You won’t catch me dressing up for holidays like the 4th of July (read: American flag printed shorts or top). For me, those ultra loud themed-prints feel strange and so dated. But I still like to feel patriotic. I decided to create a super easy patriotic nail art tutorial as a way to show my patriotism without actually looking like a flag.This manicure is really so easy to do at home. To create the look, I used a bright red and a dark navy blue polish. For the stripes, I used a nail art pen in silver. To be more accurate, I could have used white, but I honestly thought it would look like white-out, so I chose silver instead.If you’re extra artsy, you could even add little stars on some or all of the red nails. I could envision a small star at the base of the nail, or a few small stars on each of the nails. I personally wanted to keep my patriotic nail art super simple and clean-looking, which is why I chose to only include one accent nail. But the great part about this tutorial is that this patriotic manicure can be adapted to fit your style.If you want to create this easy patriotic nail art tutorial, follow these simple steps.

You Need:

Base Coat (I used this one)
Top Coat (I used this one)
Red Polish (I used this one)
Blue Polish (I chose this navy polish, but royal blue would be really pretty too!)
Silver Nail Art Pen (I used this one)

Directions:

1. Apply a base coat and let your nails dry.
2. Apply two coats of red polish to all of your nails except for your ring finger.
3. Apply two coats of navy polish to your ring fingers.
4. Wait at least 5-10 minutes to ensure all nails are dry.
5. Carefully, draw stripes on your navy blue nails. I chose three stripes, but you could easily add more or less, 6. change the thickness or direction of the stripes, it’s up to you!
7. Allow nails to dry completely and then apply a shiny top coat.

Note: If you can’t find a nail art pen, you could definitely use silver nail polish and create stripes by using tape, like I did here.

How do you show your patriotism?