Nail Designs part 1

Seriously. If you have spent the last 10 years, or 10 months simply painting your nails you are missing out, or worse, if you can only afford a professionally designed look for your nails twice a year you are not rewarding yourself. Discover how to do your own designs whenever you want in the comfort of your own home.

Showing off simple nail designs is no longer confined to the first few days after dropping $50 for a manicure (hoping they don't chip before you can show both your friends as well as total strangers). You should be creating your own designs at home - not only are they cheaper, but you can achieve some very creative and unique looks that last just as long as salon designs - without spending your weekly allowance.

Two tone nail polish treatments - basically doing your nails half one color, and half another color. Fairly easy to do and can create some very abstract patterns, but be careful in terms of having a steady hand in getting the lines right.

Adding a shattered affect to your nails with Crackle Nail Polish. Easy, and creates totally unique designs, especially with the almost-infinite variety of color combinations between the solid base coat and the top crackle polish.

Doing your fingers one color, and your thumb a different color [an alternative is having your pinky finger be a different color instead, or your thumbnail]. This is tricky, as if the colors don't complement each other well it simply looks like you started a nail polish job and got bored half way through!

Drawing designs like flowers, ladybugs, stars, etc. This is truly easy to do and involves using a toothpick as your brush and your nails as the canvass. The problem is if you aren't careful the flower design you just completed may look too similar to some others you see around town.

Magnetic nails - this is the latest, somewhat high tech trend, and is pretty easy and creates very unique designs using special magnetic nail polish and what looks like stamps - but are magnets that arrange the metal particles in the nail around a design.

Nail art pens - these are fun, and are like drawing on your nails with markers [except these have nail polish in them!]. I personally like doing abstract patters and swirls on my nails with these as it doesn't require the same level of precision as trying to draw a picture.

Nail stickers - special "tiny" stickers that will adhere to a properly applied polish or nail, and not run or otherwise get distorted when coated with a clear nail polish. Kind of messy if they get scratched or torn and then have to be taken off, but this can be a quick design that doesn't take a lot of time.