Mani Re-do: Jungle Animals with Bundle Monster "Fuzzy and Ferocious"

Hello Readers!


Today's prompt at the #clairestelle8challenge over on Instagram is "re-do and old mani". This was an interesting prompt for me, because it's probably not something I would ever choose to do on my own. I decided to re-do one of my very first (actually my second) attempts at reverse stamping. Click this link if you'd like to see the original, but I'm warning you, it ain't pretty. You may need to scrub your eyes with bleach after viewing these nail fails. (I'm redoing the second mani on this link, not the first one.) I'm happy to say, however, that since that post almost a year ago I have learned so much and grown so much as a nail artist.

What I didn't know at that time, is that Sinful Colors "Call Me" is a terrible polish to try to stamp over. It eats whatever color you put on top of it. I also was in dire need of some lotion. ;)

So, I decided to re-do the mani with some of the same colors and themes, but more like how I would approach it now.

I really liked the monkey and flower images, so I decided to use those and then do some tropical foliage as a frame.

My base purple color is Sinful Colors "Lie-lac", which I applied two coats of even though it was looking pretty awesome at one coat and I probably could have left it there. I also decided to try stamping with the Sinful Colors/Kandee Johnson "Mint Chip" polish, and was pretty pleased with how it stamped.

Challenge Your Nail Art: Trees

Hello Readers!

Today's prompt for Challenge Your Nail Art is trees, and since it didn't specify what type of tree, I decided to base my mani around my favorite type of trees to see this time of year: palm trees. I love the way Christmas lights look when they are spiraled around the tall, skinny trunk of the palm trees in our area. Originally I added some tiny lights to my palm tree, but I don't think it's really visible in the final result.

Orignially, I made a decal stamped with a black outline. I felt like it was a little lost against the dark blue (Revlon Gel Envy "High Stakes"), so I stamped over it with a white outline. Unfortunately you can see that I didn't line it up perfectly, but... oh well.

For this mani I used a Bundle Monster plates from the "Hangloose" collection for the palm tree and fronds:

My triangles come from this MoYou London plate from the "Hipster" collection, which has a ton of fun triangle designs:

I love this plate a lot.  Lastly, I used my trusty MoYou London Holy Shapes plate to create the parallel lines above my palm tree:

This plate is a workhorse. It comes in handy so often!