Tapestry

I feel like I haven't uploaded new designs in weeks, but it's only been five days..

Anyway, I started off knowing that I wanted to practice my nail stamping, so I picked out the design on the bottom of the m24 plate. Unfortunately, two of my nails broke on my left hand, so I did my sister's nails instead.

I painted her thumb, pointer, and pinky fingers with two coats of Sinful Color's Mesmerize which is a really dark, rich purple that can pass as a black polish in the right lighting. On the middle and ring finger, I used  two coats of Sally Hansen's Golden-I. Once the base coats dried, I went in with the nail stamp. I began with the purple nails, creating the image with the gold polish to contrast the dark purple. I did the opposite with the gold nails, using the Mesmerize on top of the gold. 

With this specific stamp, I had to make sure the design was centered on the nail (I could have placed the image anywhere; front and center happened to speak to me). On the thumb and pointer fingers I aligned it properly, but when I rolled it down, it went off to to side. My sister suggested that I aim for her knuckle which really worked; the rest were straight! 

Another thing I attempted was centering the image itself so it would reflect correctly. I didn't realize to do that on this hand, but I did on the right hand (Not shown). If you look at the images, none of the top part of the image makes it onto the nail.

I tried out a few tips that were posted on the Amazon page for the stamping kit. I used an old credit card instead of the metal scraper to ensure that the metal plate won't get damaged. It works just as well and I don't have to worry about having to replace it in the future. 

There was also a tip about filing the stamper down a bit with a nail file to help the nail polish transfer. It actually worked!! The very first try was perfect (the thumb), but after that it just wasn't working. I tried approximately five times before thinking to file it down again. The transfer immediately following the filing was superb. For the remaining nails, I ran a nail file over the stamper before each transfer. Lemme tell yah, it worked! 

There's the final product - covered with a top coat of course - compared to the plate. 

-Tamz