Day 4 – Inspired by a Pattern

I am not so handy with a paint brush for nail art. Or with striping tape for that matter. So my next course of action for patterned nails – stamping!

When I first saw this design on nail blogs, it was love at first sight! I always wanted to get it but it seemed that no one was selling just a single plate with this design (BM212). After I found out that it was from Bundle Monster 2011 25piece collection I hesitated to get it. Stamping just ain’t my thing y’know.

After many months of trying to stamp and getting rather good results, I started to stalk Bundle Monster’s website and tried buying it a few times but my order got rejected more than once. Gah!

I stamped the image wiith China Glaze Passion and dotted the pattern with opposite colors. Somehow my dots weren’t as equal sized as they should be. I need more practice! I wanted to finish this manicure with a funky ala Fingers from Fingers Polish Mania but failed so bad I did not photograph it.

Cult Nails – Tulum, Stamped!

I did this mani in 2 parts. I painted the base color, Cult Nails Tulum, first and waited almost 2 hours for it to dry before stamping on it. I used a gold stamping polish I bought quite some time ago and topped it off with Essence Quick Dry Top Coat, waited a good 30 minutes and went to bed.

To my horror I woke up to this:

I am sure that Tulum was dry before I stamped on it. I suspect that it is the top coat I used! I never do learn my lesson do I! LOL!

This manicure actually is quite pretty before it was covered in sheet marks. The gold stamping matched the gold shimmer in Tulum.

I added another coat of top coat trying to salvage this mani but unfortunately the dents were too deep.

I really should chuck the essence top coat in the bin but I feel it isn’t really necessary. It did work once or twice before.

Minty Cheetah

(My first ever stamping attempt!! I found this just sitting in my drafts folder. According to my Instagram, I actually did this a good 9 weeks ago! NINE weeks! I actually thought I posted this before. OMG! I am getting old!)

Did a little stamping yesterday. I finally found the courage to dig out my nail stamping kit – scraper, stamper(?) and the *only* two stamping plates that I own. I tried stamping before this but it never turns out OK so I always avoided it. Until now.

 

I picked the cheetah print from plate M57, took a deep breath and did what I feared to do. Although this is far from perfect I think it looks pretty good.

I used Essie’s Mint Candy Apple as the base and stapped it with OPI Java Mauve-a and topped it off with baby pink polish from Baviphat. Mint Candy Apple was quite chalky in the beginning. It took me 3 careful coats to get it both smooth and opaque on my nails. But the color is really pretty and was definitely worth the effort! By the way, I think mint green and baby pink makes a cute combination!

Tiger Nails

(lets hop, skip and jump to one more recent post from my other blog because I think this mani deserves to be up when the Olympics is still on! )

*raawwrrr*

This was supposed to be a tribute to Malaysia’s Olympic Champions – Datuk Lee Chong Wei and Pandelela Rinong – but I just found out that Harimau Malaya (Malayan Tiger) is the nick name for our Malaysian football team. Ahh! I so fail when it comes to matters relating to sports!

Owh wells! It matches their jackets and it is still an awesome manicure!

This is my second attempt at stamping and it was quite a sucess if I may say! I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and stamped on with some stamping polishes I got for cheap from Nail Fiesta.

Indirect evening sun

More shots after the jump!