sunday stamping: plate ending with 8

i need ideas to get some creativity flowing these days, so i decided to join the adventures in stamping facebook group. i'm very excited about contributing my manicures :). this first one was really fun, and made me use a plate i had overlooked before!

base color: nyc skin tight denim creme

white stamping: jordana white

green dots: la splash golden seahorse

blue dots: maybelline color show metallics blue blowout

purple dots: wet 'n wild color icon it's all in the cut

silver holo dots: layla mercury twilight 

image plate: mash 48

so, for this look, i first stamped the dotted image in white, then went crazy with dots. . . . good thing i just bought those new dotting tools, huh? i probably should've stopped before i added the silver holo dots. i'm thinking it looked better beforehand :S. actually, in real life, the holo looks really glinty and cool, it was just hard to photograph. and it's super cloudy today, so i couldn't get more than this one shot to show up well at all. oh well, i'm happy with it.

so, what do we think about my crazy blinged-out nails? i quite like them. in person, my nails look like they're wearing jewelry :).

peacock stamping

you guys, i have never struggled so much with a stamping image before. this manicure gave me so much grief and took so much time, i almost gave up. no matter what i did, each stamp turned out smudgy and blurry. but you know when you have a particular manicure in your head, and you have to conquer it?? no other version would do. so i redid each nail about 5 times until it looked halfway decent (but still not as clear as i wanted).

 base color: sinful mint apple

navy stamping: maybelline metallics navy narcissist

gold dots: layla coral glam

image plate: cheeky xl b (top right image)

as you can see, there are still some smudgy spots in this mani. but seriously, all of my other attempts looked like crap. i don't know if it was the image itself, or the polish i used for stamping, but something was definitely awry. oh, well. i surprisingly still ended up getting lots of compliments on this mani.

i was inspired by this color combo and this use of holo dots. i loooved using coral glam again for dots- it gave it some subtle flash of holo~!

so just out of curiosity- does anyone else have a particular stamping combo that has given them a migraine? it's not just me, is it??

glequins

for some reason, i was scared to use the loose diamond-shaped glitter that i bought last month. . . . i've never fooled around with it before, and just assumed it would be really difficult and frustrating. but actually, it wasn't that bad! just a little time-consuming, but worth it when you see the final result!

 

2 coats layla coral glam + born pretty store diamond nail art glequins #5



i've been enamored with diamond-shaped glitter ever since i saw this jaw-dropping manicure from sparkly vernis (one of my favorite nail blogs, btw!). i definitely didn't have the patience for a full-nail design, so i tried a half-moon type thing instead. i really really love this turned out! the holo glitter on top of the holo polish was such a mesmerizing effect. and the colors went really well together! this might be my favorite mani i've done yet :P. that's a big claim, huh?



the only thing i didn't absolutely love about this manicure was that some of the glitter fell off! after a couple days of wear, about 5 diamond glitters were missing lol. and that was after i put on a thick top coat! oh well, still an awesome holo and glittery mani :).



coral glam

wow wow wow. i just found a new top 10 favorite nail polish.

layering order:

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla coral glam

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla coral glam

1 coat sally hansen insta-dri clearly quick





agghhh. . . . it's too beautiful that my eyes are burning. and trust me when i say, my pictures do not do it justice. in real life, there are retina-searing rainbows dancing off my nails at all times. well, almost all times. but what i love most about coral glam is that even in dim lighting, this nude shade is just beautiful, and flattering for my pasty white skin. even without the holo rainbows, it looks like an icy beige shade, which i just love.



so really, this polish is less coral and more glam, if you ask me. in the bottle, it looked like it would be pretty dark on me, which is why i waited so long to test it out. but i was pleasantly surprised at the gorgeous nudeness of this shade. so now it has earned the #2 spot on my top 10 list :). love~!.



31DC2012 DAY 11: polka dots

sorry i haven't posted in a couple days. . . . took a weekend trip to go see my sister at college, but now i'm back with pics of my holo polka dots!

layla mercury twilight and sinful snow me white dots over 2 coats sally hansen diamond strength garter toss

i used the end of a bobby pin to make the larger dots (layla mercury twilight) and a really small dotting tool to do the white (sinful snow me white). i really like the subtle holo effect of this mani. it's a good way to conserve your holo polishes, and still enjoy the rainbows, i think. one of my piano students told me it looked like something you would wear to a baby shower lol. and she's probably right. 

stick around for stripes tomorrow!

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~!

31DC2012 DAY 9: rainbow nails

this was the easiest way i could think of to achieve rainbow nails. easy in the sense that it's just one polish, but also incredibly tedious. i'll tell you why in just a sec. BUT FIRST, pictures~!

3 coats* layla mercury twilight

direct sunlight (and my cute polkadot skirt!)

with flash

dim lighting

*3 coats with a caveat, because i had to use a sandwich technique to prolong the wear time. here's what i did-

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight 

1 coat sally hansen insta-dri clearly quick 

phew, that was a lot of work. but worth it. at the time i'm writing this, i've been wearing it for 48 hours with no tip wear! pretty good, huh? all 3 coats were absolutely necessary, though, because mercury twilight is very sheer. makes me wonder if it would be a good holo top coat. . . . hmmmm.

 

not much to look at in the bottle, but it's amazing on the nail :).