Desert Dwellers

Hi all! Today I have a desert inspired mani using bundlemonster's BM-S168, "Desert Dwellers" from the Fuzzy and Ferocious set 2. I just love all the cute animals on the plates in this collection- they are a lot of fun to color in. For the southwest image on my green nails, I used a born pretty XL plate, BP-L009. It has a lot of fun southwest inspired designs.

Because sometimes I want to use all the images, but I don't really want to spend hours stamping, I do different images on each hand. I had a bit of a hard time getting the southwest design centered-  I guess I need more stamping practice.

For the main green color I used Essie "Going Guru", and the terra cotta color is Essie "Taj-ma-haul". I also stamped over the green with "Taj-ma-haul". I basically grabbed a bunch of random greens from my collection to color in the desert images with, along with a couple of pinks for the cactus flowers.

This was my first ever attempt at nail stamping. I had tried nail art before, but always became frustrated because I ended up adding too many layers, getting all goopy, and smudging my design because it never fully dried.

So, because of all that, I am so in love with stamping. The polish goes on in such a nice, thin layer that it dries super quickly and super thin, and the process is so much faster than trying- and failing- to paint things freehand. 

My first attempt didn't turn out perfectly, but I love it anyway.

The images are from Bundlemonster's CYO 2014 collection, plate BM-605 (Dreamcatcher). 

I used LA colors petunia for the base color, and stamped over it with Sinful Colors Easygoing. For the accent, I simply reversed the polishes, used a different background image and stamped the dreamcatcher in black (wet n wild black on black). I was pretty pleased at how well the LA Colors polish stamped, since it is such a cheap polish.