Nailed It!

I love doing my nails.  It's something that makes me feel "pretty" no matter how I'm currently feeling about my body.  What I don't love about it is the expense of some of the more "fancy" nail stuff.

Fear no more, nail loving peeps.  I have discovered an awesome use for the waterslide decal paper I have left over from Baker Boy and my wedding craft - CUSTOM NAIL DECALS.  You can pick this stuff up for around $1.00 - $2.00 per sheet online, which is enough for about 10-15 manicures if you put a decal on every nail.

Super super easy steps:
- Turn on BBC's Torchwood.  I find doing my nails in front of TV helps me go slow enough to not wreck what I'm doing.
- Print out decal designs.  Optimally, these are around 1cm square for my nails - YMMV.
- Coat the printed area in a single layer of your clear/top coat polish, NOT spray acrylic
- Wait for that to dry.
- While waiting, paint nails with an opaque, light coloured base (I chose two coats of OPI's french white,topped with a thin layer of their french pink)
- Cut out your decals, soak in water and apply to nail surface as you would normally apply to glass, ceramic, etc.

- Let the decals dry and set on your nails until the episode ends for at least 10 - 20 minutes.  

- Apply another layer of top coat and let it dry until the next Torchwood episode ends for at least 10 minutes.
- Think how much MORE awesome this would look if you were one of those people who can apply base coat without also covering your cuticles.
- Look at your nails and demand that your spouse tell you what a flipping genius you are.

You can happily gang these on a sheet and print off quite a few in advance if you like, for future manicures.  Be aware that using decal paper, what you end up with is inkjet printing on a CLEAR sheet, so whatever base is on your nails, needs to be something light to really make your design pop.