stamping | Nail Smiles

After the bright green of my St. Paddy’s Day manicure, I needed my next design to be toned down to balance things out. I’ve seen a few other examples of white stamping over nude colored nails and decided that would be the perfect combination of subtle yet playful I was craving…also, I have a meeting coming up at work so super jazzy nails wouldn’t cut it (even though my bosses love my nail art for meetings with visitors I like to tone things down).

I’m really pleased with how the designed came out. The Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different polish was very translucent. The first coat was so clear that I decided to switch to Milani Creme Brulee for the second coat. On my ring finger I used Sally Hansen Nail Prisms South Sea Pearl, which is a duochrome (color shifting) topcoat, but it didn’t photograph well. The color adds a green shimmer that can shift to pink depending on the lighting, but the photo just shows glare :\. Apparently it also looks fantastic over black, so I’ll share when I attempt that.

The stamping plate is QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com, which I got on sale for only 99 cents, regular price is $2.99, but keep an eye out because they regularly have amazing sales. The plate stamped clean and all of the images are great designs, I can’t wait to try the others. As you can see in the photo my nails are currently short, the images were large enough to cover my nails, one of my thumbs I had to double stamp for full coverage. If you have long nails you will probably need to double stamp with these images which are under an inch long.

Originally, my ring finger was just going to have a single diamond pattern, but since I stamped it on my nail REALLY off-center I decided to just stamp it all around and make a pattern. As Bob Ross would say, there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents. Or as I would say, it’s a mistake, but also an opportunity to get creative!

Either way I love it! I think the stamped pattern would also look really pretty in green with little flowers added or stamped and staggered in two different colors. Have you tried stamping over nude? How’d it turn out?

Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat
1 Coat Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different
1 Coat Milani Creme Brulee
1 Coat Sally Hansen Prisms South Sea Pearl on ring finger
Stamping with Sally Hansen Xtremewear White On (note, my bottle is older and thicker, stamps better than when brand new, but new still stamps well)
1 Coat INM Out The Door Top Coat and another coat after stamping
Stamping plate QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com

From the time I was a little girl going into Hello Kitty stores to my adult life watching anime and visiting Japan I have always loved the kawaii (meaning cute in Japanese) culture and characters.

I recently got the S10 “Cute Rabbit Cat Animal Design Nail Art Stamp Template” from BornPrettyStore.com and using this adorable stamping plate was high on my priority list after a week long trip to visit my dad in Canada… it’s true, I was suffering some nail art withdrawals from being away :D.

The stamping plate has 7 different little characters on it – bunny, kitty, teddy bear, chick, panda, giraffe and the seventh is what I like to call the “mystery animal”; I think it’s a sheep? My confusion lies in the fact that what would appear to be horns and ears look more like two sets of ears – I think it’s a cute character either way, but would love to hear your guesses!

I started out with a different color on each nail, all topped with the beautiful, glittery, pearlescent Ulta Diva (I love putting this over a bunch of different colored nails because it ties them all together and makes them look a little more pastel).

Each nail is also stamped with a different color, none of them are made specifically for stamping. I used a combination of thick quick-dry polishes and thinner shimmers to see how both turned out.

The thin outline images on the plate (the chick, bunny, kitty, panda and mystery animal sheep thing) seemed to work better with the thin nail polishes. When I tried to use the insta-dri polishes on the thin outline images they didn’t transfer well; I think this is because the lines are so fine that the thick polish dried almost instantly. The Insta-Dri polish worked great on the bear (which doesn’t have thin lines) and pretty well on the giraffe where there are big spaces for polish to fill.

Overall I’m really pleased with the plate and for 99 cents and free shipping I don’t think it can be beat!

A total of 11 colors plus Seche Vite Base Cout and Poshe Top Coat

Ulta Peach Parfait
SH Insta-Dri Petal Pusher
Ulta Cream of the Crop (on clearance in some stores)
Ulta Mint Condition
Ulta Bam-Blue-Zled
Ulta Diva
SH Insta-Dri Sonic Bloom
SH Insta-Dri Snappy Sorbet
Chi Razzle Dazzle
Ulta Dance Teal Dawn
Ulta Ultra Violet Femme

On a side note I’m really happy that I picked up the Poshe Top Coat, it’s very similar to Seche Vite, but without the toulene. It didn’t smear the polish underneath, not much shrinkage and no chipping as of day 3. Much better than the Orly Top Coat I recently purchased!