Wintry Brocade with Colors By Llarowe & Messy Mansion

I love me some stamping. And now that I have the basics down I feel like I learn exponentially every time I sit down to stamp. I have been dying to try the brocade design on my new-ish Messy Mansion plate MM18, but it seems like every time I just failed miserably and gave up. But not this time! These might be "duh" things to some of you, but I'm serious it was an epiphany to me. 

First lets check out the nails. My base is Colors by Llarowe Coal In My Stocking, a dark gray crelly with silver glitter. I should have took a swatch photo, sorry.... it's amazing though and I got a few compliments at work! For the stamping I used Messy Mansion MM18 and Sally Hansen Ista-Dri in Silver Sweep. 

Wintry Brocade Nails
Colors By Llarowe Coal In My Stocking
Messy Mansion MM18
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep

I used two big squishy stampers for this design, this one from LeaLac and this one from Vivid Lacquer. I used the Vivid Lacquer stamper on all of my nails except my thumb, which is huge so I used the XL LeaLac one for that. After fiddling around for an hour I realized the following:

1. Forget those plastic and metal scrapers, use an old gift card.
2. Pick up the image by pushing the stamp straight down onto the image. Same for when putting the image on your nail.
3. My nails are very curved, so using the big squishy stampers were better for me. My favorite sweater nails I noticed were a little warped and not straight lines because I was previously rolling the image onto my nails with a less squishy stamper.
4. I stamped my right hand first to get into a groove. Move on to stamp my left hand... failed 7 times in a row trying to pick up the stamp. WTF. I took a five minute break and capped my stamping polish. When I tried again I picked it up on the first try. I think my stamping polish was getting a little dry, I will be capping and shaking between hands from now on.
5. Breaks are good. 
6. Practice is a must.
7. Perfection sucks the fun out of nails. My stamping is not perfect, but it is good enough to be enjoyable!

Wintry Brocade Nails
Colors By Llarowe Coal In My Stocking
Messy Mansion MM18
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep

I hope this encourages any of you who have been thinking of stamping, or of quitting haha. It is so rewarding and worth it! What is one of your favorite stamping tips or tricks?

Selected Products:
Messy Mansion
Llarowe... new website in process!

Have you loved your cuticles today?

It Starts: Valentine's Day Mani with Love, Angeline & Vivid Lacquer

It's time for Valentine's Day manis! I love enjoying pinks when the doldrums of winter start to set in--where I'm from it's been known to snow in April. My husband and I never really celebrate this holiday. First of all, we are usually working. Cats would eat our flowers, at the very least knock them over and make a mess. We used to do cards but I've banned those this year because they are just way too freakin' expensive. Would it be wrong to order in and watch Shameless? Clearly I am not the romantic one in this relationship teehee.

So here's what I wore today!

Love, Angeline Ta-da!
Butter London Trout Pout accent with image from Vivid Lacquer 009

White Base: Cult Nails Tempest
White Crelly: Love, Angeline Ta-da!
Accent Nail: Butter London Trout Pout with image from Vivid Lacquer VL 009 stamped with Konad Special White

Love, Angeline is a new-to-me indie, and I might be in love. Ta-da! is a perfect white crelly with pink and gray glitters in a variety of size, shapes, and finishes. I did a little fishing and dabbing, which I figured I would need to do so I used a base of one coat Cult Nails Tempest (a great one-coater white for undies). I topped it off with two thick coats of KBShimmer Clearly On Top for a glassy smooth finish. I have one other Love, Angeline polish to try right now but I'm sure it won't be my last!

You already know how much I love Vivid Lacquer. When stamping a fine line image like this I paint the whole image with the polish to make sure it's all filled in.

Selected Products:
Love, Angeline
Vivid Lacquer

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Colors by Llarowe: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

You know those weeks where you have the best of intentions but ultimately you are a big fat fail? Yup, that was me this week. I have to work a couple weekends a month at my job, which means I only had one day off this week. I decided to watch brainless TV and made a half-ass attempt at cleaning hahaa! I plead the fifth on what I binge-watched. So anyway here is a lovely polish I wore last week.

Colors by Llarowe Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star is a gorgeous deep blue jelly with silver glitter. It's pretty much a dead-on dupe for Essie's Starry Starry Night. Normally I would be a little upset about this duping. However, since Essie hasn't figured out by now that they could re-release Starry Starry Night as an LE for $12 a bottle and make billions of dollars because everyone wants it so badly... I really have no sympathy for any duping case one might want to make with this. Your loss, Essie. Your loss.

Colors by Llarowe
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

I used two normal coats for this polish. You can see some VNL in the photos, nothing that shows in real life though.  I don't know why it appears waxy in the lower photo especially, I couldn't figure out what was causing it. It is super-shiny and the shimmer is mind-blowing!

Colors by Llarowe
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

I actually got several compliments on Twinkle Twinkle at work. It's not uncommon for me to get a compliment or two on any given day, but this one got me several. One gal even took down the name and Llarowe's website while listening to my polish monologue about indies. It is that good.

I love Colors by Llarowe but it makes me sad how hard they are to get. You can try your luck at stalking restocks on Llarowe's website.

Have you loved you cuticles today?