Hi Goddesses
Ah, today .... today I had such high hopes and instead I present you a pile of shit. I apologise. This mani is not what I want it to be, but I am hoping you'll learn loads from where I went wrong!
So, for aaaaaaages I have wanted to do stamping decals and this prompt was the chance to take the plunge. As you'll see, LOTS went less than perfectly with my attempt, and the reason I am sharing it is that NO ONE does a tutorial for the first time and nails it. NO ONE. If they say they did, they're lying, or they did corrective work.
Instead, I'm banking on the fact that one of my readers will ALSO want to try this technique, and I don't want you to feel it's YOU, when you try it for the first time and it's not perfect. I want to show you that we ALL have to practice - don't get disheartened, it's an essential part of the process.
So, I have all Mentality polishes on the go here - Allure, Enlighten, Allure and Charm. 2 are mattes, and 2 are holos.
First of all, I painted a top coat on my plastic bag, and did my stamping - I chose this awesome pattern from MoYou Pro Collection 05.
Then I started colouring in my pattern using a thin dotting tool. This was my first mistake - I think a thin brush would have been better. It's ok to go over the lines too, because you're going to flip the pattern before you put it on the nail (unless you're me, and you forget - can you spot which 2 nails I forgot to flip?)
I was going for a stained glass window effect so didn't colour all my panels in. After I had the colouring I wanted, I applied another coat of top coat and let it dry. Once it's super dry, you peel it off, and cut it to shape (yeh, I'm not very good at that bit, that's why I suck with nail wraps).
I applied white polish to my nails, then top coat. Whilst the TC was wet, I applied my decal on top, and then added another coat of TC as my "glue". I prodded it all down with an orange stick and ....
Ugh. Messy. Smudgy. Back to front. Less than perfect. Not coloured in perfectly. GAH!!!
But next time will be better :)
