The Craft Kat: September 2011

Rating: Good

Since my blog is about the effectiveness of my craft. I am going to be jumpy on all of the subject matter. For my first entry I attempted to make work of News Paper Nails. Coming from a Graphic Design background the fact that I could put typography on my nails seemed kind of exciting. I followed the directions on the website (linked above) as best I could but at the bottom I am also going to attempt this again with white nail polish...to give it that extra papery feel. I am also guessing that this can be done with self printed items, but that wasn't my objective for today.

Step 1: Gathering materials

Tools to get the basics of this project completed are nail polish (light color), top coat, fast dry nail set, rubbing alcohol, newspaper and a q-tip (just in case). Note:this is a two day project for best effectiveness. also for good measure I preped my nails with one of these

(found at the dollar store):

It's a basic nail file, and there are probably nicer ones out there, but we should learn quickly that I am cheap and I am not going to spend money on these crafts because realistically you don't want to either.

Step 2: Painting the nails.

That would be what these are for...paint your nails with the light colored nail polish. I like to use the fast dry because I do A LOT with my hands and the time it takes to properly dry nail polish enough to do anything...

Step 3: Let set overnight.

This was the hardest part for me...but I did the best I could to preserve the polish overnight. This really does make a difference the the transfer of ink later.

Step 4: Pour out alcohol and rip up newspaper.

When morning comes you are in the clear to start the preparations for transfer.

Step 5: Dip and Stick.

I used the cap of the alcohol to make a little well for dipping. You have to wait about 10 seconds to really coat your finger nails with the alcohol for best results...I noticed the wetter the nails get, the better this works.

Immediately after you take your finger out of the alcohol you need to press the newspaper on the nail. The original directions say wait 20 seconds and peel off, but for best results I found that it is also best to wet the paper again before you peel it off. This reduces the "fuzz" left over to almost none...use the q-tip for this part.

Your end result should be something like this:

Note the fuzz...this is what happens when you don't make sure that your nail is moist enough...also it kind of ruined the paint job a bit.

Final Step: Top Coat.

After the top coat you are good and done.

Below is a white, speed job done on my niece...children don't stay still well so with her I just put the alcohol under the newspaper for pressing so it worked much like a temporary tattoo.

I apologize for anything that looks underdeveloped...Launch Date for this blog

(and The Art Major comic)

September 30, 2011

There are about a million craft blogs out there, but only one that I can do. I am not really seeking out to be the most awesome person ever, but after looking at the Craft Fail blog I started thinking about all those times I started a project and all those articles I read about the bloggers making about 100 of the same project in order to make it pretty enough to put online. There are few projects that I would consider under the "acceptable" line, but I do have the urge to not share them with the world, until now.

Some projects just aren't what we had originally thought them to be. Lighting, placement and execution is much different for everyone. My plan is to take the crafts that I make and, regardless of how they turn out, Post my steps. I will also give you the original plans to make these projects so that the owners have credit and it is a bit of a comparison project based on people who make these things all the time and how I followed the project on the first shot.

Because of the Awesome to Fail ratio...I propose a system of rating.