Sugary Sweet Kitty Decal Tutorial

For Halloween this year I set out with the intention to create a full week of nail art designs and makeup looks. But that didn’t happen. I was looking at my collection of stamping plates and found three that had candy, ice cream and donuts and I thought to make a spooky candy-themed nail art. But instead I got this super cute, sugar-coma inducing candy design. I’ve never made stamping nail art decals and actually used them, so creating this nail art was a bit of a challenge for me. I think it turned out pretty good and I have some tips and tricks to create a perfect nail polish decal.

Stamping nail art decals are strips of polish that you can apply to your nail much like a sticker. The only difference is that you create them yourself. These are done using nail stamping and coloring in the blank spaces with polish or acrylic paint. It’s simple in theory but took me almost 10 tries to get right.

First off you’re going to need a ton of supplies. Here’s what I used:

• MoYou London Your Creative Workshop Nail Art Matt
• Clear nail polish
• Bent Tweezers
• Stamper and scraper
• Stamping polish (I used Bundle Monster Straight Up Black)
• Stamping plates (I used MoYou London Suki 03 and Geek 13 and Bundle Monster BM-S161)
• Nail polish colors (I used OPI Do You Lilac It?, China Glaze Don’t Be Shallow, Essie Fiji, OPI Alpine Snow, Bundle Monster Red Hot, OPI San Tan-Tonio and China Glaze Fairy Dust)
• Nail art brush and dotting tools
• Nail scissors
• Clean up brush and acetone

Making decals takes a lot of time and a lot of product. If you already have stamping supplies then this is the technique for you. Making decals also requires basic knowledge of stamping, reverse stamping and placement. Once you get the hang of it though, this becomes incredibly easy – a lot like stamping!

I won’t be going over how I got this look exactly but rather how I created the decals.

1. Paint your nails in the color or design that you want. Let that dry.
2. To create the decals, create nail-sized squares of clear polish on the matt (or the plastic bag.) Let that dry completely.
3. Stamp on top of the clear polish with the design that you want. I try to make sure the design is in the middle of the clear polish.
4. After that dries start to fill in the space with the colors that you want. Make sure that your design is completely dry, especially if you’re using black as the stamping polish. Wet polish will make it smear easily. You can see that well on my pinky and on the ice cream cones on my ring finger. Acrylic paint is better for painting because it dries faster than nail polish and doesn’t become as thick.
5. After the whole design dries, carefully start to peel the design off of the mat using the bent Tweezers. This is why I prefer the bent Tweezers – they get under the decal without ripping it. Fear of the decal ripping is probably the worst thing that could happen. I’ve made so many decals that came out perfect but would end up ripping because I was using regular slanted Tweezers. Take your time and be gentle.
6. I didn’t do this but I wish I did: place the decal lightly on the nail and cut any excess off that doesn’t fit the nail. This will make it easier to apply and much easier to clean up.
7. Apply a clear polish and apply the decal to the nail. You can apply the decal with the clear coat, but for me it blends the decal better onto the nail polish.
8. “Melt” the edges of the decal onto the nail but cleaning up the edges with a clean up brush and acetone. Perfect the edges.
9. Apply your final top coat to seal it all in. This will also bring out the shine of the decal.

In total this design took me 2 HOURS. Now, if I didn’t do the marble it probably would have only taken an hour or so. Something to keep in mind is that these nails were thick. Like thick with two cs thicc. There were about 8 layers of polish on my nails at this point. Without the marble it would have been 5. These lasted me about 5 days before chipping which is a miracle for me. My polish always chips within the first three days. Maybe the decal made it last longer. I have to keep playing around with it.

Have you tried making any decals before and have some tips to share? Share them down below!