Nail polish punching Tutorial and Loki's Lacquer Boxing day Giveaway and SALE!!!

Hi there Everyone!

So today is a big day! we have an awesome tutorial for you and a giveaway to match!

Lets get started!!!!!!

Nail Polish Punching.

I have had a few people ask me about punching strips of nail polish to create your own nail art stickers and as I use to work for Fiskars and own like a million hand punches I thought i would share a little step by step guide on how to do this.

You will need for this technique; Nail polish, baking paper, a hand punch or border punch,clear top coat.

1. First of all grab your baking paper and cut yourself an A4 piece. With your nail polish, paint on the baking paper small rectangles approx 10cm x 5cm in size. Make sure when you are painting them you do thin coats and do not miss any part of the rectangle. The polish needs to be in a full shape with no gaps. You can see with mine that they are not perfectly even but they are fully covered.

2. Once the rectangles are dry repeat this step several times to get about 3 or 4 coats of polish.

3. Leave the polish rectangles to dry overnight.

4. Once left overnight you can peel off the rectangle of polish from the baking paper with ease.

5. This is where it's your choice on what you want to punch. You can use fancy cut scissors to make chevrons or patterned lines, you can use a hand punch which creates small shapes to place on your nails, or you can use a border punch like I have.

6. Slide your polish rectangle into your border punch like you would a sheet of paper and punch down.

7. Once you have punched through you can remove the polish rectangle and the pieces that have punched out will be under the border punch.

8. As you can see it punches through no problems.

9. Lastly, pick what part of the punches design you would like to use and apply a thin layer of clear polish over your mani, place the punched polish pieces on your nails, then finish off with a top coat.

I used Picture polish starry night as my main
and used a punched polish of
colour club holo hues blue moon.

You can use heaps of different punches and a big variety of polishes as well. From creme polish to duochromes, glitters and jellies they all work, tho the drying times will vary and the layers of polish you use will vary as well. You can also layer polish so you can get different effects. Fore example, you can put several coats of black polish on before you layer with a duochrome polish.

*a few tips-

 Make sure you leave your polish rectangles to dry for 24 hours before cutting them with your punch. you don't want to have to try and get polish off the punch you use.

Ensure your punch is really sharp. If you are unsure, punch through some thick cooking foil first several times. This will sharpen your punch. If your punch is REALLY blunt, punch through some fine grade sandpaper. but use this as a last resort.

If your punch is sticking try oiling it with some dry silicone spray. don't use normal oil it will make the punch greasy. A few drops of dry silicone will make a huge difference.

Now for the giveaway! I have a great pack up for grabs!!!!

This pack will give you a great start for your first attempt at nail polish punching.

Included in the prize is-

1 x fiskars hand punch 1/4"flower design (kindly donated by Fiskars)

1 x OPI - Not like the movies

1 x Happy Hands - I just blue myself

1 x Femme Fatale Cosmetics - Dream Bough

1 x Pretty Serious Cosmetics - Nightopia (kindly donated by Kaz from PSC)

2 x Ulta 3 polishes - lily white and black satin

2 x Lokis Lacquer Polishes - Oceans 11 LE and Supernova 1987A

1 roll Washi Tape

*all prizes were purchased by myself unless stated otherwise.

This competition is open to everyone! all the terms and conditions are on the rafflecopter.

The competition goes from 26th December 2013 till the 26th January 2014.

Please feel free to share the giveaway on your blog or through IG etc.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!!!

And lastly........ LOKIS LACQUER is having a boxing day sale!!!!! you can save 25% off all polishes by using the code- BOXINGDAY this offer is available until the 10th January 2014.
**Please note*** All orders between the 26th December 2013 and the 10th January 2014 will not be shipped until the 10th January 2014. but its a great offer so why not take advantage!!!!

Until next time......