TUTORIAL: How to make decals?...step-by-step instruction

ENGLISH

Hello girls!

Today I show you a step-by-step instruction how I do my self-made nail decals. The ones who already know my blog, know that for the last two manicures I posted, I used this technique.

I like this technique a lot because with it I can colour in the stamped patterns or simply transfer patterns perfectly to the nail that, if I would stamp them directly on to the nail, wouldn’t transfer perfectly.

Furthermore, with this technique I can prepare the nail decals as much in advance as I want. The day I want to use them for a manicure, I just take them out of the drawer, cover them with a quick dry polish and wait for 5 to 10 min until the decals are prepared for its transfer to the nails. In conclusion: This technique allows you to create some very beautiful manicures and at the same time is a big time saver.

First I show you a picture of the finished manicure:

Now I’m going to show you step by step how to do your own nail decals:

1^st STEP:

First we paint our fingernails, choose the pattern we want to stamp and prepare the tools we are going to need for this manicure.

We need the following tools:

• an Essence gel nail corrector tool
• a fine paintbrush (the finer it it, the easier it will be to colour in the stamped pattern)
• a little Swiss Army knife 
• a quick drying top coat

I used the following polishes fort his manicure:

• Essence - 114 femme fatal
• Nail Polish by H&M - White
• Rimmel - Star Dust - 007 Shooting Star
• Mundo de Uñas - 02 negro (special stamping polish)
• Mundo de Uñas - 32 rojo naranjo (special stamping polish)
• Flormar - Wet Look 09
• Essence - nail art freestyel & tip painter - 03 silver surfer

For stamping a used a pattern from the CICI&SISI 07 stamping plate.

2^nd STEP:

We stamp the chosen pattern and wait approximately 2 to 5 minutes so that the polish dries well on the stamp.

3^rd STEP:

Now we colour in the stamped pattern with the polishes or paint we have chosen before. You can use either normal nail polishes or acrylic paint. For the decal I prepared for this tutorial I used normal nail polish and special stamping polish (Mundo de Uñas).

CAUTION! If you want to stick your nail decal over a black or dark coloured basecoat, you have to options to prevent the colours on the sticker to change over the dark base coat:

1. You use highly pigmented polishes or paint to colour in the decals.

2. or, in a first step you use polishes or paints that aren’t highly pigmented and in a second step, when this first layer of colour is completely dry, we cover it with a highly pigmented white polish or paint. With this second layer we assure, that the dark basecoat won’t shine trough.

4^th STEP

When the polishes or paint we used for colouring in the decal are completely dry, we cover the decal with a transparent polish. I use a normal, fast drying top coat.

5^th STEP

Now that we’ve waited for 5 to 10 minutes to dry the transparent polish, we have to check if it’s dry enough to remove the decal easily from the stamp.

The following 2 steps are necessary:

1. We push in the stamp slightly with our thumbnail. If the edges of the decal change from transparent to white we know that the decal, at least on the edges, is dry enough to remove easily.
2. We touch the surface of the decal slightly with one finger. If on the surface show up fingerprints, the deal still isn’t dry enough and we have to wait a little bit more until we can remove it from the stamp without destroying it.

As soon as the transparent polish is dry enough, we remove our decal from the stamp.

CAUTION! Don’t wait much more than 10 minutes until you remove the decals from the stamp. Once the transparent polish dried completely, the decal becomes very brittle and will break easily when you remove it from the stamp.

6^th STEP

Now, we can put our decal on the fingernail were we want to stick it. This step helps us to see, how the decal will look on the nail and which part of it we want to stick later on the nail.

CAUTION! Please, note that you shouldn’t press on the decal otherwise it’s possible that you won’t be able to remove it from the nail without breaking it.

7^th STEP

Now, we paint the fingernail where we want to stick the decal with a transparent polish and put the deal on the nail without pressing it on the nail.

CAUTION! Although we haven’t pressed the decal on the nail plate, if we would try to move the decal at this stage, it would warp and break.

After sticking the decal on the nail, we take the Essence tool and press the decal into the cap between the fingernail and the skin around the fingernail as you can see it on the following picture.

CAUTION! Don’t touch the surface of the deal at this stage. It is still not dry enough and there would be ugly marks.

8^th STEP

Now we take the Swiss Army knife and cut off the excess parts of the decal with the sharp blade. The near you cut the decal to the nail, the better result you’ll get. Please, mind you don’t cut yourself! If necessary, take the Essence took and repeat the 7^th step.

9^th STEP

Now we paint the decal with a top coat and let it dry completely.

....et voilà...

I hope you liked the tutorial and that it was useful for you!

If you have further questions, please contact me!

Have you already tried out this technique? Do you like it?

I wish you a nice day!

Hugs!, yours...Lady Nailpolish ♥