Breast Cancer Awareness Mani: 22nd - Ombre

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and every Wednesday, we wear pink to highlight the cause. Each week has a theme for the manicure, and today's was ombre:

I decided that the cause needed flowers, and my favourite pink gradients are usually done with white. I therefore chose a flower that exists in both colours: roses. I used probably my single most used plate stamp - the roses from Moyou Pro XL 07. With a strong, pink like Mundo de Unas 20 (Fuschia), I thought I'd go for a dark base that's a little less harsh than black - Essie's Luxedo, a midnight plum shade. All I had to do was paint the stamp with MdU 20, Konad white, and then mix where the two met with the wooden end of my nail art brush. I then scraped twice in different directions to ensure the mix of pink of white, then picked it up and voila! A stamped gradient of pink and white roses over plum :)

This isn't perfct - I think it shows that it was my first time doing a gradient stamp, but I rather like its imperfections. It has, more importantly, drawn a lot of comments including from my partner, for whom funky nails are a norm so often go unnoticed.

So, go on: why not give it a go yourself, and see how much fun you can have, and how many people you can discuss Breast Cancer Awareness month with? Just remember to use the following hashtags when posting to Instagram ( I'm boldandbeautyfool btw):

#maniroseenoctubre

#enoctubreusamosrosa

#OnWednesdaysWeWearPink

See you next week for flowers :)

The ingredients: Konad White, Essie Luxedo, Mundo de Unas 20 (Fuschia) and Moyou Pro XL 07

September Challenge, Day 24: French Manicure

A very quick post during my tea break, showing how a 'zhoozhed' up a French manicure using a stamp - my favourite rose pattern from Moyou Pro XL 07.

Moyou-London's official picture of the plate (and I used the bottom row, second image in):

So, I'm not usually a fan of weird and wonderful coloured tips on French manicures - I like them traditional or not at all. Well, at least I thought I did, but having seen some lovely stamping such as Tina's here, I do feel it's an option I need to play with more in future

So, for this mani I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street as the nude pink, and Zoya Snow White for my tips. The roses were stamped with Konad white.  Sadly, I was photographing on the fly, so it's not the best lit - apologies for that!

Before stamping (with flash):

After the addition of accent roses on the ring finger:

In dappled, evening sunlight:

While I don't think I've photographed this well and you can see the day's wear on the tips, I like it a lot... in fact, I think it's a contender for my bridal manicure (given that in my head, that's always been a French manicure, perhaps with room for a subtle twist, particularly a lace-type design on the ring finger). So, I'm still not ready for overly busy or colour twists on a French mani, but I am enjoying dipping my toe in to a brand new pool for now :)

Remember to keep up to date with Tina's challenge here, and see what us fellow participants are doing here. Thanks for reading! :)

My Name is Debs, and I Am a Stampaholic...

... and PROUD!

I have been meaning to restart blogging for so long, but have finally found something that I enjoy enough to inspire me - nail stamping! The road has been rocky at times (wrong plates, wrong stamper, wrong polishes, you name it), but once I got over the beginners bumps, I fell totally in love. I'm going to try more of a little and often approach, but here's a few photos to get this thing started :)

This was the first stamping job I have done that I felt truly happy with, so was my break-through of sorts. The only things that displeased me was the green turning my crisp white to a yellow when top coated though - d'oh! This was achieved with my Chinese marshmallow stamper from Ebay, Moyou Pro Plate XL 12, Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street and Konad White. (All manis here are top coated with Seche Vite).

Below was done with Moyou Pro XL Plates 07 and 12, and polishes Nails Inc Morning Crescent, Zoya Snow White, and Konad White (stamping polish).

During September, I'm going to take part in a challenge with Miss Tina (albeit not every day - duty calls and all that)! The details are all here: Miss Tina's September Stamping Challenge So, I'll be taking different themes and inspirations, and coming up with stamping manis accordingly. I can't wait, as I already pick up so much inspiration when out and about and looking at people's handiwork online. The mani below I did last week, and was inspired by a long and boring trip to DFS to look at sofas!

Zoya Richelle, Konad White and Moyou Pro XL 12.

So, thanks for reading, and I hope you join me over the coming weeks to see what's new :) Feel free to direct me to your blogs too - I love a bit of inspiration! Clubbing together to do Twin Manicures (where we become copy cats of one another) is always fun too.