Blue Water Slide Decal Mani with Heart Accent

Today I am featuring another manicure using water slide decals from Born Pretty Store. These were sent to me for review and since I don’t wear blue often, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with them, so they got put off for a while. I actually did this design before Valentine’s day, but didn’t manage to get them posted to IG or here and then I got sick so it got put off even longer. My goal was to show that these kinds of decals can be really versatile with a bit of outside of the box thinking!

The set I received are these blue geometric pattern decals. They look like mosaic tiles:

I decided that I wanted an isolated heart on my accent nail so before I started my mani, I used one of the wider decals, folded it in half and cut out a heart like a pro first-grader. It was kind of a pain to get the curves just right since it was so small, but with a bit of trimming I had it at the exact size I needed. If you have small, decorative hole punches your options are kind of unlimited. Stars, hearts, flowers – there are tons of options available in craft stores in the scrapbooking department.

With the heart out of the way, I also cut two more pieces of the design free of the backing for my other nails. I painted one coat of Sally Hansen – Pacific Blue on my pinky and then used two coats of Sally Hansen – White On for my other nails. I applied one coat of Butter London – Fairy Cake to my pinky and top-coated that nail. I left the rest to air dry for 20 minutes before moving onto decal application.

To apply the decals I removed the protective film and then soaked them in water for 20 seconds. After dipping my nail in the water, I used tweezers to separate the decal from the backing and applied it to my nail, using a cotton round to soak up excess water and to press them down smoothly. Once they were dry, I applied topcoat to all nails. I do recommend doing your cleanup after topcoating because acetone really eats away the decals and you can remove the color/pattern very easily by mistake.

I really love how the heart nail turned out and the whole mani was very easy to do. Even with the extended drying time between steps, the whole mani only took me about 35 minutes. I’m definitely planning on expanding my collection of water decals, they are so useful and I find them very easy to use!

You can view these products on the Born Pretty Store website here and check out more of their nail art tools and accessories here. To receive 10% off your order, you can use the code JMLH10.