June Challenges - Stripes, Glitter / Tropical and another Hawaiian Shirt mani

It's another of those combined posts so I'll try to keep it brief.
2 scheduled challenges and a little extra one thrown in at the last minute.
I started with  Smitten Angstrom, the most stunning teal glitter. Full coverage, very sparkly, beautiful colour - just perfect.
I added stripes using Lealac LLC A and 2True Pro Metallica Aglaia for #clairestelle8june's challenge. This was a great combination, two quite similar colours but very different textures, fascinating to look at although the camera hasn't quite picked that up - it looks like the 2True is just floating over the Smitten.
Then I set about the hawaiian shirt mani for  #hawaiianshirtmanifriday. I added some foliage with Pueen SE01B and Hit the Bottle Absinthe Minded, and then the flowers with Pueen SE03B and Hit the Bottle Magenta at Your Own Risk.
This had been my plan for #30daysofcolourchallenge which was Glitter/Tropical but having done the hawaiian shirt mani, I thought I'd better try to add something for the 30day challenge.
One step too far I think! I tried to reverse stamp some more Pueen SE04B flowers with Virtuous Polish Naomi and filled in using the gorgeous glitter, Dark Metal Lacquer Bright Eyes but it didn't quite go to plan. It does look better in the pictures than on my nails but not a huge success. As it was so warm today the Virtuous Polish kept drying too quickly to pick up, so I didn't have  a clear outline to fill with the glitter - the end result was not as crisp and tidy as I would like, but it is glittery!

Smitten Angstrom

Lealac LLC A and 2True Pro Metallica Aglaia

Pueen SE01B and Hit the Bottle Absinthe Minded

Pueen SE03B and Hit the Bottle Magenta at Your Own Risk

Pueen SE04B Virtuous Polish Naomi and
Dark Metal Lacquer Bright Eyes

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! St David's Day mani with Pueen SE01B and TarasTalons Holo Sunshine

Well, today is St David's Day and as my husband is Welsh I thought I'd better do a St David's Day mani. After all, the internet will be filled with manis on 17th March for St Patrick's Day.
When I googled I could only find 2 St David's Day manis, I am sure there are more but here is my contribution.
In the past I have gone to some lengths to find daffodils for 1st March, so I decided that's what I'd do for this mani. I scanned all my plates to find a daffodil, and came up with just one suitable image on Pueen SE01B.
I started with a base of Attitue Masking Tape, and then painted 2 fingers and thumb of each hand with 2 coats of TaraTalons Holo Sunshine. As you know, I am not a fan of yellow, but I think now that I am experimenting more and being a bit braver, yellow is creeping out of the helmer more often!
This is quite  a soft yellow but coverage over the creamy base was good with 2 coats. I then added a dash of TarasTalons Spring which is a pale, pretty green holo.
I then stamped the daffodil image on all my nails with A England Camelot, and topcoated them.
The final step was to use the lead light technique to colour in the middle and ring fingers with TarasTalons Holo Sunshine, I coloured a small leafy area with Spring  and I did the centres of the daffs with Kleancolour Holo Orange.
It looked just a touch pale so I added some colour to the centre of the petals with an yellow gold Sharpie and that completed the look.
Despite it being yellow, I am pretty pleased with these and my husband was impressed so that's a major achievement!

St David's Day mani
with Pueen SE01B and TarasTalons Holo Sunshine

 

 

 

 

 

Stamping! Pueen SE01B over a fiery saran wrap base

Today's mani is a bit of a bright one! I had a few issues with my stamping but overall I think it has turned out OK.
I wanted to stamp a fairly abstract floral pattern over something really bright, the sorts of colours I am seeing in people's lead-lighting manis, but just using ordinary varnishes as I don't have any lead-lighting polishes.
I started by painting my nails yellow!!! with Leighton Denny Brick Road. My children know my hatred of yellow and they couldn't believe it! I hate it so much I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture for my records.
I then added a few blobs of Nails Inc Atomic, and moved them around with saran wrap. Once dry I added more blobs of a dark red (Manhattan, no idea of its name but it is actually a lovely dark red), and I smushed that around. By now I'd successfully obscured most of the yellow :) Then I added a few small blobs to Barry M White just to tone it down a bit and smushed them around too.
I top coated it and then got down to the stamping. All that took a very small amount of time, these kind of manis are really quick and actually not too messy! In theory the next stage would have been quick too but I had a bit of an issue with my stamper refusing to pick the images up crisply. I was using A England Camelot which is perfect for stamping but this time it looked greyish and a bit watery.
It would appear my stamper did not like the remover I was using to clean the plate, hopefully that won't happen again. Anyway, despite lots of failed stamps on a sheet of paper I did stamp my nails, the images are a bit pale and not as crisp as they should be but that's the perfect excuse to try this again, maybe with blue, green and purple :)
I chose one corner of the Pueen plate SE01B but dotted around using different parts for each nail- I really like that sort of stamping where good placement is not vital, particularly on a mani like this one.
Apart from the quality of the stamping this actually turned out pretty much as I had planned and I am pleased with it, I really like the contrast of the 3 brights, the white and then the black stamping.
Also secretly pleased to have found a use for yellow :)

Pueen SE01B over a fiery saran wrap base