Holiday Gel Nail Manicure at Home!

How to create holiday-themed gel nails at home! I used the "Beetels at home starter kit" which comes with almost all the materials, but with these general steps, anything will do! Let's get decorating these nails!!

1. Base Gel
2. Colored Gel (Specific Colors used where the beetels a113, c652, and 804, but take creative liberties!)
3. Cuticel pusher
4. Nail file
5. Nail buffer
6. Top coat
7. Sparkly top coat
8. LED Lamp
9. Desk lamp or other bright overhead light (preferred but not required)
10. A design plan! My sister (who I did these nails on) drew out exactly what she wanted and gave me the above sketch :)

Starting with buffed nails, apply a thin layer of base coat to the nails and cure for 60 seconds

60 seconds is a long time to wait, especially when switching between colors in a more intricate design. I mitigate this by curing the gel on one hand while working on the other. This can be made comfortable for the user by having them rest their hand on top of the curing lamp, so you can still have a good angle to paint at with plenty of light from a nearby desk lamp.

Apply a thin layer of color coat in a light pink (804) to the pointer, middle, and ring nails, and cure for 60 seconds. Apply a thin layer of color coat in a light brown (a113) to pinky and thumb nails. I only needed one coat of this color, but two may be necessary depending on the thickness.

Application Tip: Get a bead of gel onto the brush and put it on halfway up the nail. Push the bead forward towards the cuticle so you get a clean line but no bleeding into the cuticle area. Fix up any edges with a detail brush.

Design Composition:

1. Pointer fingers: Geometric dot pattern
2. Middle Fingers: Light brown french tip
3. Ring Fingers: Reighndeer Pattern!!!
4. Pinkies: Sparkly top coat
5. Thmbs: Sparkly top coat

Technique Explenations:

Dots: Starting with a dotter tool in the center of a nail, build outwards in a hexagonal shape. They should end up looking like several rows offset slightly from eachother (like the stars in the amarican flag??)

Reindeer: Using a fine detail brush, draw two lines in light brown about a quarter length of the nail. Have smaller lines branching off of them into the antler shape. (Look at reference photos if necessary!) have two black/dark brown dots below that for eyes and have a larger red or brown dot below them as the nose :)

French tip: Start with a glob of gel at the top of the nail, about the length you would like the thickness of the french tip to be. With a detail brush, drag the gel downwards into an arc shape on both sides.

Using a sparkle top coat, put small dots onto of the reindeer nose, a stripe below the French tip, and completely covering the pinky and thumb nail. Cure for 60 seconds.

Finish designs with a clear shiny topcoat over all of the remaining nails, except for the ones completely covered by the sparkle topcoat.

Enjoy your hard work! These nails should last ~2 weeks and will come off when soaked in acetone (nail polish remover)