Stamping! Messy Mansion 20 again with Mentality Green Opaque

Today's stamping was not a huge success. When I used Messy Mansion 20 a few days back I didn't really pick the image up as well as I thought I should so, having asked for advice, I was determined to try again. I decided to stamp over yesterday's mani, with Mentality Green Opaque and see if I had more success with a thicker polish.
I added some more ATC This One's For My Peeps to the mani, just a little dabble with some saran wrap so the base was pinker. I think this was quite successful, I do like the effects of saran wrap manis, but with hindsight I would have been better off stamping directly over the untouched mani.
The image picked up very well, but the contrast over the pinky blue marbled base wasn't great so the stamping couldn't really be seen clearly. The colors look great together but it did look a bit random - it made me think of Avatar. I think there must be some fantastical creature out there with this mottled green, pink and blue skin!!
The contrast would have been better over the darker base, so Messy Mansion 20 will have to stay out and be tried again. I think next time I won't try to be too clever, just a simple plain base and one of the Mentality Opaque polishes. I just have so many ideas I want to try but I would do well to remember "less is more" !!
Anyway, a quick pic of the saran wrap base and a few of the colourful end result :)

saran wrap base

Messy Mansion 20 and Mentality Green Opaque

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Born Pretty 02 with ATC Moon Dance

Today I have been stamping again. It didn't work out exactly as I'd planned but I am still quite happy with it. Although I've experimented before, I wanted to try stamping with 2 colours so I chose Above the Curve This One's for My Peeps and Caty Perry-winkle, a pink holo and a blue one, both quite pale colours and quite opaque so I thought they'd work well over Above the Curve Moon Dance that I was wearing from last night. I decided to try a very pretty lacy pattern on one of my Born Pretty Plates, BP02. These plates are really good value and despite the long wait for them to arrive I am really pleased I got them. 

The plan was to do half the image in pink and half in blue, and allow any merging of the colors to happen but although the polishes are opaque enough to stamp with, the colour has not really come through so the whole nail looks the same. Not the end of the world, the image stamped well and the design is pretty, so although I could see my plan had failed I kept going just in case the top coat helped the colours out. It didn't, but the stamps I did on paper worked so I think I was just a bit too optimistic stamping over such a dark colour. Note to self - things to try next - pale colours over white, not nearly black and stronger colours over a dark base.

The piece of paper where I wipe the scraper between scrapings looks really pretty with the pink and blue wipings :)

I could pretend that I'd just used one colour and that it all worked out perfectly but you never know - this might be a useful note to anyone else thinking about trying this. I still consider myself to be very new to stamping, still have heaps to learn and my blog is about what I did and why, so you get it all -successes and failures.

I don't consider this a failure, it is a lesson learned and luckily I still have a very pretty pattern stamped over last nights stunning glitter, the glitters still peeping out between the stamped image and I really like the end result!

As usual where I really like a mani, heaps of pictures. There was no sunshine today but I have a mix of daylight, LED and flash pics.

BP02 stapmed over Above the Curve Moon Dance

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

Stamping and Saran wrap! Messy Mansion 20 and some pretty pastel flowers

Earlier in the week I was wearing Above the Curve Cold Rain, but I was bursting to try Messy Mansion 20, which has a sort of reverse image on it, where you are effectively stamping a background, and leaving the flowers as the base colour. I also had an idea I wanted to try out for a more colourful base which I thought would look good under black stamping.
I have done a few saran wrap manis and love the finished marbley look you get with very little effort, so I wanted to try a sort of saran wrap gradient thing! I chose 2 colours that went well with Cold Rain. Staying with the same brand of polish I chose This One's for My Peeps, a pinky lilac shimmery holo and Caty Perry-winkle which is a lilacy blue shimmery holo. Both these polishes have great opacity so I was pretty certain they'd work for a saran wrap mani.
I used the pinky one to do the lower half of my nails and the blue one for the tips and allowed the colours just to meet in the middle. I think the combination of colours look lovely together and had I not been so keen to stamp, I would probably have worn the mani just like that for a day.
I took a couple of pics and then started stamping. I used A England Camelot to stamp with and I did have a bit of a problem picking up the whole image so the stamping is not perfect. I do seem to struggle a bit with images where you have to pick up a lot of polish and I am thinking I should try this plate with one of my Mentality polishes and see if it is a bit more successful.
To the naked eye they look fine and I am really pleased with the finished look but blown up on the laptop you can see all the bits that aren't black when they should be.
I really like the black stamping with the pastel coloured flowers showing through - imperfections apart, they turned out exactly as I'd hoped and I absolutely love them!!

Saran wrap with Above the Curve Cold Rain,
This One's for My Peeps and Caty Perry-winkle

stamping with Messy Mansion 20