4th of July American Flag Nails
This is my second (and probably last) Independence Day themed mani for the year. I went with a classic American flag stars and stripes look. I created this look with gel polish and stamping. This simple mani actually took several steps and a few layers of top coat. :) I find that I get the best results when I apply stamps and tape to a layer of top coat that’s been wiped clean of the tackiness, rather than trying to apply them directly onto the gel color. The steps that I took to achieve this mani are listed below. You can see my other 4th of July nail art here.
Steps: (note that I cure after each coat of gel polish or TIO)
- Normal prep & foundation layer application.
- Applied a white base using two coats of Gelish Arctic Freeze.
- Applied a very thin coat of Gelish TIO over the white, cured and wiped the tacky layer.
- Used a piece of packing tape to block off half of the nail and I painted the exposed half blue using Gelish Mali-Blu Me Away (this has been my go-to color this summer!).
- Pulled off the tape, and then applied another thin coat of TIO, wiped and cured.
- Next I applied another piece of tape over the blue section of the nails, leaving the white exposed.
- The red stripes were then stamped onto the white area using Cheeky plate CH10 and Mundo de Unas red stamping polish (#9).
- Applied another thin layer of TIO, cured and wiped.
- I applied another piece of tape, this time covering the red stripes.
- The white stars were stamped onto the blue using Cheeky plate CH4 and Mundo de Unas white stamping polish.
- And finally – a last layer of TIO was applied.
I know it sounds like my nails would be really thick with all of the layers, but I use VERY thin layers so they’re not that thick – but they are strong! :) When I go to remove this mani I will just be sure to use a nail file to break through all of the layers of TIO before soaking.
Love this! Thanks for the details on how you do it!
Love to see the stamping / gel color combos. Your blog inspires me! I just tried the acrygel technique :)
Looks Awesome! I just tried doing a stars and strips manicure myself, but when I stamped on the white strips and stars the white stamping polish wasn’t fully opaque and the stars didn’t go on very well, I had holes and some stars didn’t come of onto my nail. Do you have any suggestions on what polish to use? I used bundle monster white stamping polish. I like the bundle monster black stamping polish but there other colors seem to be thin and not fully opaque.
I just invested in a bunch of Mundo de Unas stamping polishes and they are the best ever. They’re super thick and opaque over any color :)
This looks fantastic. :) Now if they would just get those summer colors here in the Midwest!
Great design. I love it. Also, finally having success with the stamping…turns out someone turned on the ceiling fan. Made all the difference. I have ordered a few polishes from Mundo de Unas, and I am excited to try them.
Keep up the great blog!!!
Great! Yes, the air will dry the polishes out too quickly. The Mundos are awesome and actually don’t dry out as fast.
nice
Wow! these 4th of July American Flag Nails look very beautiful. I will try these cute nail designs today.
This is the prettiest 4th of July mani I have seen to date! And I actually have all the stuff to do this! Next year for sure!