Fruit Tingle by Ulta3 - Design 1 - Stamped Lace and Bows

All of my designs shown on my blog so far have be free handed, meaning drawn by me using a paint and brush. The reason for this is because I want my designs to be easily re-creatable by those without nail art tools. Therefore today I decided to do completely the opposite of that and use nail stamping over my previous swatches of Fruit Tingle!

These are possibly my favourite nails so far! I mean, the stamping is a little messy but the black, white and pink all just go together and make me so happy. Now, I just want to deviate slightly from the topic and tell you about stamping if you're going to give these a go.

Once upon a time an intrepid young nail artist, me, decided stamped nails were the bomb and brought some stamping plates from the Born Pretty Store. On arrival of these plates last year she immediately jumped into attempting to stamp but try as she might she just couldn't work it out. The plates were abandoned and lay dormant for half a year. The nail artist joined Instagram and saw once more the wonders of nail stamping and immediately exclaimed "I MUST HAVE STAMPED NAILS!" 

The stamping plates were exhumed from the burial site and she attempted stamping once more. However lo and behold, she still couldn't figure it out. Frustration increased and she was at the point of a nail stamping murder when she watched a very helpful youtube tutorial (if I find the link I'll edit it in). The video showed an artist using nail stamping plates for the first time and it was mentioned that one must removed the plastic cover before stamping. The nail artsist was adamant that her plates had no plastic cover, as it looked metallic and normal. However as she had tried everything else, she decided to search for an elusive plastic covering. AND OMG THE PLATE WAS COVERED IN PLASTIC! (massive face palm). Anyway, after removing the plastic, stamping was no longer very hard and she figured it out pretty quickly after that. (MASSIVE BLONDE MOMENT! HAHA)

Annnnd back on topic (sorry I had to share that story). I made a little pictorial for the stamping part of this manicure which I'll post below, then explain everything after the image.

Step 1: Paint your base colour and chose the stamp you're going to use. Here my base is at Ulta3- Fruit Tingle and the pattern is a lace one with little bows from plate m71, which I got from the Born Pretty Store (because it was 99cents!)

Step 2: Paint a strip of white across your nail the size of the lace pattern. I did this fairly roughly using a cut down craft brush and Sinful Colours-Snow Me White. WAIT FOR THIS TO DRY! I exclaim this because I didn't wait long enough the first time I tried this and kept smearing my nail when I went to stamp.

Step 3: Coat your chosen stamping design with your stamping polish. I actually just used a normal black nail polish which is also by Ulta3 and is called Black Satin.

Step 4: Scrap the excess polish off the plate. I used an expired gift card to do this as I'm scared my metal scraper will scratch the plate.

Step 5: Pick up your design from the plate by rolling your stamper over it. This stamper is also from the Born Pretty Store and is pretty good, you just have to remember the rubber bit is hard so you have to roll your nail over it to pick up the design.

Step 6: I couldn't actually take a picture of the transfer process because I didn't have enough hands but what I did was hold the stamper upwards so I could see the design. I then carefully rolled my finger across the design, by lining up the white polish. This picture in the result from that process. I repeated this for my thumb, pointer, middle finger and pinky. On my ring finger is the bow, which I'll discuss below.

Ok so this is a close up of my ring finger. How I did this was by using the tip of a pencil and Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, to do the dots (you could use a dotting tool but mine was too far away and I had a pencil lying next to me, all the laziness). I then added my top coat (Sally Hansen's Insta dry) and stuck the bow on while the topcoat was still wet. The bow also comes from the Born Pretty Store, same as the stamping plate (Mini Born Pretty Store review by accident haha). The bows are reusable and I love them but don't often think of designs in which to use them. 

Anyway, this has been a lot longer post than I was intending, so I'll leave it there and give you the final pictures of the design. (Which I LOVE! I mentioned that right?)

Look at those cute little bows in the lace! They're so cute!

Swatch