For a long time, I’ve been wanting to create Strawberry Nails. Not only am I a huge fan of the fruit, but I am a child of the 80s and was in love with Strawberry Shortcake!
Then on Tuesday, I came across an absolutely adorable strawberry manicure on one of my favorite nail blogs ever – Steph’s Closet! (Steph is a real sweetheart & I’ve followed her blog for years.)
She makes everything look easy, and she is the Queen of Polka Dots…hehe! (Check out the link to her strawberry nail post at the bottom of mine. If you stop by, tell her that Mary sent ya!)
For these strawberry nails, I wasn’t sure which pink polish to use. But then the Nail Polish God spoke: China Glaze Strawberry Fields! (I love it when lacquer makes the choice obvious for me…hehe!)
Then, for the dots and leaves, I used a mixture of OPI, Zoya, and Konad polishes.
Further along in this post, I’ve included a tutorial with step-by-step instructions and photos in case you want to put your own spin on this.
I’m having a lot of fun doing fruit nail art. What do you think of my strawberry nails? Would you like to see me attempt other fruit-inspired manicures? I’d love to try more!
Strawberry Nail Art Pictures
All swatches have:
- 1 coat of Nail Tek Foundation II Base Coat
- 3 coats of China Glaze Strawberry Fields
- Dots
- OPI Need Sunglasses? (Yellow)
- OPI Alpine Snow (White)
- Leaves
- Konad Special Nail Polish (Dark Green)
- Zoya Midori (Shimmery Green)
- 1 coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
Natural Light
Natural Light
Natural Light
Natural Light
Natural Light
Natural Light
Natural Light
Flash
*~* Strawberry Nail Tutorial *~*
What I Used:
- Nail Tek Foundation II Base Coat
- Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
- OPI Alpine Snow
- Zoya Midori
- China Glaze Strawberry Fields
- OPI Need Sunglasses?
- Konad Special Nail Polish (Green)
- Dotting tool
- Nail art brush
- Small piece of foil
Step 1: Get all your supplies ready
Unscrew the caps for all the bottles so that when your nails are wet, you won’t be struggling to open them.
Step 2: Paint your nails the base color of the strawberry
You could go with red, but I went with a glass-flecked pink polish that had gold shimmer. Previously when I did Watermelon Nail Art, I used red and for some reason, the result reminded me of Christmas. To avoid that this time, I went with pink. Plus with a polish name like Strawberry Fields, the pink from China Glaze was just begging to be used for this!
Quickie China Glaze Strawberry Fields Review:
Since this is a pink jelly polish, opacity is an issue. Jelly polishes usually still show visible nail line unless you layer them over another color or if you apply thicker and more coats. (I used 3 thin coats. It didn’t really bother me that there’s Visible Nail Line showing because I knew that I’d put on dots, which would distract from the VNL.)
Strawberry Fields has this awesome gold glassfleck that really catches the light and brings some magic to a pink polish that I would otherwise not look twice at. (I’m not really a pink-polish-wearing person, but I love this one.)
Step 3: Paint the green leaves
Wait a few minutes until your base strawberry color is a little dry before continuing with the leaves.
Take a small piece of tin foil. You’ll use this as a makeshift palette. Put a few drops of your base green polish onto the tin foil. I prefer to do this instead of dipping right into the nail-polish bottle because the tin-foil method wastes less polish and is less messy.
Using a nail-art brush, draw four lines – two that curve along your cuticle and two between them. Here I used the Konad Special Nail Polish in Green because I figured that since it’s formulated for nail stamping, it has the most opacity. If I could go back, I wouldn’t use it. It’s thick and hard to paint details with. You could get a smoother and easier application with enough pigmentation if you use a regular green polish that you already have in your stash.
Step 4: Give the green leaves more dimension
Add a few drops of lighter-green polish onto the piece of foil. After waiting a few minutes for the green leaves to dry, you’ll want to highlight them with this lighter green polish.
I went with a shimmery green with a bit of gold (Zoya Midori) that would not only contrast with the creme green, but that would go with the gold flecks in China Glaze Strawberry Fields.
Step 5: Add the seeds
Add a few drops of yellow nail polish onto your piece of tin foil.
Using a dotting tool, toothpick, pen cap, nail-art brush, or whatever else you have handy, add the dots randomly to fill up the space.
