Thin tip black striper polish (Art Club’s 02 Black)
• Top Coat (Sally Hansen Mega Shine)

How To:

1. Apply your favorite base coat – Any nail strengthener, base coat, or treatment will help your nail polish last longer and prevent chipping. It will also create a barrier between your nail and the nail polish which your keep your nails from getting stained.
2. Choose a fun nail polish – The great thing about zebra stripes is they will show up on almost any color. For example, black will show up on light colors, as white will show up on dark. Depending on what base color you choose will determine if you should use black or white for the stripes.  I used a bubblegum pink color with silver shimmer, but any color will work. Turquoise looks fabulous with black stripes, too.
3. Create your zebra stripes –  Now time for the fun part. This is where the thin brush of your striper polish will come in handy. For the stripe, start at the outermost edge of your nail and lay the tip of the brush at an angle. The trick is to apply the most pressure at the edge and “swoop” it into the center of your nail. It is like a normal stripe, just don’t go all the way across. Apply more pressure at the beginning of the stripe and less pressure as you reach the center of your nail. It should be thick, then thin. If it isn’t perfect, don’t worry, because zebra stripes aren’t perfect. Alternate from the left side to the right side down your nail. To add a fun effect, use a silver thin glitter polish and accent the black by making a small stripe under each stripe.
4. Finish it off with a top coat – Before you do apply the top coat make sure your nails are very dry. If you do it while they are wet, it will smear the stripes. Once your nails are very dry apply a thick coat of your top coat and ta-da! All done!  You have created beautiful zebra stripes.

See, that wasn’t that hard. With a little practice and some creativity, the zebra strip design will quickly become a go-to design and will save you a lot of nail salon dollars.

The post Simple Nail Tutorial: Zebra Stripes appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

A couple weeks ago, I featured Megan’s Newspaper Nails tutorial, a simple nail design idea using a transferred image from newspaper. You really enjoyed the idea, so I invited Megan to create another tutorial exclusively for Dollar Store Crafts! Today she’s going to teach us how to make a simple flower fingernail. You can often find nail polish supplies at the dollar store, from nail files and emery boards to nail polish and top coats.

Flower Nail Polish Tutorial

by Megan at www.razberriez.com

A simple flower is a very popular design when you got to the nail salon, but did you know you can easily make a flower design on your nails yourself? It’s quick, easy and looks great!

You will need the following:

• Base coat ( I used CND Stickey )
• Nail polish of your choice ( Essie’s Exotic )
• White nail polish ( Art Club 01 White )
• Top Coat ( Sally Hansen Mega Shine )
• Bobby Pin
• Toothpick
• Scrap piece of paper
• Silver glitter polish or rhinestone

How to make the flower:

1. Apply a base coat – This step is crucial to ensure that your nail polish won’t chip, stain your nails, or peel off when its dry. For best results, apply a thin and even coat. Allow to dry for 2 minutes.
2. Choose a nail polish. Any nail polish will work for this design, as long as white is able to show up on it. I used a raspberry pink color, which I have found makes the flower really pop.  Blues, greens, pinks, and purples would look exceptionally good with this design.
3. Drop a small amount of nail polish onto the piece of scrap paper. This step is pretty self-explanatory.Start off by using a small piece of scrap paper and simply drop a pea sized amount of white nail polish onto the paper.
4. Begin the design. As you can see from the pictures, I used the end of a bobby pin to create the 4 dots. I started by dipping the round end of the bobby pin, into the white. I then, made a small dot on the left side of my nail. Dip the pin back into the white, and repeat, this time make a dot right across from the previous one, then one underneath, and one beside it.Make sure to evenly space the dots.  When your done doing this, it should almost look like a square.
5. Create the flower. Anything from a toothpick, to a pin, to a ballpoint pen will work for this step. Once the dots have gotten slightly tacky ( 10-15 seconds ), put the tip of the toothpick into the center of your first dot, and carefully drag it into the middle of the 4 dots. Repeat with the other 3 dots until you have created what looks like a flower.
6. Add a decorative center. I used a small rhinestone for this step, but silver glitter polish or another color will work also. If you are using a rhinestone, dab a little bit of topcoat into the center and place the rhinestone down. Otherwise, just dab your glitter into the middle of your flower.
7. Use a topcoat. To finish off the design, apply your favorite topcoat. This will help seal in the design and prevent the rhinestone from coming off.

Get creative! Add a stem or leaf with a little green polish or try double loading your dotting tool with two shades for a cool effect!

The post Simple Nail Design: Flower Tutorial appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.