photos + post by Kristin Ess

If you’re a fan of pretty shiny things, you’re going to love our first spring mani of the season. We all know everything looks better dipped in gold, so we thought this should do the trick. I decided to use gold leafing sheets to accent the corners of these turquoise nails. Here’s how you do it:

TOOLS: Turquoise nail polish, gold leafing sheets (available at your local art supply stores or see link below), clear top coat, nail file, q-tip (regular or pointed).

STEPS:

1. Select a good turquoise polish. I used this one, but to be honest you can use any color that you think goes well with gold. (It’s really pretty with white + coral!)
2. Paint all of your nails with the base color you choose.
3. Gold leaf sheets (I used these) are VERY delicate so make sure your hands are clean + dry before handling. They tear so easily! Use scissors to cut small triangle shapes that will fit the corners of your nails. You want to cover about 1/3 of your nail, so make your triangles about that size.
4. Wet a q-tip and use that to pick up your gold triangle. Don’t try to pick them up with your fingers– you’ll crumble them and that’s a bummer!
5. Lay the gold leaf triangle on the corner of the nail. You want to work quickly so the leafing sticks to the polish. The polish should be dry but still slightly tacky. If it’s too dry, put a very thin layer of clear top coat down before laying the leaf on the nail.
6. Smooth over the gold leaf with a clean dry q-tip to remove wrinkles/bubbles. If you mess up and chip off a piece of gold, it’s totally fine! Gold leafing is so thin that you can just lay another piece over the messed up part and it blends right in.
7. Use a nail file to gently file off the excess just like you would with nail stickers!
8. Finish with a quick drying clear coat to lock the gold leafing down!