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Stamping Success!!

I have an exciting bit of news to share with you all!  I was finally successful at my attempts at stamping.  I’ve been practicing so that I can show you some of the fun looks that you can achieve with a little perseverance!

Nail stamps are a fun way to add interest and life to a manicure.  With stamping there is a learning curve, particularly with full pattern stamps but I was doggedly attempting to complete a manicure that I was happy with.  On Sunday I was finally successful!  Eureka!

I will say that you can get started with stamping relatively inexpensively, you can purchase plates and stamping accessories in many places, such as Amazon, the Born Pretty Store, and others.   Also, I discovered that some polishes are just better for stamping than others, and this was a huge part of my learning process.  I believe at least half of the success I had with the manicure I’m going to show is because I used a polish that was suited to stamping!

Let’s get to some pretty pictures!  I used a Bundle Monster plate for this look.  I started with a simple gold base and on my pointer, middle, and pinkie fingers I used the pattern stamp and on my ring finger and thumb I used a glitter topper to add some interest (and also because the pattern didn’t cover my whole thumb!)

photo 1

 

Pictures show two coats of Bondi – Fool’s and stamped with Essie – Midnight Cami.  The glitter topper is Pahlish – Dust Witch, which I recently reviewed here.

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As usual I topped the whole thing off with Glisten & Glow HK Girl fast drying top coat.  Normally I use Glitter Food whenever I have a glitter topper but with Dust Witch I was able to just have a nice coat of HK Girl to smooth it over, add shine, and protect my hard-won nail art!

photo 2

 

I’m really very proud of this one and I foresee lots of stamping in my future!!!  I can’t wait to try other combinations and patterns!  Share your stamping stories with me here or on facebook!  I would love to hear about your experiences, and please share your tips I’m still learning!!

 

Halloween Nail Art

I promised you nail art did I not?  I’m fairly certain that I did!  I was inspired by a manicure by CutePolish on YouTube.  You can view her videos here.  My handpainting skills are not all that I would love them to be (I’m still practicing!!!) so I knew that if I was going to recreate the cute mummy in her Halloween mani I was going to be using tape!

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For this mani I used Bondi – The Limelight, Julep – Ingrid, and Barielle – Purple Hearts.  All of these polishes were great to work with, I love both Bondi and Julep’s cream formulas!  Purple Hearts by Barielle went on like a dream with great glitter spread in one coat and was also not very rough to the touch and did not require anything but a generous coat of HK Girl to smooth it all out!  Not to mention purple and silver and black glitter topper played right into my Halloween theme!

On the accent nail I did a coat of Illamasqua scorch and then using striping tape I taped off the design and painted over it with Mentality Rascal.  When I pulled the tape off I added the eyes and then covered the whole thing with HK Girl Top Coat!

I hope you enjoyed this Halloween nail art – I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!  Share your spooky halloween manis with me!  Come visit me on Facebook!

Click here to buy Bondi

Click here to buy Julep

Click here to buy Mentality Polish

Click here  to buy Illamasqua

This entry was posted on October 26, 2013, in Nail Art.