May the 4th Be with You!

Happy Star Wars Day!!!  I did these nails quickly last night for May the 4th day!

Started with a base of two coats of Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Greyfitti, topped with a coat of Penelope Luz Sorcery.

Added a coat of Nine Zero Flakie All The Things (Silver) for some more sparkle.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

MdU Star Wars 3

Stamped using images from Sugar Bubbes 004 (ring and index), SP-024 (pinky), MdU Star Wars 3 (thumb and some words on middle), CNF 002 with Fig Tree Stamps (some words on middle), and Pet'la LE Space (stars on middle) using Painted Polish Midnight Mischief with MdU 11 for shadowing on middle finger.  Finished with a final coat of KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Enjoy the last few hours of Star Wars Day and thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen, Geek Week; Day 4

Another mani for the gaming geeks! 

Base polishes, starting at thumb, are Zoya Dea, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, OPI Red My Fortune Cookie; OPI Bride's Bouquet and Essie Shelter Island; two coats each; topped with SV.

Stamped using various plates; DRK-C (thumb), MJ VII (ring); Sugar Bubbles 007 (pinky) as well as added two stamping decals made with Sugar Bubbles 004 (brief tutorial on this to follow).  Stamping polishes used were all Konad special polishes; black, white, red, green and yellow.

Added Mario and Luigi to thumb from XXL Big SdP 2 using black Konad; as well as the moustache from Winstonia W109.

For some filler, added a few clouds on the middle finger using Sugar Bubbles 007 as well as a few random dots using yellow and red Konad special polish.

Topped with SV.

For those who may be wanting to do some stamping decals, I've taken a few pix as I went along for the one decal I used here.

Stamp your image onto your stamper.

With a fine tipped brush, fill in the leaves with your polish.  I've used Konad special polishes, here but you can use regular polishes too.  (Please excuse my messy workstation in the background!)

Do more filling in of the image; this time I added white in the areas used a dotting tool for the dots.

Further fill in the main part; I used a brush and filled in the red.

Apply coat of SV around the image.  I've found one coat is good; and try not to go too far past the stamped image.  If you do apply too much topcoat and then there is too much of a free edge when you place it on your nail, it's easy to remove with remover with a light hand.

Once the SV is dry, it's ready to apply.  I took it off with a toothpick and applied on my nail after my nail had been coated with a coat of clear, and after the base was good and dry.  Its important that the the clear coat be applied as otherwise, it won't stick that well plus it helps it to lay down that flat. I also use my fingers and push the decal down fairly hard onto the nail as it has a tendency to want to curl up (which is why it's important to make sure base is good and dry).  When the image is placed on the nail and as smooth as possible, add a coat of SV to seal.  When you are placing the decal onto your nail, a little bit of decal wrinkling may happen but usually not too noticeable once the coat of SV is placed to adhere the decal.  I found that there was less decal wrinkling on the nail with one coat of SV onto the stamper versus two, which was called for in the original tutorial I was following; I found two coats made it thicker and then it wrinkled more on the nail.

Thanks again goes to Julia, the creator of Messy Mansion, who originally posted the tutorial of the stamper decal here!  There are so many possibilities now with stamped images; just a little time and preplanning...it really takes stamping to a whole new level!

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen, Geek Week; Day 3

There's been a few Star Wars mani's posted already this week in the Digit-al Dozen gallery; I had one planned too....this is what I came up with.

Started with a base of two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet, Sinful Colors Cool Gray and one coat of FingerPaints Black Expressionism; topped with SV. (Please excuse the little SV bubble on the middle finger!)

Stamped using Ch45 (thumb) and Sugar Bubbles 004 (ring, middle and index) using black Konad special polish; used MJ VIII on pinky using Nicole By OPI Give Me The First Dance.

I remember lots of space craft fighting and big explosions in the Star Wars movies; I tried to recreate some exploding ship/space debris, so added Apipila P.02 on thumb; then Sugar Bubbles 003 star french tips on the other fingers.  While the space ship on the thumb isn't true to Star Wars, it was the closest space craft type of image I had (other than a rocket).

Topped with SV.

Star Wars isn't a typical theme that I would normally do, so I'm glad that there are themes like this as part of the Digit-al Dozen, which is taking me out of my stamping comfort zone...I now wish there was a C3PO and R2D2 image...and Chewy....and the rest of the characters on image plates.....including a proper Star Wars type of space craft! 

Thanks for looking!

 

Digit-al Dozen, Geek Week; Day 1

I had a bit of a challenge over the weekend...due to lack of time to do my nails, I was trying to come up with a mani that could fit a dual purpose; one that could used in the FB Adventures in Stamping Sunday challenge of using a plate ending in 6.....AND fit the Digit-al Dozen Geek Week Challenge..... here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of one coat of FingerPaints Black Expressionism (no pix as have shown before).  I didn't put a coat of SV on top of my base as I thought one coat would dry fairly fast and while my nails were drying, I was looking through my plate stash for images to use for more Geek Week mani's....a decision that haunted me during the whole mani process for a variety of reasons. 

Once base was dry, added tips Sugar Bubbles 004 plate, with an assortment of FUN stamping polishes (Mango Shake, Cotton Candy, Bubble Blue and Avocado Green).  This is where the haunting began!  I'm not sure why, but I had inconsistent stamping results with the Sugar Bubbles plate and the images didn't stamp 100%.  So I used a brush with acetone and removed the misstamped image on the middle and index finger and restamped...but didn't line it up too well.  You can see in these pix where I removed them...I wouldn't have had so much of an issue with removing the misstamp if I had have put SV on my nails.  Also stamped the accent finger, used full size image from Apipila P.02, stamped using FUN Mango Shake.

Added images above the tips using Lilic's A06...and my stamping woes continued...when I stamped the image above the french tip on the index finger, it was a major misstamp...it couldn't be fixed so I had to remove the whole base and stamping and do over....which is why you will see the blue tip on the pix below is slightly different than the blue tip on the pix above.  You can see too the re-stamping on the tips of the index finger, the images aren't 100%.  Disappointing.

Topped with SV. 

This didn't turn out too badly all things considering the problems I had...and its not too bad when not in macro!  I'm sure that next time, I won't made the decision not to SV my base coat ...it makes such a difference for removing stamping fails! 

Thanks for looking!

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