diy nail stickers | Craftynail

Merry Christmas everyone! And if you don’t celebrate Christmas then I wish your day is filled with plenty of good food, family, friends and love! ♥

This manicure is my entry for December’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup. The theme this week is FESTIVE FRENCH MANI and I’m realizing how seldom I wear French manicures!! I free-handed the white tips using a skinny brush and cheap NYC brand nail polish called French White Tip. I could’ve used tape or nail guide stickers, but sometimes that feels like a hassle to me. I did a light coat of a Seche Vite French Manicure color called Chic over top too. This may be my favorite French mani color ever! It’s very transparent but one one coat does the trick. It looks so sheer and natural and it has the slightest shimmer in it which is not even noticeable, but it keeps the nail from looking dull or flat!

I’m happy with my finished frenchie, especially since I painted the white tip a little high to create an illusion that my nails are longer than they actually are. It’s all smoke and mirrors, girls! lol

Now how did I do the little holly design? That’s actually a diy decal that I made last week. I stamped the holly design onto a plastic baggie using black nail polish and my MoYou Festive 03 stamping plate. Then I used some green nail polish to paint over and fill in the holly leaves. I topped that with a few swipes of topcoat and let it dry well. The hollies peeled off the baggie like perfect little stickers. Then I used some tiny scissors –you know those teensy cuticle trimmer scissors that we all have but never use? They are perfect for cutting up decals! I trimmed my holly bunches from three leaves down to two so they’d become smaller to fit better on my nails. I laid the decal on my accent fingernail, dotted some clear polish on top to secure a few red rhinestones, then I topcoated the whole thing. Here’s a shot of both hands…

These Christmas nails are a bit tamer than my usual style! I felt a little bare wearing such a simple french manicure. But don’t worry, I’ve already blinged them up by adding holo glitter that santa left in my stocking. If you give me nail polish, I will be using it as soon as humanly possible. 🙂

WHAT DID YOU WEAR ON YOUR NAILS FOR CHRISTMAS?? Did you go simple like me, or did you wow everyone with your major cray cray nails?

Warm wishes to you and yours- from the bottom of my heart! Talk soon, Craftynail xo

N.A.I.L. Dec Theme 4 – Festive French Manis

The final week of August’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL) challenge is A GREAT READ. If you’d like to do a manicure for this theme here’s more info and you can submit your design up until Sept. 1st! Oh, and did you vote for last week’s NAIL Genius yet? Everyone gets three votes! Cast yours now!

A Great Read? Well, my most recent favorite book is from the Hunger Games trilogy. It’s book #2 called Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. It usually takes me a few months to finish a book. But not this one- I whipped right through it (just like with the Hunger Games)! After I finished book 2 I started book 3, but I stopped. Duh, right?! I dunno, sometimes I like to wait to read a book ’til RIGHT before I see the movie. It’s fun to have it fresh in my head when I go to the theater. But that’s kinda dumb- I should go read Mockingjay like right now!!!!

I started this manicure the night before by preparing DIY nail stickers. I’ve never made my own decals before- but I’ve been itching to try them and they’re perfect for a night when you wanna play with nail art but don’t wanna do an entire manicure from start to finish! It turns out that these DIY nail decals were a lot of fun and they applied so much better than I expected! Here’s how I did it…

I taped a plastic snack baggie to a heavy piece of cardstock so the bag wouldn’t move around too much. Then I painted some mockingjay emblems on the baggie using a detail brush and cheap black nail polish. I also tried gold, but that didn’t work well as you can see (there’s wiped-up gold smudges in the above picture). Anyway, when I was done painting my mockingjay symbols, then I painted over top of them with enough clear topcoat to cover the design and maybe a little extra around the corners. I let it dry overnight. The next day I was afraid they’d stick… but instead, my stickers lifted right off the baggy. They peeled right off without a hitch! Then I cut them with scissors a little bit ’til they looked like they’d fit my nails well.

Once I had my nails all clean and bare, I was ready to paint them and test out my diy stickers. I used one coat of Nail Envy and then three coats of L.A. Girl 3D Effects Nail Polish in Electric Coral. When my thumbs were still tacky I placed my stickers on top of my orange polish. Because my stickers were big they felt kinda wrinkly when I tried to wrap them around my large curved thumbnails. But after a couple minutes they seemed smoother somehow. Go figure?! Then I covered them with a coat of seche vite and they looked so nice & shiny. WIN! For my other 8 nails- I stamped a flame design using Cheeky 52 plate (it only seemed right given the name of the book- Catching Fire). I think they look wicked.