Monday, July 12, 2010

I have teh deth, so here...have a cookie!

I know, I'm late posting about this method I figured out for getting better stamps from your nail stamping systems. Unfortunately, I tried to photograph it and ended up with some very awkward, unusable photographs. So, I tried to draw some illustrations about the method, and quickly found that it's hard to draw when you're feeling ill, having problems swallowing anything, and am falling asleep at random with no warning. I've come back to the computer several times to find that I've moved files, I've cut bits off the image that I want, etc.
It's just bad.

So, to spare you from the rambles, here- enjoy something from a few days (weeks) back. Instead of stamping, you get decals!! TADAAAAA,,,



 That's exactly what I did here! It's a simple process. I used a tiny ziploc bag, my normal dotters and brushes, and my nail polishes to paint little 5 petal flowers and more intricate roses onto the plastic bags. The roses I picked up from iheartpjab's youtube video called rose nails --updatedz. Everything else was just me playing around. Granted, they could all stand to improve, but for a first attempt I'm pretty happy.

After the roses, I put some little five petal flowers onto another little ziplock bag. I'd picked these bags up when I was making jewelry. I didn't get very far into that because all of a sudden, out of the blue, I was showing signs of carpal tunnel. Hmmph. But that's then, and this is now, and now we're talking about these little flowers!

These were an experiment. I put two colors of polish side by side, a silver and a deep pink. I used a dotting tool to make a dot, then drag the edge to the center. I didn't think much beyond that, and I think it shows. But hey, maybe I could put a little rhinestone on the inside of the flowers? Whatever, they're still cute!

Then I put them into my little Altoids case I'm keeping them all in. I'd planned to keep them on the bag until time to use them, but they weren't going for that. No, they started sliding off the plastic as soon as I started  handling them. So, here's the collection of what I've got so far in homemade nail decals. In the tin already were some skulls and some red glitter bows.

The skulls are mostly WAY too big. I need to work on this size thing, but overall I'm starting to like how they're coming out. This is one of the biggest roses on my thumb, and while it's big, it's not quite too big. I think I kind of like it.

You can pick up one of the decals, place it onto a bot of top coat, and then seal over it with a full coat of clear polish. That way you're good to go!

Also, you could place one of these on the edge of your nail, secure 1/2 the rose onto your nail with polish or glue, then use your nail file to file straight down at the edge of the nail, gently removing what's left. One more coat of top coat so seal it all in and you'd be good to go!

So, what kind of nail decals do you think I should try making next? Do you think you'd try to make nail decals? What do you think about nail decals in general?

4 comments:

  1. Hi there :)
    I've just discovered your blog and it's awesome!
    Let me just get something straight about this method (I'm a bit slow sometimes): you just painted a design on a plastic bag, waite d for it to dry and it slid off...really? As it as simple as that? OMG that's great! Thanks for posting this :)

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  2. Awww, thanks so much, chocaddict! While I wish I could claim I'd done some serious magic and heavy thinking, I just watched some youtube videos, then got to painting on what I had on hand. It happened to be tiny little ziploc bags, and yea- lots of them just slid right off. Some slid off while I was trying to photo them, which was a pain!

    Others hung on a little bit better. I would bend the bag pretty far, and soon enough one end of the decal would pop up. If it seemed to be sticking too much, I'd bend from another angle, and then the whole thing would slip off, and I could drop it into my Altoids tin that's serving as a container for them.

    I will say this, though. Give them three or four days of drying and doing their thing before you try and remove them. That helps a lot!

    Finally, thanks so much for the comment! You have no idea how happy comments make me! (Clearly, happy enough to abuse exclamation marks!)

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  3. Wow! That's amazing. I love decals, which if you've ever been to my blog you would know. I love your decals! My mind is just freaking out from the awesomeness of it all. I think I will have to give it a go. I'll let you know how it goes.

    Cheers,
    Bec
    www.becsbeautybuzz.blogspot.com

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  4. Rebecca: Please do let me know how it goes for you! I'd love to see some decals from people more talented than myself!

    I just thought of a way to help keep them appropriately sized... I think I'm going to make some little inserts for the bags that show actual nail sizes by tracing some full-coverage nail tips. I need to add this to the post once I've done it and photo'd it.

    Oh, and I've added you to my blogroll. I love your blog! :D

    ReplyDelete

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