These nails were inspired by a post I saw on Pinterest of Japanese press on nails. I loved the look of them and knew I pretty much had the supplies I needed to do the manicure by hand.
Before I get into how I did this manicure, here is the Pinterest post for reference.
I started my manicure with a light grey base.
Once that was dry, I used a disposable sponge to do a sort of ombre all around the outside of my nails.
To do this, I first put tape all around the skin surrounding my nails (I do one hand at a time), and sandwiched my light grey between two swatches of dark grey on my sponge. Then sponged this on a nail with the dark grey on the outer edges of the nail. I did this for each nail, then repeated this but place the sponge so the dark grey was on the top and bottom of my nails. I repeated these steps on some nails so I got my desired amount of dark grey, then sponged on the light grey by it self onto each nail so the ombre would have a more subtle, frosted look. Then I used a shiny top coat on each nail after sponging on the last layer of light grey so my nails wouldn’t have the sponge texture.
Once they were completely dry, I used tape to block off space for my thin sliver stripes on my thumbs and middle fingers.
Then I carefully place some silver snowflake nail stickers on my thumbs, middle, ring, and pinky fingers that I bought from Forever 21 last year.
Next I used the same shiny top coat to adhere my nail art decals. I used pearls, silver caviar beads, and two sizes of rhinestones purchased from various places but mostly from Amazon.
Lastly I used my sparkly silver polish that comes with a thin brush to paint a design on my pointer finger.
Butter London Sterling (from the mini set I bought from the NSale)/Marc Jacobs Enamored Hi-Shine polish in Evelyn/KISS Nail Art Paints
A Trace of Lace 