Tips and tricks Tuesday-Making your own swatch sticks

You may have noticed that I occasionally use what look like lollipop sticks to compare colors. It's something that is cheap and easy to do for yourself. Join me after the jump to learn how.

Here's what you need:
-Q-tips
-fake nails
-hot glue gun

Each of these items can cost as little as a dollar, if you shop at places like the dollar store. Glue guns can vary greatly in quality so there are certainly more expensive ones that probably work way better than mine. However, mine is a dollar one from Michael's Crafts and it works fine for the simple projects that I do. You can find bags of fake nails at any nail supply store. 


To make these "nailsicles," just get a fake nail, add some hot glue to one end, and then place a q-tip in the hot glue. Allow to dry. I've tried to use toothpicks instead of the q-tips but I found that those broke off the nail more easily. I suspect the stick is so thin that it doesn't have enough surface area to adhere correctly.


I use my nailsicles a lot. For one thing, glitter will never fully come off a nail wheel, so I try to use these to swatch a glitter so that I don't have a ruined nail on my wheel. Also, I sometimes use it for comparisons. If colors are already swatched on a nail wheel next to the color I want to compare to, I can just paint a nailsicle and hold the colors side by side without having to change an existing wheel. I suppose you could do these things with just a fake nail but it seems like holding it and especially photographing it would be a problem. 


Anyway, hope this tip will help you, I hope to make "Tips and Tricks Tuesdays" a regular thing.