Tutorial - Acrylic Nails

Hi everyone!

I thought I'd post a new tutorial that maybe some of you have been waiting for: my tutorial on how to build cute nails with acrylics. I took the pictures for the tutorial while making these nails:

So my tutorials will be based on them. If you want to resize the photos just click on them! ^___^

 

♥ Acrylic Liquid

♥ Acrylic powder- Clear and blue/glitter
♥ Small acrylic brush
♥ Small acrylic container
♥ Acrylic Primer
♥ Clear top coat
♥ Acrylic masking liquid (optional)
♥ Paper nail form
♥ Nail-files - Regular and for polish
♥ Nail clipper
♥ Blue loose glitter (optional)
♥  Decoration (optional)

First of all, start with preparing your nails by cleansing them, file them and pushing back your cuticles (I forgot to do this!). Then brush on some acrylic primer on your nails.
Prepare your stuff by pouring up some acrylic liquid in the container and about 3-4 drops of the acrylic masking liquid. The acrylic masking liquid function is to prevent the strong smell from the acrylic liquid.
When you're done with this put the paper nail forms on all your fingers on one hand. I usually start to do my left hand.

 It's important that you get a nice shape of the form and that they are actually pushed under your nails. They are almost like stickers!

I made a small video to show you guys how it looks like when I start to build them. I'm sorry it's very blurry and my floor is so messy! T_T It was really difficult to film when you need both of your hands (I'm holding the camera between my knees, hahaha XD).

Dip the brush into the acrylic liguid in the container and then into the blue glittery acrylic powder. A small ball will shape on the tip of the brush. This is what you build with. It stiffens after a while so you can't be too slow.
It doesn't matter if you build too wide or make mistakes. You'll correct this later.
I wanted to achieve a gradient look so I covered my nail with the clear acrylic powder. I wasn't pleased with the color of the blue acrylic powder so I mixed the blue loose glitter with clear acrylic powder to achieve a more intense color.
What you need to be careful with is to achieve a nice shape and gradient between the blue color and the clear.

Don't worry if you nails look like this when you take away the paper nail forms!

The next step is to file them. This is the heavy part. It's not difficult at all, but you'll need to clip them to a nice shape and then FILE THEM FOREVER!
I think it took me about 2 hours to do this part! So make yourself comfortable in front of the TV or something because this will take a while.
 When you're pleased with the shape and you feel like you've achieved an even surface you can polish them with a polish nail file for a smooth finish. This is of course optional.

 When you've applied the top coat you're done!

If you want to decorate them like me you can just apply a layer of top coat and stick what ever you like there.

I chose to decorate with Swarovski stones.  Apply a layer of top coat of the decoration. If you use swarovski stones like me try to avoid getting top coat on the stones because they will loose their sparkle if you do.
 Let the nails dry. You're done!

I hope this may be some use for those of you who want to make acrylic nails for the first time. You can of course use which color you'd like with this tutorial.

Bye for now! 

Becci~♥