Sea Shells with Mariana

Our Beach Manicures

I was so delighted when the gorgeous Mariana Linares (who is my Stamping queen) agreed to work on a manicure with me.  You can find her awesome manicure on instagram  (she also has a blog which is beautiful, but not quite up to date due to pc trouble.

We decided to forget Autumn for this and do a beach themed summer manicure.  We used a base layer of stamping to show the sea on the sand. Then added shell decals with corals and pinks.

Base colour: Sinful Colors, 101 Snow me White
Base stamp colours:

• Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polish, 12. Cream 
• Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Sugar Apple GNP 21

Decals from left in photo below:

• Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Papaya GNP 13
• Barry M Nail Paint, NP318 Peach Melba
• Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Rose Hip GNP 20
• Rimmel 60 Seconds, 405 Rose Libertine

Stamp colour:  Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polish, 42. Holland Blue
Stamping plate: Moyou London Sailor collection - 07

Giant finger

She shells

Tools of the Trade

The decals

Base stamping

Halogen lighting

Enormous thumb

Bottle shot

Mariana and a small group of her mexican stamping friends are also responsible for setting up this month's breast cancer awareness challenge "On Wednesday We Wear Pink". You are welcome to join in this wednesday with pink polka dots. Use the following ig hashtags: ‪#‎enoctubreusamosrosa‬ ‪#‎OnWednesdaysWeWearPink‬ ‪#‎manirosaenoctubre‬

Rainbow Trout

Today is day 9 of September is Stamping Month and the theme is "Fish".  I have recently worn a fish manicure that I was soooo proud of, see Fish Fingers for that.  So, for this challenge, I really wanted to try something equally awesome.

I knew double stamping could be interesting, and that if I chose a really subtle simple pattern, I could stamp over it and blend a few colours together to add more depth.  I tried out several colour combinations before settling on this purple and teal variation.  My major criticism is that  I use sooooooo much polish when mixing colours on the image plate like this, and it feels really horribly wasteful :(

Base Stripes:
Base colour alternate fingers: Rimmel 60 Seconds, 842 Too Cool to Tango  and Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Sugar Apple GNP 21
Base stamp colour:  Konad White

The Fish:
Stamp colours mixed on plate: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Plum GNP 1 and Revlon Colorstay, 290 Midnight
Stamping plate: Moyou London Sailor Collection - 05

Under a tree

Halogen lighting

Indirect sunlight

Tools of the Trade

The stamped base stripes

Swim!

Fish Fingers

Here is another manicure that I've been excited about trying for a while.  Colourful fish on a blue shimmery background.  The outcome was not everything I'd hoped for, but it was great fun using all those fab colours and glitter always makes me smile.

The problem is that my decal technique is not improving!  I find the dotting tool quite tricky to use consistently. Sometimes the polish is too dry and it takes part of the stamp away, sometimes the blob on the end is too big and it takes ages to dry and normally I manage to miss the outlines completely! Sigh, I guess you will be seeing many more practise attempts at this.

Base colour: Rimmel 60 Seconds, 842 Too Cool to Tango
Glitter on tips:  Loose iridescent blue glitter (Ebay mixed set of 12 pots)
Stamp colour: Konad Black
Decals: Rimmel 60 Seconds, 450 Get your Shades On , Rimmel 60 Seconds, 405 Rose Libertine and Primark Nail Polish, unnamed neon orange.
Stamping plate: Moyou London Sailor Collection - 04

Direct sunshine

Fish fingers!!!!

Eeeeek! I hadn't realised the rose had a bee inside!

Tools of the Trade

Indirect sunlight

The glitter gradient base

Aquarium before clean-up!

Halogen lighting

Sunday Challenge: Choose an image you Don't Like

I almost didn't want to vote on a challenge this week, I realised all three choices would be quite tricky for me.  They all meant there was no chance of grabbing a nice and forgiving generic full nail flowery swirly pattern, I would have to leave my comfort zone!

1. A stamp you don't like
2. Only using individual images, no full nail images
3. Nelson Mandela International Day (inspired nails)

Finally "A stamp you don't like" was voted for and I realised it would be a great chance to try out an image I would never normally wear.

So I chose the bold scales from Moyou London's Sailor collection.  I really want to like this image, but it just seemed too bold and the scales too large for my liking.  I decided a really really pink girly glitter would help the image to look like delicate fish or mermaid scales.

Base colour: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, and lots of pink iridescent glitter
Stamp colour: Konad Black
Image plate: Moyou London Sailor Collection

The point of no return

The scales look chunky from every angle

My nails are about the longest I am comfortable wearing them

If I glance at my nails at arms length, I see a crossword puzzle

Even with low light, the scales are too strong looking for me

Tools of the trade

Metalic Waves

We are due some thunder, and the pressure is unbelievably high. So I put  a stormy sea on my nails, hoping to clear the air.  Fingers crossed for some good weather.

Base colour: generic ebay foils
Stamp colour: Konad White
Image plate: Moyou London Sailor Collection 07

Making Shimery Waves

It looked so pretty and delicate...then I found some cheap nail foils for sale on the internet.

Base colour: Sally Hansen diamond strength, Crystal Beading
Stamp colour:  Konad, white
Nail foils: search ebay for these, mine were generic, no name and random colours sent.
Image plate: Moyou London Suki Collection 05 and Sailor 04

Shimmery Seaside Suki

I am a newbie at stamping, but these images made me feel like a pro.  Great fun to use.


Base colour: Sally Hansen diamond strength, Crystal Beading
Stamp colour:  Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, Grape
Image plate: Moyou London Suki Collection 05 and Sailor 04

Suki Sailor

Iridescent 

Hopefully he distracts you from lack of thumb clean up!