Happy Chinese New Year!!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!!

I haven't had a mani be a monkey's butt in a while but this is one that I almost threw my hands up in the air and said, oh well, it wasn't meant to be!  It's not exactly as I wanted but I thought I was share none the less because they can't all be good ones and my blog has always been about me keeping track of my mani's...the good, the bad and the ugly!

Started with a base of two coats of Duri Taming of the Shrew and top coated, and one coat of OPI Love. Music. Angel. Baby., no top coat.

I knew I wanted a specific horse image for Year of the Horse, but couldn't remember what plate it was on. After going through my plate stash for about 45 minutes, finally found it...of course, it was around the last 30 plates I had to check.  (It took me longer to find the plate than it did to do the removal, prep and paint my base for the stamping!).  But I eventually found it...only to have a terrible time stamping it.  Not the image plates fault, but my fault....after three attempts of stamping and two removals, I finally got it placed somewhat where I wanted on the middle finger.  Then placing the individual numbers for the year at the bottom under the horse...do not get me started.....

The image plates used were fauxnad m94 (horse on middle), Handy 57 (numbers on middle), Handy N6 (thumb) and BM-H15 (index, ring and pinky), stamped using black Konad special polish.   

I had a terrible time with the thumb image too; not the plates fault but mine.  The image is pretty large and it's a tight fit on my thumb nail and I had to removal and stamp three times before I got it right so that all the words fit.  I wasn't as light handed as I should have been so I rubbed away a little of the base on one of the removals.  Then, somewhere along the line, I nicked the ring finger, but I touched it up with polish and top coated, but that is why there is no view of the sand finish without topcoat.  I really wanted to add other images I had set aside to go along with this, but I was fed up at this point and just top coated and called it a day.  

All in all, considering the frustration I had, I suppose it didn't turn out half bad but it just wasn't what I had in mind nor the end result that I was wanting. The more I look at it too, I wish I had have jazzed it up a bit as I intended with symbol characters or dots or something because it needs something more to me.  But as I've said many times, it's just polish and a bit of remover and tomorrow is another nail day!  

Have a fantastic weekend....and the giveaway winner didn't respond within the 48 hours so I'll be sending out another email to an alternate winner soon!  

Thanks for looking!