July Challenges - Holo / Leadlighting

For those who read my blog regularly, sorry about the flurry of blog activity! It has been a busy week and now I am catching up!
The challenge yesterday was Holo / Leadlighting for #30daysofcolourchallenge.
I started with SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice Cubes, the most gorgeous pale blue lilac holo, which I have worn before but I think this picture is better :)
I stamped with Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04 and China Glaze Liquid Leather and that looked so good I took a couple of pictures. It almost seemed a shame to hide the holo!
Then I leadlighted (is that a verb?) with Kandy.Colors Hivis Wat, Retro, Carnival and Grape Much?
The Kandy Colors are great for lead lighting, just the right level of colour - they are perfect! and I am really happy with the way this turned out.

SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice Cubes

Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04
and China Glaze Liquid Leather

Leadlighting with Kandy Colors jellies

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04, Mentality Hope and Nella Milano Evergreen

Well, today's mani started out as a quick swatching session. I received 2 new polishes at the beginning of the week and decided I would swatch them today before my next mani.
So I did my usual swatch of painting one finger with each of the new polishes. They looked good, so I wondered how well they'd stamp. I had my Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer plate out as I was going to have a try at leadlighting today, so I decided to use that plate to give the polishes a quick test. I stamped Mentality Hope over Nella Milano Evergreen and vice versa.
Both polishes on their own were pretty opaque and I think you might get away with one coat so I wasn't surprised that they did stamp well. I was a bit surprised about how good they looked together. Hope is a lovely warm, slightly golden brown and has a matte finish. Over the glossy finish of Evergreen it looked great. Evergreen is not as opaque so the stamped Evergreen on the ring finger was not as intense as the base on the little finger but I am not sure that matters! and it is a beautiful green!
They looked so good that I top coated them too, and then I just had to do all my nails because I was so taken with the look, and I have to say, although I like Hope with the matte finish, I love it topcoated!
I always have all 10 nails the same but I was intrigued by reversing the colours so I continued to do middle and ring fingers in Hope and stamp with Evergreen, and then stamp with Hope over Evergreen on thumb, index and little finger.
I am so pleased with this mani, partly because it did just happen by accident really! I think one of the reasons it works so well is that the leadlight plate does have quite a bit of open space and quite a bit of solid stamping, if that makes sense rather than the lines and closer detail that you get on the more traditional plates, so whichever way these colors are used the result is fairly balanced. I do like the Messy Mansion plates, all the ones I've tried stamp so beautifully, clear images pretty much every time and A04 is a stunning plate. I also love the combination of the shimmery brown, and the glossy green creme - rather like a sophisticated camouflage.
Oh look at that - too much chat again so here are the photos :) I added a couple if indoor shots to try and capture the shimmer in Hope, it really is very pretty!

Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04
, Mentaility Hope and Nella Milano Evergreen

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04 over a blue, green and purple base

In early January I stamped over a fiery saran wrap base, and I mentioned in the post I'd like to try something similar in blue, green and purple, so here it is.
I started with a base of Nails Inc Baker Street, and then added Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street and Jacava Blueberry Muffin, using saran wrap to smush the colours around. I deliberately tried to choose the colours so that no one colour would be lighter or darker, and that way the stamping would stand out equally well all over. I kept the green to 2 opposite corners and the purple to the other corners of each nail as I wanted to avoid them blending.
I then stamped using A England Camelot and my new Leadlight Lacquer plate from Messy Mansion. The plate I used is A04 and the image I chose has swirly fern like shapes on it. It is a beautiful plate, excellent quality and I had no difficulty at all using it.
I love this combination of colours and the way they have worked together with the stamping. I think this has turned out even better than I expected and I am really chuffed with it!!

Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04