Since OPI Need Sunglasses? wasn’t fully opaque or bright with one coat, I actually went over the seeds twice to achieve this look. Lots of yellow polishes aren’t opaque in a single coat, so you may want to test yours first to see what will work…unless you want to spend time to do two coats like I did.
Step 6: Highlight the seeds
Initially I was going to just have yellow seeds like what Steph had (because hers looks amazing), but I guess the yellow I chose was wonky with the pink because it reminded me more of a diseased strawberry. 🙁
So…I decided to correct it by highlighting the seeds in the same fashion I highlighted the leaves – with a lighter color. This time, I enlisted the help of the ever-versatile OPI Alpine Snow and went to town with my dotting tool. Now the dots remind me of eggs! (I can’t win! Haha! Maybe I should do Egg Nail Art and it’ll turn out looking like strawberries…)
You can probably skip this step if you start off right away with the seed color you want.
Step 7: Add Top Coat
You’ll want to wait a good 10-15 minutes after Step 6 before you slick on a top coat to protect all your hard work. This will hopefully avoid smudging.
Step 8: Shake Hands with Someone Who’s Allergic to Strawberries
I have a twisted sense of humor. Hey, at least this is a strawberry that they’ll hopefully be able to enjoy without negative repercussions! 🙂
Despite the dotting hiccup, I’m quite pleased with how my strawberry nails turned out. I’d like to thank Steph from Steph’s Closet for the wonderful inspiration! (If you’d like to see her original version, click here.)
What do you think of my strawberry manicure? Would you ever try it? What other fruit-inspired nail art would you like me to try?
Check Out Other Food-Related Nail Art I’ve Done:
So cute 🙂 Great tut!
thenailaholic recently posted: FOTM: China Glaze 108 Degrees
Thanks! Glad you liked it! Do you think you’ll try it out sometime?
This came out soooooo cute! Fabulous job!!! 🙂
Maribeth recently posted: Nail Polish of the Day: Essie Fiji (pictures and review)
🙂 Thank you, Maribeth! I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, but Steph’s instructions are wonderful. I was so inspired by hers that I knew I had to try it and then put my own little spin on it.
I’ve got some more nail art coming up soon, so keep your eyes peeled for it. 🙂
OMG Mary these look absolutely fantastic! I love love love these, even more (dare I say it?) than the watermelon nails! And I absolutely LOVE how you did the seeds!! SO cute! 😀
Ruthe recently posted: Sephora by OPI Caribbean Cocktail
Thanks so much, Ruthe! 😀
I like them a lot better than the watermelon nails I did, too…probably because these aren’t quite as sloppy! 😛 Maybe sometimes in the future I’ll re-attempt those watermelon nails or do a variation on it.
So glad to hear that you liked how I did the seeds. It’s funny because I screwed them up at first by painting them the wrong shade of yellow. Had to ‘fix’ them by putting white on top!
You should totally try this – I think you’d do an awesome job. And yours will turn out better! *Cheerleader pep talk* *Rah rah rah* I wanna see this on your nails! Hehehe! Do you think you’ll try it? (No pressure… :P)
I’m DEFINITELY going to try these! I’ll have to wait until I get into a pink/red/nail art mood though, lol ;).
Ruthe recently posted: Sephora by OPI Caribbean Cocktail
Can’t wait to see yours!
Or…even if you aren’t in a pink/red/nail-art mood, maybe you could do blue/blackish ones and make them look like blackberries instead! Hmm…ideas, ideas!
I love these! They’re so cute and perfectly done. Great job! I really need to get my hands on a bottle of Strawberry Fields. It’s so pretty.
Thanks, Melissa! 😀
It was my first time trying strawberry nail art, so I was pleased with how they turned out.
Yes, China Glaze Strawberry Fields is gorgeous and sparkles wildly in the sun. The only thing is that it takes more than 2 coats to hide the visible nail line. The collection it came from is absolutely gorgeous – bought the entire set when it came out! Watermelon Rind is another beauty from that collection.
I have Watermelon Rind! I have yet to wear it, but it’s such a pretty color in the bottle. I think I’m going to be wearing it pretty soon since it’s summer. Grape Juice is another pretty color from that collection that I want to get in the future.
