I love chevron nail designs, and I find myself quite often browsing through google images and pinterest looking through the different designs that people come up with using the simple zig-zag lines. At the end of last year I bought me craft scissors to make decals myself, but because I discovered it doesn't cut through plastic, I put it aside and tried to find pre-made chevron stickers. No success with that. There’s only one seller on ebay who sells it at an affordable price, but they don’t ship to the Netherlands. So I just gave up.
The other day I was testing a new stamping plate (a review of that will come soon), and I did the testing by painting small rectangles on a piece of paper covered with scotch tape. The next day I pick up one of the polish rectangles, and I think of testing the craft scissors on it, and it worked! So today I made my chevron decals and I must say I am so happy about it that I decided to make it into a tutorial.
For a start, here it
what you would be needing:
- An A4 paper (or any paper of your choice)
- Wide scotch tape
- Regular scissors (to cut the scotch tape)
- Craft scissors (zig-zag for chevron, but you can also use any other design for a different kind of nail art)
- Two colors of nail polish of your choice.
So first, I grab the scotch tape and start taping the piece of paper. I could have gone for just a plastic bag, but since I don’t have any at home at the moment, it didn’t even cross my mind. I tape the whole piece of paper because I wanted to make a lot of decals just in case I ruined some and needed replacement.
Like I mentioned in
the beginning, my crafts scissors don’t cut through plastic, which is why I
decided to use the combination of scotch tape and paper. Here are a couple of
photos to show you what I mean..
It cuts very nicely through paper |
It doesn't like plastic though |
The scissors cut
through the taped paper just fine. So the first time, I thought okay, let’s try
cutting chevron decals like this. But once I added the nail polish and tried
cutting, it damaged the nail polish.
So, what I did was
just paint the rectangles in the taped area, and let them dry. I applied two
layers of polish using the glossy color of 09 Tiffany & Jungle Green from the Multi Effect Nail Lacquer by Kiko, and quite randomly, I decided I wanted to use
a sand-effect polish as well! So I grabbed the 02 The Incredible sand effect polish from the Superheroes trend edition from Essence and painted three layers
of it. After they were completely dry, I
started taking them off the taped paper one-by-one. I did ruin a couple of them
in the process, but that’s why I had a whole bunch of extras made. And then I
started cutting them into thin zig-zag slices using the crafts scissors.
After that I painted
my nails using the full color side of 09 Tiffany & Jungle Green from the Multi Effect Nail Lacquer by Kiko on the pinky and ring finger, and #34 white by W7 on my middle finger, index and thumb.
Once your nails are completely
dry, start testing the decals so you would know where you want to place them,
and how many would you need per nail. Remember to do one nail at a time. Once I
was satisfied with the placement, I painted my nail a layer of top coat, and
then used tweezers to pick up the decals and place them on my nail. What I did
wrong here was pressing on the decal using the back end of the tweezers, and
since the decal is thin, I got a dent on it. Yay me!
After placing the
decals on my nails (remember, I did this one nail at a time), I grabbed my
cuticle cutter and started cutting off the extra edges of the decals. (make
sure you don’t cut yourself when doing this!) I could have gone for removing
them using a thin brush and polish remover, but that would have created more mess
around my cuticles. This way there was less extra polish to clean up after
cutting the extra parts off.
For the thumb, I wanted
to try something new. I had recently bought children’s craft paper cutters (to
make nail polish decals with), and decided to give it a try. And so the
butterflies ended up on my thumb.
Once I was done with
all of my nails, I added a generous amount of top coat using 8in1 nail wonder
from P2. Since this top coat never really dries on my nails, I’m going to keep
my (other) fingers crossed that I wouldn’t dent the polishes at least until I
go to bed. I did get myself a new top coat yesterday, but I haven’t used it yet, haha!
Anyway, once you
applied your top coat you’re set to go. Here are some photos of the finished
result.
As en extra, I made a
couple of macro photos of my nails from the side, just to show you how the
surface looked after adding the top coat.
I hope you enjoyed
this tutorial, and I would love to hear how it went for you if you ever decide
to use this method of making chevron decals.
Until next time!
wow! amazing xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteGreat tutorial, thank you for sharing! I need to get my hands on some of these scissors so badly! :) xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! It actually took me over two years to find them lol! There aren't that many craft/hobby stores where I live, and then I finally found this one in Germany :)
DeleteLooks amazing!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Delete