DIY Nail Vinyls
/I recently decided I wanted to use some nail vinyls with my Holo Taco nail polishes, but was too impatient to order the ones I wanted and wait for them to come in. Naturally, I decided it was a good idea to attempt to create my own vinyls since I’ve been on such a roll with using my Cricut machine lately. I found a few leftover nail vinyls with a scaly/mermaid design and used that as my starting point.
Attempt 1: I started out by finding a scale background using my Cricut Access subscription (#M3CFFC) and cutting it at about 1.5 inches wide on scrap cardstock just to get a feel of how big the cuts would be. This was an awful first attempt - the cut just didn’t turn out well (some parts ripped) and was a nightmare to weed. I ultimately decided I had just made it too small to cut nicely.
Attempt 2: For my next attempt, I upped the width to 2 inches and cut again on scrap cardstock. This cut was even worse than the first attempt somehow - everything was destroyed during the cutting phase. After doing a little research, I discovered there is an intricate cut setting that I should have been using. Trying again using this setting produced a much nicer result that I determined just about matched the size I was looking to make.
Attempt 3: Now that I had an idea of what the cut might look like in relation to my nail size, I worked on making it into a small rectangle shape (about .75 x 1.125 inches). I cut this on more scrap cardstock using the intricate cut mode and it turned out okay, but it needed some adjustments as the scales were just a bit too small and the rectangle needed to be a bit wider for my thumb nail.
Attempt 4: I slightly increased the size of the scales as well as the rectangle (about .85 by 1.1 inches) and cut again on cardstock using the intricate cut mode. This was by far the best of my attempts (though it still could have been just a touch wider for my thumb). I decided to go with this version to actually trial on my nails.
This was my first time using vinyl in my Cricut, so I waffled a bit on what kind to buy. I eventually went with a removable premium vinyl sampler from Joann’s. I cut a single initial version to test on my nail art mat and was pleased with the results, so I cut a full set of 10 to use on my actual nails (and learned about the Project Copies option on the prep screen too - so handy!).
I had a hard time deciding on which polishes to use for this test, but ultimately used a few from my new Lite Mode collection:
Holo Taco Flash Drive
Holo Taco Wireless Mode
Holo Taco Encryption Key
Holo Taco Lite Link
It took me two evenings to finish these nails since I wanted to be careful and not pull any polish up when removing the vinyls. On the first evening, I painted on my base coat, two color coats, and a top coat. I used the vinyls to apply the design using a color coat and finished up with another top coat on the second evening.
Overall, these nails turned out decently. I still have some work to do on figuring out the best size for the cuts of the design as well as how big to make the rectangles to fit my nails. I have a whole list of other designs that are part of my Cricut Access subscription in Design Space that I’d like to try as nail vinyls - more to come (and maybe even cut files to share - we’ll see)!