Oh yes, you should definitely wear it. It’s so pretty, but just takes about 3 coats to achieve full opacity. And Grape Juice is pretty, too. I love that entire collection. Who doesn’t love glass-fleck polishes especially when they’re done expertly like China Glaze always does?! 😀
Thanks so much for the link, darlin! Oh my gosh, those are incredibly cute, esp for a first try!! You go girl! It took me at least 10 tries to get it right, LOL! Watermelon nails are sooo next on my list 🙂
Steph recently posted: Nail Art Tutorial: Red Strawberry Nails
OMG – Steph from Steph’s Closet? 😀
You just made my day by commenting on this. You were my inspiration for this manicure, and your instructions were so easy to follow. I love your blog! I still think you have cute-as-a-button nails! 🙂
No matter how many tries it took you, it was worth it because yours turned out beautifully! And I can’t wait to see your watermelon nails! I’ve tried it (without having the correct tools…haha), and am not completely satisfied with how they turned out. I’m excited to see how yours turn out. I would attempt them again after seeing yours for sure!
these came out SO cute! and you did a great job on the tutorial too! 😀 i’m def giving it a try for my next manicure 🙂
Hey Rini!
Thank you – I had to really focus to get these to turn out like this. It also helped that Steph’s Closet has great instructions.
And I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the tutorial! I would love to see your try at it. If you take photos, please show me. I love how everyone can follow the same instructions, but each manicure is totally unique! Creativity inspires me more than anything, and nail art is a wonderful form of self-expression.
Hey Mary! I just wanted to let you know that I tried the strawberry nails 🙂 I linked to your post on my blog, you can read it here:
http://alltheprettypolish.blogspot.com/2011/07/strawberry-accent-nails.html
Thanks again for the inspiration! 😀
Rini recently posted: Strawberry Accent Nails
Hey Rini!
I love how your strawberry accent nails turned out! Thank you soooooo much for sharing them with me and for linking back! 🙂 I’m so flattered. And it’s a glowing testament to Steph’s Closet and her instructions! She inspired me and then I inspired you. I love this wonderful chain of inspiration! Let’s keep it going!
Awesome nails! I must begin being more adventurous with mine! Need a thin bush and away I’ll try to go!
Hey Sharlynn!
Thank you! 😀 It’s so rewarding to try something new/challenging, especially with nail designs. When you look down at your nails, it’s so worth all the hard work. Makes me smile. 🙂
You should come back and show me how your turn out when you try it. I would love to see your creativity!
Do you have an easy patriotic design? Labor day is coming up so I’d like to try my hand at art. Though I really should master just painting neatly first
Hey Paula!
I’m Canadian, and the only ‘patriotic’ design I’ve done is just alternating red and white shatter polishes in a manicure: http://www.swatchandlearn.com/canada-day-nails-using-opi-red-shatter-opi-white-shatter-opi-alpine-snow-nubar-sensual-red-review-swatches/
But Fiona has done some flag nail art before. (Canadian: http://www.swatchandlearn.com/nail-art-canadian-flag-nails-tutorial/ and American: http://www.swatchandlearn.com/nail-art-patriotic-american-flag-nail-art-tutorial/)
If you can come up with another design, I’d love for you to show me your finished manicure! 😀
nice nail art i love ut 😉
Hey aira lapating!
Thank you for being so supportive of me and my designs! 😀
Mary,
I am a brandie-new nailphile and wanted to let you know that you are one of THE TOP bestest bloggers/sharers of all things nail, color & beauty. Being new, needing to soak up facts/ information; I have found your site way most helpful with your detailed reviews in addition to the pictures. But, also equally important to me has been your very friendly and fun writing…and your genuine appreciation for your readers. It has inspired me not only with my nails, but also to go a step further and comment. At my current place in life, not only is my “nail therapy” needed, but so is a network beyond my life of doctors & hospitals…so a GIANT thank you to you!
This post, the tutorial for your strawberry nails was the first post that got me excited about expressing myself thru nail art. I have a polish order on its way that gives me the colors to do this one, I am so excited. And, incidentally, you posted this on my Bday…so it was meant for me to see. 🙂
Thanks again from a new and true fan!
Hey Kim!
YAY for being new to the nail scene! 😀 You can never have too many polishes…haha! (That’ll probably become your new mantra, too.) 😉
Your high praise is making me blush. You have no idea how wonderful your comment makes me feel. Seriously! I put a lot of time and hard work into this blog because my readers are truly the best! I’m so very grateful because my readers have helped me make Swatch And Learn what it is today.
Thank you for taking the time to leave me a comment. I really enjoy reading what my readers have to say. 😀
I hope that you’ll stick around and comment again in the near future. I’m looking forward to interacting more with you!