simplegameofgenius recently asked me if I could make a tutorial on how I did my Lord of the Rings nails, so, here it is. If you’re interested, click on the read more.

What you will need:

Gold nail polish (Milani- Gold Lamè), cheap top coat (the bottle with the white cap has a mix of cheap polishes I use for frankens), black acrylic paint, a small paint brush, toothpicks, tweezers, scissors, cosmetic sponge, inscription printed small enough to fit on your nails, and a freezer bag.

Prep your nails with your favorite base coat. When dry, paint two coats of your gold polish, let dry. To remove the brush strokes left on the dry polish, take your cosmetic sponge and paint on your gold polish. Sponge on a thin coat over the entire nail. I learned this little trick from the wonderful Leslie.

While your nails are dying, put you paper with the inscription in the freezer bag. With your small paint brush, or a toothpick, start painting the script. It’s all right if it’s not perfect. It’ll be fixed in the next step. Paint the first half of the script before heading on to the next step.

When you’re finished and the paint is dry, it won’t take long, go back with a toothpick and carefully scrap off any mistakes. If you scrap off too much, don’t worry, just use the other end of the toothpick and some paint and fix it.

It should look something like this.

Carefully add your top coat over the paint, leaving room to peel it off without touching the script. You want the top coat thin, but not too thin that it won’t peel off when it dries. Let it dry for about an hour.

When it’s dry, peel it off using your tweezers. Use you scissors to trim your decal to fit your nail. When you’re satisfied with the fit, add a thin layer of the same top coat you used on the decal onto your nail. You should do this one nail at a time. Press the decal on your nail using the tweezers. Make sure there are no air bubbles, because they will show. Repeat on all your nails.

And finally, add a thin layer of the same top coat over your entire nail to help blend in the decal. Repeat on all your nails. When dry, add a layer of your favorite top coat (I used Out The Door Top Coat) and you’re done!

I hope this tutorial was helpful. I used this same decal technique when I did my Doctor Who nails back in August. :)