How To: Fimo Nail Art

Fimo canes are one of the most unused 3D nail art tool I know of.

Yes, everyone loves a rhinestone but these canes come in all sorts of cute and colourful shapes that I truly believe that they're as versatile as rhinsetones. I have used them in a few mains now (see at end) but the most recent was in recreating a pattern I spotted on a Topshop dress.

I thought I'd give you a little 'How To' as I know a lot of people are unsure at how to go about using canes.

Supplies
Fimo canes/Slices
Blade
Nail polish/Glue

Firstly the fimo. I suggest you buy rather than make the canes as I have no idea how you'd go about that. eBay is your best friend here. I think I bought a pack of 50 random canes for £2. Crazy cheap! You can also buy them pre-sliced for around £1 in a nail art wheel. You don't get nearly as many but it's more convenient.

Then you need a blade (gah!), I hate blades even though I'm a scientist and have dissected many a thing. I got this amazing pen blade from Dovecraft (from Wilkinsons) and paid about £4 for it. I love it because it pops out with a click and back in again just a quick so there's never a point it's lying around & in danger of cutting you.

Nail polish is my sticking material of choice but if you have nail glue feel free to use that to stick the cut slices onto your nails.

Cutting the canes is a little tricky but you eventually get the hang of it. I'd suggest you practise with a cane you don't like to begin with. This is to get an idea of how your blade works & how to slice off bits or whole slices (can I recommend the black creepy Micky Mouse / Witch in the first picture above! Holy cow that thing is scary!).

Once you've got some slices you can then cut them in half and then in half again.

I find that cutting loads of different sizes, shapes & bits makes creating the design easy as you don't need to keep stopping to cut some more.

I used tweezers to apply the slices & yellow polish to stick them to the nail after I had painted my nails white and added on the black stripes and leaves. I found that using clear polish this time meant the lemon slices didn't pop. Then I layered on all kinds of shapes until I was happy with the design.

These 2 are other manis I have created using fimo canes (look how short my nails are). The first was a chocolate orange inspired mani and the second was some spring flowers.

The next two pictures are fimo inspiration taken from instagram and show how designs with fimo can be created on long nails. Credit goes to @lusterlacquer & @leannested on Instagram.