My First Attempt At Studded Nails

Hey There Polished People!

Isn’t it funny how one person’s trash is another’s treasure? I know this first hand because, especially when it comes to teaching stuff (books, activities for kids, classroom organizational stuff), if someone’s giving it away, I’m picking it up. I’m the WORST! And you know what? I don’t even have my own classroom! Haha. Oh the irony!!! I end up collecting all this classroom stuff, keep it around thinking “when I get my classroom it will be so great to have!” and then when I inevitably don’t have my own classroom in another year I give it away to Goodwill. Luckily I don’t have the space to keep much of what I don’t use so it’s not like I have a warehouse of now defunct classroom supplies, but if I did… it could happen. I know Cynthia is probably HORRIFIED at the idea of all that clutter. Anyway, one day right before Christmas, my husband got a package in the mail with one of my presents inside. When he opened it (out of my view) he was like, “Ohhhhh this sucks!! This is so lame!! Ughhhh do you just want me to give this to you now? This is ridiculous.” Naturally, I was like UH SURE!! Give me my presentssssss! 😉 So he handed me this tiny little plastic baggie and guess what was in it? NAIL STUDS!!! I was so excited and he was just dumbfounded as to why I was so hyped over this minuscule baggie of metal pieces. I guess he thought they’d be bigger? Anyway, I was hyped and here he thought it was a total bust. Worked out well for me though because I got an early present! 😉 Would you like to see what I did with my first set of studs?? I wore them on New Year’s Eve. Let’s see em!

New Year’s Eve Nails

Happy New Year!! 🙂 Cheers!

How To Get These Nails:

1. Basecoat. Don’t skip this step. I used SH Hard As Nails.
2. Paint your nails with ChG Refresh-Mint. I used my regular three coats.
3. Apply a coat of Seche Vite and allow your nails to dry thoroughly.
4. When your nails are dry and non-squooshable, use Konad special silver polish and BM 314 to stamp this scrolly, flowery design on each of your nails.
5. Optional: Apply a coat of Seche Vite between stamping and adding the studs. I did not, but if you’re worried about smearing your stamping you might want to have a layer of tc in between the stamping and the clear topcoat used to stick the studs down.
6. One nail at a time, apply a stripe of clear non-quick dry topcoat (I used regular OPI clear top coat) down the center of your nail. Have your studs out and right side up before you do this.
7. Quickly touch the clear stripe on your nail with the tip of a cuticle stick, then touch it to the top of a stud and place the stud on your nail.
8. Repeat step 6 for each stud until you have a line of studs from near your cuticle to the free edge of your nail.  Work quickly so the top coat stays wet, but if it dries out, just apply a little more.
9. Repeat steps 6-8 for each nail.
10. Make sure all the studs are pressed down well. I used the flat part of my cuticle stick to do this.
11. Apply a thick coat of Seche Vite over the top of your nails and the studs. Be a little careful with this because you don’t want to get bubbles in your top coat. You can avoid bubbles by not swiping the polish brush over the same spot a bunch of times. Let a lot of topcoat be on your brush and kinda let it drip onto your nail and then spread it out with the brush, instead of stroking it on like you’d usually do. You want the topcoat to get all around the studs, on top of the studs and then of course on the rest of your nails. I’m making this sound harder than it is, just be a little mindful of how your topcoat is going on your nails.
12. Allow your nails to dry thoroughly and then show them off to your friends. They’re gonna be impressed! Trust me!! 🙂
13. This isn’t part of the instructions, but I have sneak in somewhere to tell you- these nails with the mint polish and the light silver print matched my NYE shirt PERFECTLY!! If you follow me on Instagram (Nicole_423) or Twitter (@polishmeplease) you’ll know that I’m not lying. I love that shirt and I love these nails! 😀

I am really not one for 3D nail art. Those pictures of people with a thousand bows and jewels and all kinds of things on their nails are interesting in their own artsy way, but just aren’t for me. Studs are TECHNICALLY 3D I guess, but they’re flat enough that they don’t give me that crazynailart feeling. 🙂 Are you a fan of studs? Do you like the sculpted 3D nails? Let me know what your stance is and how you liked my New Year’s Eve nails! 🙂 Thank you all for reading and commenting and till next time- Happy Polishing!! 😀