Nails are a girl’s best friend. Make them look longer and gorgeous with these 9 DIY nail art tips for short nails.
1. French Tip Manicure
Keep your mani looking fresh by creating a white tip french manicure, making the nails look longer. Layer a sheer white polish over your natural nails and let them dry completely. Draw the line at the bottom of each nail to create a neat base for the rest of the design, then paint on two coats of white polish onto just the tips before letting that dry too. Once everything is set, layer another coat of sheer nude over-top to blend in with your skin tone and add extra shine!
2. Nude Polish
If you like nude nails, this is the way to go! Paint your entire nail with a nude polish and for extra oomph, add tiny studs at the base of each coat. If you don’t own any jeweled accessories, no worries – you can create your very own baubles using regular household items like bobby pins and cotton balls. Just be sure to let everything dry before allowing your digits to make contact with anything!
3. Glitter French Manicure
This year’s hottest holiday manicure has to be the glitter french manicure! Get in on all the action by simply adding tiny pearlescent glitters onto just your tips using a toothpick or scotch tape. Seal your design with a topcoat, and you’re done!
4. Bows & Pearls
Who knew bows could be so pretty? This year, give them a hip twist by adding pink glittery bows at the base of each nail bed after applying your base polish. Then finish it all off by placing milky pearls right above the bubble for an ultra-glamorous look.
5. Starry Night Nails
If you’re looking for something funky to wear this holiday season, try out these starry night nails! All you have to do is paint your nails white, then draw on little stars using blue or silver holographic powder mixed with clear polish or shellac. Finish it all off by sealing the deal with a top coat to keep everything intact.
6. Green Nails
If you’re looking for ways to jazz up your manicure, try these green nails! Paint your base coat with any shade of green and once it’s dry, create tiny leaves using tape and paint them onto the tips of each nail using lime green or red polish. If you want an even more detailed design, make little stems out of thin-line tape and do precisely the same thing! Finish it all off by sealing your design with a topcoat.
7. Ink Painting
This is one technique that requires patience and skill, but if you can pull it off, the result will be nothing short of amazing! All you have to do is use a tiny paintbrush to brush on black nail polish over your natural nails. Once the paint is dry, use an orange stick to create geometric dots at random spots across each pin. Then finish it all off by covering up everything with two coats of topcoat!
8. Dragonfly Design
Who said you couldn’t play around with animal prints? You don’t need special tools or acrylic paints – all you need are tiny pieces of scotch tape and a toothpick to recreate this amazingly cool dragonfly design! Depending on how artistic you want to get, take different sized pieces of tape and tape them onto your nails like wings before drawing outlines around them using a thin-line pen. Now go ahead and paint in between the branches and let everything dry!
9. Cut-Out French Manicure
This is the easiest (and cheapest) way to hide chipped nails – all you need are some nail polish shades of your choosing, and a scotch tape cut into tiny pieces. Just paint each nail with whatever color tickles your fancy and apply multiple layers until it’s nice and opaque, then cover up any imperfections using tiny pieces of scotch tape. Once the base is done, draw on horizontal lines using a thin-line marker before sealing everything in place with a top coat!
First and foremost, it is essential to consider the types of art that can be done on short nails. Most of the designs you see in magazines or online can generally only be created using tools such as dotting tools, toothpicks, and brushes (that’s what those tiny hairs are for).
What nail is the art most suited to short nails?
These manicures look lovely in all lengths, especially on shorties. “If you have short nails, consider centering the design towards the cuticle try a half-moon or a negative-space effect.”
Extra tips for nail design:
Although tools may seem like some you don’t have lying about the house, I assure you I didn’t. My secret? A simple old sewing needle! I had managed to lose my dotting tool and found it incredibly difficult to make a straight line on my nail without one. So I sat thinking and came up with the idea of using a sewing needle instead! It worked brilliantly, and now I use it all the time.
Another great secret I discovered was that you could create the same effects with just a toothpick. Sometimes it’s not always easy to use long thin objects in your home, but everyone has a toothpick in their house!
You can also try using different sized dotting tools to vary the pattern you make. Don’t feel limited by what you have in your household. Think outside the box and get creative!
