The manicure today had a lot of self-imposed requirements to meet. I wanted it to be Spring-like, have flowers for Mother's Day and use a stamping plate ending in 5 (the theme for today's Sunday Stamping challenge in the group Adventures in Stamping). I'm quite happy to say that all the requirements were met and I can rest easy.
For the manicure I started out with a peachy gradient created using Elf polishes. Scroll down for details on polishes used. Then, for the stamping I used the flower pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-205. Spring colors... check! Flowers... check! Plate ending in 5... check! Yay!
My original intent was to stamp the flower pattern twice, using the lightest and the darkest colors from the gradient. I had hoped that it would smoothly fade into the gradient on each end. This didn't work too well and the stamping was hardly visible so I stamped a third time using Wet 'n Wild French White Creme. The white is mostly what is visible in the photos, but if you click to zoom in you can see some of the other layers. After I was done with the flowers, I added the bee using Shany plate SH05 with Wet 'n Wild Black Creme. Second plate ending in 5... do I get bonus points here?
The gradient itself was created using three out of the four polishes in the Elf set that I acquired on my recent trip to Chicago. I started out with Elf Coral Dream (lightest color) as the base and then sponged the gradient using Coral Dream, Party Peach and Smokin Hot (from base to tips). The gradient was quite bumpy when I was done (and I wanted it smooth for photos), so I used two layers of clear polish followed by a quick drying top coat. Oh for the love of a good photo... Do all these layers make my nails look fat?... :D
I'd love to know your thoughts on this mani!
Do you have anything special planned for Mother's Day? I will be enjoying some breakfast brunch with my Mom this afternoon :)
Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)
