Guestpost by Manon

Hello everyone!

Welcome to this guestpost. My name is Manon, but some of you may know me as Loqi (which is also my follower name here). A little while ago Miranda got me some very nice gifts, and as a favor back to her she asked me to do a guestpost on her blog, isn’t that fun? So today I have a nailart tutorial for you, using napkins. There are a few tutorials for this on the vast internet already, but one more won’t hurt right?
Let’s get started!


For this tutorial you will need:
Napkins with pretty patterns. Try getting ones with small decorations, as bigger ones will lose their effect once they are on the nail.

Scissors


A file

Basecoat

Topcoat


Nailpolish in a corresponding color to the napkin you will use
Rhinestones (optional)

To start off, we will prepare the napkins. You may have noticed before that most napkins are built up of multiple layers: a few thin, blank ones and one decorated one. We only need the top decorated one, so carefully remove the back layers.

When you have done this, it is time to select the pattern you want to have on your nails. You’ll see that the napkin I am using has a lot of colorful patterns to choose from! While most of these can be done with konad or any other stamping technique, the multicolored ones are a bit more difficult to do that way. And it’s always a good thing to have more options right? So select the pattern you want to use and cut thin strips of it. You will see in this picture that I have cut two lager pieces, these are for my thumbnails, as they are bigger than the pattern in the strips.

After this, cut the strips into smaller pieces and then cut each piece to fit your nailbeds.

Now it is time to prepare your nails. As always, first use a basecoat to protect your nails and make your manicure last longer. I always use OPI’s ridgefiller, just to get that extra smooth finish. After your basecoat has dried, paint your nails a color similar to the base color of the napkin pattern you are using. You are doing this to help the napkin blend in to your nails if you haven’t cut the pieces big enough or for when the napkin will go a bit see-through when it’s applied. I used a pale pink called ‘Heartbeat’ by a German brand called ‘P2’. They make very nice quality polish for a very small price.

Now before the polish has had time to dry completely, apply the napkin pieces. Press them gently onto the polish and try too smooth out as much of the wrinkles as possible. I have to admit that this wasn’t the best application I have done so far, but the polish had dried a bit too much because I had to take a picture before doing the napkins :D If you find that the polish has dried too much for the napkin to stick to your nail, just apply a coat of topcoat to stick the napkin to.


You will probably see that the pieces you cut are too long for your nails, if so, just tear the excess off, but be careful because wet napkin is very fragile and tears easily.

After you have fit all the pieces to your nails and made sure they are all the right length, apply a layer of topcoat and wait for it to dry. (While I was applying the topcoat, something strange happened to the napkin, which I haven’t experienced before: it changed color completely. The napkin went from a soft pink to a flaming bright neon! While I don’t mind neon on my nails now and again, it did make the napkin lose some of the pretty details, but for the sake of this tutorial I finished the manicure anyway.)


After the topcoat has dried, gently file the edges of your nails so that any hard pieces of napkin are smoothed out. Now apply a second coat of topcoat to seal everything (don’t forget to wrap your tips!). I added blue rhinestones to the finished manicure, you know, just because :D


And here is the finished (and very bright!) napkin nailart.

I hope you have enjoyed this little guestpost. I know I had a lot of fun writing it! Take care and maybe until another time!


-xxx-