Thursday 21 November 2013

DIY Festive Candy Cane Stripe Nail-Art Patches

Back in May I posted a tutorial on making your own nail patches at home. The post didn't get too many hits, but I suppose it's because I was still new at all this blogging. I haven't done another nail patch since but thought I'd post this new tutorial today as I experiment with a new look for holiday nails.

I'd like to mention that the photography in this post isn't amazing but that's mostly because, for as wonderful as my hands are at crafting and creating, they are equally as plain and awkward. Years of arthritis paired with my natural tendency towards boniness and dry cuticles doesn't make me the world's most glamorous of hand models, but I love my hands and fingers just the same.  Maybe the next time I do a tutorial like this I can get a friend to be the model.

Now onto the patches.  Head over to the original post for an in depth how-to.

For the candy cane style I first painted a light pink base coat onto silicone based oven paper in the different sizes of my nails. I always do 20 nail patches at a time in case I mess up while applying them so i don't have to then redo the artwork from scratch. When the base coat was dry I added a golden sparkle coat on top of that and let it dry overnight.

The next day I took a bright pink Sharpie marker and drew diagonal lines over each patch. I had to stop half-way through though as Sera got it into her head that she had to colour them.  We went onto other crafts instead.


After the Sharpie I applied a second coat of glitter polish and let that dry entirely.  It was six hours before I got back to my nails.


The best part about nail patches and the most satisfying part as well is the final application of them. I painted my own nails with a thin coat of the pale pink and then with tweezers carefully peeled each nail patch, one by one, from the oven paper. I pressed each patch onto each corresponding finger and my manicure was done! 10 seconds after finishing I was eating dark chocolate on the couch in front of the TV... something unthinkable at least for a half-hour with a traditional manicure.

And I'd be lying if I said that I could have ever gotten those lines so perfect with my left hand!

This application should last from 5-10 days so stay tuned for my next nail-patch experiment in a week or so!

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