mercury mash

well, i'm still at home sick. . . . apparently my headaches are actually a flu-like virus, and i'm still contagious and running a fever. tell you what, i am getting super bored. i've been home for a whole week now. so i decided i had nothing better to do than to practice my stamping skills. i didn't want to take off mercury twilight yet, because it's sooo gorgeous (and expensive. . . . and tedious to apply), so i decided to stamp over it. what i intended as just a practice stamping session actually turned out pretty good, so i thought i'd show you some pics-

3 coats layla mercury twilight stamped with mash plate 41 (with sinful snow me white)

i've always admired other people's manicures featuring stamping over a holo, but have never tried it myself. and let me just say, i've been missing out! i love the effect it gives. it was also really hard to get a picture of this manicure where the holo wasn't blindingly spitting out rainbows, and where you could see all of the white stamp. hopefully you can see the whole design of the stamp :S. if not, click here to see what it's supposed to look like.

i learned a couple of new things in this round of stamping. it feels like i learn some new technique every time i stamp! here's what i tried differently this time-

1. i tried scraping away from me, instead of to the right like i usually do. i first heard of this concept here from oooh, shinies! i don't know why, but this really made the image clearer.

2. i tried rolling the stamp onto my nail vertically from the top down (from the tip of my nail down to the cuticle). let me tell you, this worked sooo well! i've had such a hard time with this image (which is why i was practicing :P) and could never get it centered on my nail. so this time super-smart me decided to stamp from top to bottom, instead of side to side. this let me put the pointy part of the design at the top exactly where i wanted it. amazing! i don't know why i never thought of this before. . . .

3. i tried using a konad brand stamper instead of my normal salon express one. i always thought my salon express stamper worked just fine. . . . until i tried my brand new konad one that my mom sent me a long time ago. i didn't realize until i used the konad one how unwieldy the salon express stamper is! observe-

the salon express is much bulkier and bigger in general, while the konad one is more compact and has little grooves on the sides for easier stamping. seriously, the grooves make all the difference. i can grasp the konad one just so, then stamp in on my nail exactly straight, because my hand hasn't accidentally rotated the image (like i often do with the salon express stamper).

also interesting to note. . . . even though the konad stamper is smaller, the actual rubber stamping area is bigger than the salon express one!

oops. . . . excuse the cotton fuzz!

i've pretty much decided to only use the konad one from now on, just because it's really hard for me to get my stamping images lined up straight :P i think i'll keep the salon express one as a back-up though.

i hope these random tips have helped someone who's struggled with stamping as much as i have :P. and thanks, mom, for the awesome stamper~!