Spring has sprung! Or is that just our nails? Regardless, we're getting in to the season by sporting some bright and pastel stripes on our fingertips. For this look we used a variety of brands and colours, but the fun of this mani is mixing and matching! Gather a bunch of your favourite polishes and go with the flow. We used striping tape, available here, to create the straight edges for our lines - but you could just as easily use a thin paint brush available at your local craft store.

We started with OPI's Alpine Snow for our base, a classic white with great coverage. We used Seche Vite top coat and let that dry for about 10 minutes, to ensure the striping tape didn't strip the white polish. Then we applied striping tape at different intervals to achieve the bands of different thickness. We used a few of our favourite colours, examples above, to paint within the boundaries of the striping tape. Alternating the order of your colours on each nail makes this mani even more playful, we tried to keep each nail different! Then, after a few minutes drying time, we carefully peeled off the striping tape and finished with a second coat of top coat! Voila, stripes for spring!

Striped Pink Ombre Nails

Completed Striped Ombre Nails.

Why we love them:

What girl doesn't love pink? Scratch that, what girl doesn't love every shade of her favourite colour? These nails can be reproduced with any colour, as well as with vertical or diagonal stripes, instead of horizontal. With so many different options, these nails are completely customizable... and we love being unique! These beauties look good with a little black dress and heels in the same shade!

What you need:

• 5+ shades of any one colour, organized by shade
• Scotch Tape
• Nail Art Brush (buy it in a set here)
• Base Coat and Top Coat (we used Essie, buy the top coat here, and base coat here)

What to do:

1. Start with clean, dry nails. Paint each nail with base coat.
2. Place the tape very close to the base of the nail but leave room for one colour. Paint with the darkest shade.
3. Repeating that step slowly moving the tape farther down the nail and changing the colour for each stripe. Try to keep the space between your last colour and the tape constant, for a cleaner look!
4. Once the whole nail is completed, fix up any mistakes with a nail art brush.
5. Paint on top coat after ensuring your nails are dry, and allow to dry!

Close-up striped pink ombre nails.

Nautical Heart Nails

Completed Nautical Heart Nails.

Why we love them:

We love the look of these striped heart nails! If you like the look of striped nails why not play with it and add this fun little heart in the corner? :)

What you need:

• Nail Art Brush (buy it in a set here)
• White (we used OPI Alpine Snow, buy it here)
• Black (we used Essie Licorice, buy it here)
• Red (we used Nails Inc. The Hurlingham, buy it here)
• Base Coat and Top Coat (we used Essie, buy the top coat here, and base coat here)

What to do:

1. Start with clean, dry nails. Paint each nail with base coat.
2. Paint all nails white. Two coats may be required.
3. With the nail art brush, paint two or three thick black lines depending on how long your nail is. Two coats may be required.
4. With the Dotter Pen, dot and shape a red heart on the bottom corner of your nail, left or right is up to you (opposite on either hand looks nice).
5. Paint on top coat after ensuring your nails are dry, and allow to dry!

Single Nautical Heart Nail.