Bling your nails

I was in the store on the weekend hosting our monthly metal clay play day. Stephanie, our resident bling queen also happened to be in teaching her crystal clay class. I don't know what it is about the Swarovski crystals - I'm really not a very sparkly type person, but after spending a few minutes in her classroom, the desire to bling everything in sight with crystals overtakes me! :-)

I gathered up my pretty sad collection of nail polish, (I know I had more, but my girls have absconded with most of the polish...), some fake nails, and a selection of Swarovski Flatback Crystals.

I'll outline the process briefly here, but if you're interested in trying this, there are a TON of nail art videos on YouTube.

1) Apply two coats of your polish of choice

2) Apply a top coat

3) Plan out your design, and either apply a small dot of Gem-Tac, or even just a small dot of top coat. Apply your crystal to the nail. It certainly helps to use a sticky pick up stick to place the crystal on your nail. Use the tip of a pencil to move it around if necessary.

This can certainly be done on your own nails - but I suspect that unless you have a helper, it's going to be a tad difficult. I placed my fake nails on some double sided tape to both apply the polish, and apply the crystals.

You can see some of my process shots below. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of repainting my house - my hands are a mess. Once I scrape all of the paint off, I'll post some pics on facebook!

This picture looks far messier than it does in person. Looking at the nail, you can barely see the stripe of polish.

You can also keep reusing your crystals! Just remove them when doing your manicure, and save them for the next time.