PinTest: Nail Polish Flowers

Today I'm testing out one of the most popular and unbelievable DIY Pins out there! The Pin, which has no instructions, shows how to make wire flowers, colour them with nail polish and turn them into a pretty flower crown.

Click here to see the original Pin!



Working With Wire
First up was creating the wire flowers which although not the trickiest part of the DIY was still pretty fiddly! Creating the petals themselves individually wasn't too tricky but getting them to come together to look like a flower was more difficult.

To make them I used a thin jewellery wire which I wrapped around a Sharpie to create the petal shapes. As per the pin I created several shapes around in a circle then gently curved them to look more like petals. Remember to keep some jewellery pliers on hand to manipulate the wire where necessary - I used mine to pinch the ends slightly to give them more of a classic petal shape.



Adding Colour
Next up it finally came to the main part of the pin that people are interested in - using nail polish to add colour to the wire outlines. It took me a while to get the technique right and I did get rather frustrated when I swept the brush across the wire and it was filled with colour only for the bubble to pop just a second later!

The thin layer of polish is so delicate just like blowing bubbles so even once you think you've mastered the technique they can still be unpredictable. My second attempt (pictured above) although it looks fairly neat still took a long while to get right. I learnt that painting one petal at a time and letting it dry for a minute or so holding the flower still before moving onto the next one meant a much lower rate of disasters!

I also revisited my first flower, now fully dried and tried out adding a second layer of colour. It did work but took away from that pretty stained glass style, slightly transparent finish created with just one layer.

If you're curious about how the polish dries I found that the texture was rubbery, and flexible almost like a thin layer of PVA glue would be.



Here are some tips I would advise if you want to try out this Pin...

- Put down some newspaper! This Pin can get very messy if you're not careful. Each time you sweep your brush across the wire and it doesn't end up working the polish gathers at either end and will drip everywhere, so make sure you're prepared for mess!

- Open a window! It may seem obvious but you're going to be working with nail polish (perhaps for quite some time if you find the painting process as frustrating as I did!) so make sure there's some fresh air in the room too... especially if you plan to make enough for a crown!

- Make your sizes match! You need to make sure that your polish brush is the right size to sweep across the whole of your petal in one go otherwise you'll have a lot of trouble trying to fill in the colour.

- Use cheap polish! Although the quality of the nail polish doesn't seem to make a difference I would advise using cheaper brands or unwanted polishes as you may end up wasting quite a lot whilst you're practising the painting technique.

- Load up your brush! You will need a nice big blob of polish to fill the whole of petal. Start with a big blob at the end of the petal nearest the centre of the flower and sweep outwards towards the outside edge of the petal.

- Drying time is important! Whilst the polish is still liquidy it will move around within the wire frame and if it gathers in the wrong place it will put pressure on that section causing the layer to pop. I found that once I had successfully applied the colour to one petal if I waited, holding the flower still for a minute or so, giving a chance to settle it was less likely to pop later.

So, does this Pin really work? Well, yes it does... but it sure is a bit of a pain to master! Although I think with a bit of practise I could create enough flowers to make a crown like the one shown in the Pin I definitely wasn't keen to sit and make 30 of them. Amazingly though, it can be done!

We'd love to hear from you if you give this DIY a go - use the hash tag #eightandsixteen to share your photos with us! If there are any particular Pins you'd like to see us test out let us know in the comments!

Erin

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