Tutorial: Cupcake nails!

Cupcake nails!

I love these nails, I think they're super cute. You can do just one cupcake nail as your accent nail, or do all your nails as cupcakes! Here are examples of both: 

Picture A

Picture B

There are slight differences between the two styles of cupcakes, but the way you create them is the same!

Here's how you do it

*You have to be very patient for this design, each layer must be completely dry or you'll end up sporting a pretty mess on your nails*

Step one: Paint your nails with a base coat. In 'picture A' I used Nail Paint by Barry M in "Blueberry Ice-cream" and in 'Picture B' I used Glitter Nail Paint by Barry M in "Amethyst". I also add a top coat here but it's not necessary. I used Miss Sports "Glossy Tech" for my top coat.

step one

Step two (optional): IF your base coat is quite a dark colour you'll want to give yourself white tips over the colour. This is so the colour of your cupcake cases pop. I did white tips on 'Picture B' because it was over the top of a busy glitter colour, I did not do white tips on 'Picture A' as the base colour was a very light blue. To give myself nail tips I used Nail Paint by Barry M in "matte white". 

step two

Step three: Using a fine nail art brush create stripes on the white tips (or where white tips would be). I do this by doing stripes next to each other because I find it easier to get them more even, however you can give yourself coloured tips and then just draw stripes on those. In 'picture A' I used Nail Paint by Barry M in "berry ice-cream" and Gelly Hi-Shine nail paint by Barry M in "plum". In 'picture B' I used Gelly Hi-Shine nail paint by Barry M in "plum" and "Dragon Fruit".

step three & four

Step four: Using a large dotting tool (or a steady hand and a fine brush) paint on some icing. You want to curve it at the top so it looks like the top of a cupcake, and I suggest making it look like it's dripping down the side of the cupcake cases! For this I used Nail Paint by Barry M in "matte white".

Step five: Apply a top coat to one nail at a time so that you can stick things onto them. Using a cocktail stick I picked up a nail art gem and stuck it at the top of my cupcakes to make a "cherry". Then every cupcake needs sprinkles! You can either use a dotting tool and 3 or 4 other colours to create your own sprinkles (picture A) or use caviar beads in different colours to give yourself a more 3D look (picture B)

*I found that if I added a top coat over caviar beads the colour of them bled, so be careful!*

step five

and you're done!