April Challenges - Shimmer and Retro

Today's challenges are Shimmer for #30daysofcolourchallenge and Retro for #clairestelle8april.
For the shimmer I have chosen Danglefoot Polish Grandma's Dress. I bought this polish recently in the Vintage Trio from UK Indie maker, Danglefoot Polish. The trio included this polish, a gorgeous mid-blue and a lovely darkish nude.
Grandma's dress is a pretty pinky nude shimmer, quite a dusky shade and very wearable.
This applied really nicely and pictures are taken with top coat. Although a bit wary of pink, I like the duskier shades like this and the shimmer is lovely.
The retro part of the mani was all planned out but the first image wouldn't stamp nicely, the first polish looked wrong, so after a couple of false starts I made it up as I went along. I had googled retro patterns and had an idea of the colour combinations I wanted - they all reminded me of 70's wallpaper!
In the end I stamped with Virtuous Polish Ruth (peach) and Naomi (teal) and Moyou London Back to the 20s 05 over the vintage dusky pink. I wasn't entirely happy with that - something was missing so I stamped Born Pretty Store BP L-003 with Essence Stampy 001. I liked that a lot more- the white seemed to bring it all together.

Danglefoot Polish Grandma's Dress
#30daysofcolourchallenge

 

 

Retro - Moyou London Back to the 20s 05
and Born Pretty Store BP L-003,
Virtuous polish Ruth and Naomi, Essence Stampy 001
#clairestelle8april

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Art Deco nails for Moyou London's Bookworm contest

Moyou London is hosting a Bookworm contest and the idea is to do a mani based on one of the 9 books they listed. I've seen entries to their competitions before and they look so elaborate that I didn't really think about it when I saw the Instagram post - save  but then I spotted the title "The Great Gatsby" and having seen posters for the film, that black and gold image came straight into my mind. When the postman brought my Moyou London Time Traveller plate this morning I knew I had to give this contest a try. I had spotted the Back to the 20's plate on one of the sales pages at the weekend, so I think it was fate and I do love Art Deco!!
I chose 2 images, but with one being more solid than the other so I decided to switch things around so that the overall look would be more consistent. I painted 3 nails of each hand with Avon Metallic Effects Gold Leaf, and the thumb and ring finger with Nails Inc Lily (all my blacks are running out but Lily is nearly black).
Then I stamped using the very last dregs of my A England Camelot over the gold, and used the Avon to stamp over Lily. If you look I doubt you'd be aware that 3 fingers are black on gold and 2 are gold on black, unless you know the stamping plate really well.
As if running out of blacks wasn't bad enough, all my top coats seem to have got to that gloopy stage where they need to be binned and as a result there were a few smudged stampings. I took some pictures but found the reflections were masking the detail, so I top coated again with the OPI matte topcoat. This is not as matte as some top coats but matte enough for me to actually get a couple of reasonable pictures. Although I had a few issues with these I am quite pleased with the results and I have taken the plunge and entered the competition.

Moyou London Back to the 20s 05
(The  Great Gatsby)