Category: Adventures In Stamping

Of Life and Lacquer > Adventures In Stamping

Stamping Sunday: Pulsating Pink And Purple

Posted on by Cynthia

I feel like I have been in a total funk lately so when I remembered the Sunday Stamping theme, I had absolutely no idea what to do. I took out a bunch of pink and purple polishes and it came down to Sation Shock Me Twice Pink and Sation Power To The Purple. I thought about combining the two, but changed my mind. So I went with two coats of Shock Me Twice pink over a base of China Glaze White Out.

    

I really like Shock Me Twice Pink because it’s neon but still delicate. It has a really pretty shimmer that shows up unexpectedly at certain angles.

    

I then used stamp Mash 48 and Wet N Wild’s I Can’t Stand Up Straight for the design.

    

Since I still wanted some kind of purple accent, I used these purple rhinestones on my design. I always think rhinestones will look better than they end up looking once I glue them on my nails. I should just give up on rhinestones already!

So how was your weekend? I hope you had fun. Thanks for stopping by despite my uninspired nails as of late. I hope this coming week finds me in a better frame of mind. I actually have another post coming soon and it is one spicy tamale full of glitter goodness. I hope you will enjoy it!

Stamping Sunday: Can’t Wait For Fall

Posted on by Cynthia

I am a fall person. I can’t help it. I was born during the Autumnal Equinox, and I always found something poetic about it because I’ve always felt like I was an old soul with a darker disposition. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I hate summer so much!

This Sunday, our theme is “Can’t Wait For Fall” and it couldn’t be more appropriate for me. Today I’m teasing you with Pumpkin Delight, a color from the Jessica Spicy Dream collection that is not available just yet. It should be available this month so keep an eye out for it if you love dark, spicy and rich fall colors. If you would like to see swatches of the whole collection, you can click here.

I started out with 2 coats of Pumpkin Delight:

    

Then I used stamp BM 309 for this design. I’ve got to admit that I hate birds. They freak me out so this was a big step for me to actually have birds on my nails even if they are supposed to be cute owls.

    

   

So what do you think of this look? I wasn’t feeling super inspired today. This was actually my second mani for Stamping Sunday; the first one was a complete fail that I didn’t even photograph before taking it off. Don’t you hate it when things don’t work out at all the way you pictured them in your mind?

I hope this weekend has been nice and relaxing for you. The heat has not eased up here in So Cal so I’m beyond grouchy at this point. All I have to say is that next week better be cooler or else…

Stamping Sunday: Using Two Stamps In One Manicure

Posted on by Cynthia

This is my third week participating in Stamping Sundays, and I think I finally like how my manicure turned out. First of all, I want to complain a little bit about how disgustingly hot it has been in Southern California. I spent hours in the pool yesterday which was the only way I thought I would get any relief. It doesn’t look like it’s going to get cooler any time soon so I’m going to have to just deal with it.

This is the first time I use Deborah Lippmann Dancing In The Sheets and I really like it. Orly Mysterious Curse, which I love, appears to be a very close dupe.

I finally decided to use my bottle of Max Factor Fantasy Fire, and it is all my little lacquered heart had ever hoped for. Look how gorgeous this looks with just one coat! I can’t even imagine what it will look like layered over different colors.

And lastly, I used stamp BM 310 and Wet N Wild I Can’t Stand Up Straight. We weren’t obligated to use two stamps on each nail so I decided to just alternate these two stamps. I like how this came out but it almost pained me to cover up the Fantasy Fire goodness.

What do you think of my effort today? I hope you like it as much as I do. Thanks for stopping by and keep cool!

Stamping Sunday: Silver, Gold or Bronze As An Accent

Posted on by Cynthia

I seriously feel like I need to tone it down. This is the second week that I create something for the group Adventures In Stamping and it’s a big fat fail again. I don’t know what it is about challenges, but it seems that I come up with the tackiest ideas ever. I don’t even know what I imagined anymore when I came up with this monstrosity, but at least it wasn’t as bad as last week’s look…at least in my opinion.

I started out innocently enough with China Glaze Exotic Encounters. I don’t know how many times I have said this, but the On Safari collection blew me away. I was really excited when the promo pictures came out and after I got them, they were everything I had hoped for and more. Kudos, China Glaze. “Well done. Whoo, whoo, whoo !” à la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

Beautiful color, right?

The next step was taping off my nails in a diamond pattern and I used plate MASH 46 for the design and Wet N Wild I Can’t Stand Up Straight for the stamping polish. I should have taken a picture of that before I went ahead and added the glitter but I spaced out and forgot. It actually looked interesting before I added the glitter. This Dare To Wear glitter called Disco Ball and it is full of different holo glitter shapes. I think it will look very pretty over a dark base.  Once again, I’m not thrilled with this manicure, but I like it a little better than last week’s.

And for Sunday’s food porn, here is my breakfast: a delicious egg and chorizo breakfast burrito. Yes, it was heavenly!

Hope you’re having a nice Sunday! Let me know what you think of my stampicure.

Stamping Sunday: Red & Black

Posted on by Cynthia

A few weeks ago, Jessica from Once Upon A Polish blogged about a facebook group called Adventures In Stamping where everyone votes for a particular look or color scheme and then all the ladies post their manis every Sunday. Well, I thought it sounded really fun so I joined! I really didn’t know what to do so I started looking through my melmers and realized I hadn’t used Layla Flash Black.

    

    

Call me crazy, but I actually don’t really like Flash Black on me.  It just looks so weird on me, and I’m really disappointed…not to mention that Layla holos chip in 5 seconds on me.

    

    

I then stamped over Flash Black with Konad special polish in red and plate BM 322. I then used a dotting tool to add the black dots with China Glaze Liquid Leather. One word: barf. I hate how this turned out but not all manis are going to be winners, and you have to embrace the good with the bad. I have no idea why I thought that stamping over Flash Black would be a good idea. It just looks dingy and grey…not interesting at all. I’m annoyed that I spent so much time on this mani and ended up not even liking it; hey, at least now I know Flash Black isn’t what I thought it would be.

So I think my first Stamping Sunday Challenge is a big fat fail. Hopefully I will do better next week. Voting has already started and our three choices are:

  • Fun In The Sun
  • Olympics
  • Using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color

I voted for using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color. So far this choice is in the lead, and I hope it stays that way! Check out the look Jessica created here. I am in love with it!

Thanks for stopping by!