Christmas Nails - Part 1

It's nearly Christmas!!!!!


I have a couple of posts today and tomorrow and then I will be back in the new year!


As it is nearly Christmas day I decided I needed to do something special on my nails, I have been planning this for a couple of weeks now and knew I wanted sparkle and bling...so I decided to do a Blingky - a blinged up pinky!


For this I placed my 1st order with Crystal Parade who sell lots of sparkly goodies for all sorts of things including nail art. I order a small selection of Preciosa Crystals (because 1 bag would get lonely in the post!)


The set I have used for this mani is the Crystal/Pearl mix of 200 in Winter Blues - this set contained a mix of Preciosa flatback crystals and pearls in sizes ranging from ss5 - ss12, There are 160 crystals and 40 pearls.

The 1st thing I needed to do was my infills. I soaked my acrylics off several weeks ago and I am now try Hard Gel extensions using the Builder in a Bottle from The Gel Bottle Inc and I have used Cover Builder Gel #20. Here they are all infilled, filed and ready for polish.

I am focusing on my pinky for this so the 1st thing I did was add a sparkly gel polish to show through any gaps in the crystals. I chose Gelaze from Essential Nails in the shade Snowflake - I applied 2 coats curing each coat for 45secs in my LED lamp

Its very subtle but just adds enough sparkle to show in the small gaps.

I then used The Gel Bottle Builder Clear Rubber Builder/Top to attach my crystals.

I applied a coat down the center and 1 half of my nail and using a wax pencil I picked up the crystal and arranged them how I wanted. The great thing about the builder gel is id doesn't spread so the crystals don't move much while you place them. Once I was happy with that half I flash cured for 5-10secs in my LED lamp - I made sure all the crystals were perfectly in place before I did this (they will slip a bit if you time your finger) After flash curing I put builder gel on the other half and repeated the pattern so the whole nail was covered in crystals then cure for a full 45secs in my LED lamp.

After the crystals are secure and they are really secure in this builder gel I used The Gel Bottle non tacky top coat and a striping brush to go around the crystals and fill the gaps - I also did this because the builder gel has a tacky surface.

I decanted some top coat into my Ring Thing which is available from the lovely Sarah R at Nail Stamping Queen UK and using my striping brush put top coat around every crystal and in all the gaps and around the free edge then cured for 45secs in my LED lamp.

And that is my finished Blingky - 

I absolutely love it and the crystals are gorgeous - I'm definitely going to need more of them from Crystal Parade. 

The 2nd Part to my Christmas Mani will be posted tomorrow so see you then

Love 

Helen aka Cinderhellie xx