I was inspired by the intricate gel nail creations that are so popular these days. To mimic the look of gel nails, I used a pink jelly as the base, Diamond Cosmetics Sugar Coat Me. It was a bit paler than what I was hoping for, so I did a coat of Essie Petal Pink (a sheer pink) over it to deepen it just a shade. Also, on gel nails, the lace is usually acrylic sculpture but I used stickers. If you want them to look even more gel-like, do a thick coat of topcoat on top, so that the lace looks almost suspended in the nail. I thought the rhinestone was a nice added touch, gives the mani just a little bit of sparkle!
These are the stickers I used:
These are very cheap and easy to find on ebay, just do a search for "lace nail stickers." They are thin and don't stick very well, so I would recommend doing this while the nails are still wet. Remove the lace strip from the backing with a pair of tweezers. Carefully place it on your nail, then use small manicure scissors to trim away excess. Once the nail is a bit more dry, carefully press the sticker onto the nail so it's secure. Once it's dry, go over the entire thing with top coat. If there are parts of the sticker that are lifting up, glue them down with a bit of top coat and then go over that area again. If you want to do rhinestones, my set came with stickers with rhinestones already glued on, but if yours does not, I would recommend gluing the rhinestones onto the sticker before applying to the nail. I placed my lace in kind of a random pattern, but obviously you can be as precise as you'd like.
Close-up:
I can't stop looking at my nails! I've ordered some more lace stickers and will definitely be doing more of these!
Those are sooooo cute! Definitely adding some lace stickers to my to-buy list.
ReplyDeletexo, alison-elle.com