I’m about to reveal something that may blow your mind…  Here it is: Nail art is not really that hard.  Anyone can make their own nails look really awesome if they know a few tricks, and have the right tools.  Now, before I go any further, there are people out there doing nail art that actually have real artistic ability (do a search for Robin Moses Nail Art some time), and those people are in an awesome class of their own, but I’m not talking about those people right now.   I’m talking about regular people with very average drawing and painting skills.  I’m one of those regular people.

You will have a whole new, wonderful world of nail art open up in front of you if you can acquire just a few inexpensive tools.  Here’s my collection of tools:

On the left are my dotting tools.  “What the heck is a dotting tool” you ask?  It’s pretty much a handle with a little round metal nub at the end that you can dip into polish or paint and then make perfectly round dots on your nails.  And don’t underestimate the versatility of dots.  You can do a ton of designs with just dots.  Five dots arranged in a circle with a different colored dot in the center is a flower.  Seriously Dots are great.

The first dotting tools I ever got were the three in the middle with the wooden handles.  I got them at Michael’s.  I’m pretty sure you could find something similar at just about any craft store.  After that I got the 5 pretty dotting tools with the plastic colored handles.  I’ve seen that set in beauty stores for over $10, but you can get them on Amazon for under $3.  That’s right, the whole set of 5 tools for under $3.  Just go to Amazon and search for “nail art dotting tools” and you’ll find a bunch of them listed.

Just to the right of my dotting tools is a little multi-functional little guy.  It’s got a dotting tool on one end, and an angled handle with a little brush on the other end.  I got that at Sally Beauty Supply for around $4.  I really like it and used it a lot when I first got it.  Ultimately, I wanted a brush that was just a little smaller so that I could be a little more detailed in my designs.  That first led me to the purple handled brush on the far right