Glue as a peel-off base coat and for nail art cleanup!

Have you ever tried using white glue for cleanup when painting your nails?  A few months ago I poured some Elmer’s glue into an old nail polish bottle and now I use this stuff all the time!  Isn’t the sticker I put on there cute?  Are you blue? No, I’m GLUE!  That’s what I say to myself every time I reach for this little bottle of glue that I made!

WHAT I USE GLUE FOR: Elmer’s is also called white craft glue or PVC glue and it can be applied around your nail before you start a messy nail art technique. I paint it on all around my nail and then when I’m done with my nail art I simply peel the glue off that surrounds my nail. Any stray polish that would’ve stained my fingers or cuticles just lifts right off with the dried glue… all in one big peel-y piece. It’s kinda fun to peel off and then you don’t need to use nail polish remover to cleanup around your manicure!  It was super helpful for my SUGAR SPUN MANI since all the messy strands of polish peeled right off of my fingers and left my mani looking clean and crisp.

You can also use this glue as a peel-off base coat for hard-to-remove glitter polish! I’ve only tried it once as a peel-off base coat…but I will definitely use it next time I wear glitter. I love how the glue turns clear when it’s dry. Then you know when you’re ready to start painting over top of it. I wish regular base coat did that!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOTTLE: It’s easy to make your own bottle of this stuff! I took an empty nail polish bottle… shown here is my old bottle of seche vite topcoat. To clean the empty out you can pour some nail polish remover/acetone into the bottle (maybe a quarter of the way full) and shake rigorously.  Then pour the remover out and check to see how clean the bottle is.  Repeat this step as necessary- you may need to pour remover in one or two more times to get it clean.  Then rinse the bottle with soapy water and leave it overnight to dry. The next day you can squeeze some white glue into the bottle- then you are ready to play!

For extra fun you can cover the bottle with cute stickers like I did. I used Winnie the Pooh stickers on mine!  Are you blue? No, I’m glue!  It makes me smile every time I reach for this cute bottle!

Have you ever tried glue or peel-off base coat?

Sugar Spun Nail Art

Day 18 of Short and Sweet in Texas’ Nail Art Challenge is dedicated to Sugar Spun Nails!  I have never tried this technique before so I’m glad I got the opportunity to try it out.  I didn’t know the first thing about sugar spun so thankfully KatStaysPolished ‘s Youtube tutorial was there to help.

I went all out with this technique and pretty much covered my nails with the strands of polish.  I figured, go big or go home!  I used NYC Nail Enamel in Tudor City Teal as my base color.  What a pretty teal!  It seemed thin and to avoid having to use several coats I opted to use my Orly Ridge Filler as a basecoat.  That way I only needed two coats of Tudor City Teal to be opaque.  I used a dotting tool and the following coordinating colors to create my spun sugar strands:

Sally Hansen ♥ Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen ♥ Lime Lights

Sally Hansen ♥ Marine Scene

The funny thing is, I have two bottles of Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow and one is a basic yellow cream, and the other is a sheer yellowish green shimmer.  How did I end up with two bottles of them, and why do they look so different?  I used the greenish one for this design since it coordinated best with my other 2 shimmers.  I took photos without a topcoat… then applied a topcoat on a few nails which morphed the design and made it look all squished.  So for me, this nail art worked best without a topcoat.  I also applied elmer’s (white glue) around my nails before I started- so cleanup was a breeze.  I peeled the white glue off and there wasn’t much mess to clean.  I’m really happy with that glue idea, since I always try to avoid messy nail art or cuticles.

Sugar spun is a fun and interesting look, but it’s probably not my fave.  I do want to try it again around Halloween though.  This technique would probably work well for mummy nail art!  If I paint a few eyeballs and use white polish for my strands I bet I could make my nails look like cute lil mummy faces!

I asked my boyfriend what he thought and he said ‘whoa, they look like balls of yarn’.  LOL.  What do you think of sugar spun nails?  You can view the other girls’ nails by clicking this inlinkz.