With British mania sparked by the upcoming Olympic Games in London, I absolutely had to create a manicure inspired by the hype.

I’ve had this Manicure Monday planned for months, ever since Editor-in-Chief Kristine sent me Rimmel London’s Instant Art Press On Color nail stickers with a British flag pattern.  I knew I had to save them to make a special manicure dedicated to the London Olympics.  I’ve actually been holding onto them since April.  Clearly, that was a bad idea because when I sat down to start my mani, I realized that the nail stickers were dried out.  If I bent them, they cracked in half.  And they didn’t stick.  I had to brainstorm a new idea for my London-inspired mani.  Read on to learn how I brought life back into my dried out nail stickers!

I needed time to think, so I started off with a regular manicure.  After my base coat of Seche Natural, I applied two coats of China Glaze‘s Poinsettia.  It’s the perfect true-red color.  Then I continued to think.

There were two problems with the dried-out nail stickers.

1. They didn’t stick anymore.
2. They cracked if you bent them.

I had to figure out a way to make them stick and a way for me not to have to bend them over my nails.  I decided that I needed to cut the nail stickers smaller, so they wouldn’t crack.  I cut each nail sticker in half to and placed the halves on each ring finger and thumb, as accents.  If your base color polish is still even a little wet, the stickers should stick regardless of whether they’ve dried out or not.  If your base color is dry, place a drop of clear polish under the sticker and lay it on your nail.  To seal the sticker, apply a quick-dry top coat like Seche Vite and use a manicure stick to quickly press down all the corners and sides of the sticker.

This mani may not have turned out exactly the way I planned, but it’s not too shabby for a last-minute DIY transformation!