Opinions on Valentine’s Day range from it being a holiday invented by the consumerist machine to the perfect opportunity to score some chocolates. Problematic connotations of the holiday aside, for me it’s a great opportunity for some Valentine’s Day nail art.

For this design you will need a base coat, nude polish, red polish, gold polish, a nailart stamping kit, and a nailart brush.

Start out with a base coat, then apply one coat of nude nail polish. Mine is Nude from elf cosmetics ($2 per bottle of nail polish!).

Next, let your nails dry for a few moments before reaching for your nail art stamping kit. I came across my nail art stamping kit while I was ambushed by a Konad booth lady at a mall. I was a naïve college student, and she convinced me to pay $20 for a nail art stamper and scraper and a single stamp image plate. I fell for her salesperson enthusiasm and later regretted it when I realized I could have bought 21 Bundle Monster image plates for the same price (and then, of course, I proceeded to buy said 21-piece set). Since I’m going for a Valentine’s Day design, I chose the bottom right design for the hearts:

Not quite a Valentine’s Day-specific design, but with the colors I chose it has a Queen of Hearts vibe to it. I used red nail polish to stamp the design on most of my nails, then used gold polish to stamp on my index finger (since I like having an accent nail that is different from the rest). If you are not sure how to use a nailart stamping kit, this video is a great tutorial.

I used CND’s Fireberry for the red and Icing’s Golden Child for the gold. You’ll notice that the design does not cover my entire nail. That’s okay, because the next step is to partially cover the design with red polish on the red nails and gold polish on the gold nail. I mainly swooped polish diagonally across the nail, but in the middle finger I went for a half moon.

To pull the design together I bordered the swoops over the red nails with gold polish and the gold nail with red polish using my thin nailart brush. I got my brush as part of a 20-piece brush kit from Bundle Monster, and at $15 it was a pretty good deal. The borders let you make the edges of your swoops look cleaner.

When you’re done, apply a topcoat, clean up any polish around your nails, and ta-da! My favorite part of this design is that by simply swapping the colors and the stamp, it can be adapted to any occasion. So even if you’re not a fan of Valentine’s Day you can still try it out! Or if you feel that wearing the design on all 10 nails is too much, you can wear it on a single accent nail.

What do you think of this Valentine’s Day nail art? Any requests for future tutorials? Leave me a comment below!

Written by Sully Moreno